Due to the nature of the game, you can play Ecologies on your own. You’re battling against the cards and trying to build your working ecosystem, so if you’re looking for a fun single-player game, give Ecologies a try. The aim of Ecologies is to build a healthy, thriving ecosystem. When you are playing against other players, you’ll all be aiming to be the first to get 12 victory points. Let’s see how you do this by looking at the rules you need to know. The Set-Up What’s the difference between purchasing a new card with unwanted cards from your hand versus cards you already played on the table?

If you’d like to maintain the same game length and feel, we recommend choosing 10 factor cards and 7 different biomes. The first card a player must play is a Biome Card. This card will set the base for what types of cards may feed into the Ecology. Only one Biome Card is needed per Ecology. Each Biome Card is dictated by its own color and abbreviation. Biomes give healthy ecology bonuses when five specific roles have been filled within the food web. Ecologies is fun to play again and again as you learn from your mistakes and successes. It is fun to try out new strategies and play with different levels of competitiveness. 3 Reasons Ecologies is a Favorite

They fit into the same category as organism cards but are easy to tell apart. These cards list what creatures can be used as a food source, so they are usually quite versatile. Finally, we need to talk about factor cards. The game ends when a player reaches 12 points or when there are no more cards to draw from. The first player to win 12 points wins the game! END OF GAME Strategic Thinking It takes strategy and thought to not only smartly build your own ecology but to think ahead to unbalance your opponent or keep yourself from taking damage

Many bonuses are used “every other turn.” These bonuses can be used the first turn they are activated, or players can wait to start using the ability in a future round. However, once the ability has been used the pattern is set and can not be altered, even if the food web temporarily becomes unhealthy and loses the bonus (no “resetting” the pattern). The points system is based on ecological trophic levels. The producers (plants) are worth less and as you make your way up the pyramid organisms are worth more, as it takes a lot of energy to sustain them. In real life only roughly 10% of the energy makes it from one level to the next, meaning you have to have acres of land and hundreds of animals just to sustain one apex predator.Players create miniature worlds, and they need to ensure they stay strong and healthy. But it’s easy for things to go wrong and disturb your ecosystem, meaning you’ll have to act fast to ensure it doesn’t crumble. Designed by a biology teacher, the game includes 77 unique organisms, 7 biomes, and beautiful vintage Victorian art. (108 cards total) It’s all about building healthy food webs in different biomes. If you create a healthy ecology you get the perks and powers of that biome. Each organism card lists what it eats and what it’s eaten by. You arrange them with plants on the bottom, predators on top. There is a trade mechanic similar to catan where you trade with others based on what you need and what they need. It is a race to get 12 victory points and different organisms give different points. There are biotic/abiotic factor cards that can affect opponents and different strategies such as focusing on one biome, going for perks and bonuses, or disrupting other ecologies. After the previous step, the player can put down up to two cards from their hand to help build their ecosystem.

Players may move their organism cards around their food web during their turn. Producers can never be moved, but cards that have numerous roles may be shifted. This must be done carefully, as a whole food web can collapse if something drastic changes. If a card is without a food source, it must be discarded.The first player of the game is chosen by the group, there is no specific rule for this. The player will then take their turn in four distinct steps. The same pattern must be completed with each play for each player. When you open Ecologies, you’ll see plenty of different cards. But don’t worry; understanding how the game works is simpler than you might think. The cards are separated into three categories, which we’ve outlined below. The game uses the terms “eats” and “eaten by” as simplified stand ins for “receives energy from” and “provides energy to.” Food webs and trophic levels are all about the way energy moves through ecologies. Producers make up the foundation of these webs by converting the energy of the sun into sugars. There is no sunlight card and biomes are assumed to have access to the sun’s energy. “Decaying biomass” just means it eats any dead tissues from the other organisms in the food web. This means the organism is a scavenger/decomposer/detritivore (SD) and should be placed on the second row above primary producers when you want that card to act in the (SD) role. This is because in terms of trophic levels, detritus (decaying biomass) is seen as level one, the same as plants, so things that eat the decaying biomass are level two, the same as primary consumers. There is no specific card for this, as long as there are any other cards in a biome, cards with (SD) are able to sit in the primary consumer level and “feed” off that decaying biomass.