Hi there. Welcome to an episode of board game biology. My name is Christos and in that episode We're gonna find out about the biology
of this amazing game called: evolution climate. I'm so so happy and thrilled about this game
guys. It combines three things that I absolutely
adore: board games, water colours and evolutionary biology. This is PURE beauty. If Charles Darwin were alive, he would be so so happy and proud of this game guys After all, it was designed by a
biologist and being a biologist myself I kid you not, you are gonna love it. It's a wonderful idea and it's actually quite
precise. So if you like animals, animal documentaries
and watercolors like me this is THE game you've you've been looking for. I was so happy when I found out about this
one and i can not wait to share this experience with you guys. Under the laws of
evolution. There is only one thing that matters. It doesn't matter if your species are the strongest
ones nor the most intelligent ones. This one thing that really matters is adaptability. So will your species survive these ever changing
ecosystems or will they go extinct. We will have to adapt our species in an ever changing
ecosystem, a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. Food can be rare, predators lurk and
the climate can swing between hot and icy cold. Overall, we will gather victory points from
species, card traits and any food collected during the game. For now keep these: 1 surviving species gives
us x points for its X population. Each trait card of each species 1 point and
any 1 food collected also 1 point. The player with the most points, WINS! For the set up connect the watering hole puzzle pieces to form the board. This is where the herbivore animals only
will gather to eat plants. You will see that the carnivorous animals
will never gather here to be fed. Based on the number of players turn the corresponding
side up. Shuffle both the hot & cold weather cards separately
and form a deck on each edge of the board like so. I love how these two deck of cards somehow
camouflage and blend in the board similar to the nature of water colours. Now draw one cold & one hot climate card
and place them on the corresponding field on the board. Give each player a little purse
where they will gather their food points and one species board with a level 1 body size
and level 1 population. Shuffle all cards and form a deck next to the board, then deal
to each player 4 cards plus one card for each species a player controls. Therefore, in the beginning everyone starts
with 5 cards. Keep these cards as well as any cards during
the game secret from the rest players. In addition give the first player the wooden
dinosaur. This dinosaur will always remind you who is
the first player in each turn. Keep this kind of turn cards visible so all
players can have an overview of the phases of the game. This will be our "cheat sheet" to remind us when
we're doing what and how. The available food in the box is the food bank. And now you're
ready to start. I really like this game because it is clear and very self-explanatory. Everything you need to do in return is described
clearly here. Each round consists of five phases: first deal
cards, second select food, third play cards, 4 modify environments and 5 feeding We will play over and over through these five
phases. Every time you will have to follow the same
exact order. So first deal always 4 cards plus 1 for each
species. In this example we have done this from our
set up stage.Then we select food each player gets one card of their choice from their hand
and places it face down on the watering hole. Notice that each card has a name and
a description. Also those cards have a sun or a snowflake
and a number on the bottom right corner. These are the details that play a role here
on this exact phase. If you place for example a card with a number
5. This means that you will try to add 5 plants
on the watering hole or 0 or you will try to decrease it by minus 2 for example. A snowflake
or sun symbol influences how the climate will change. If the majority will be sun symbols
the climate marker will shift one place towards the warmer
climate and the other way around, if there were more snowflakes, we will see this in a
while. For now keep this: more sun symbols played
we go towards warmer climate, more snowflakes towards colder climate. Now we follow with the third phase where we
play cards: starting with the first player she can now discard cards from her hands to do
the following things: discard a card to bring a new species board, body size and population level 1. You can discard one card from your hand to
increase one of your species body size or population by 1 like so. Let's make
some things clear: You can never go higher than any body size limit or population on the species board, so I can never like surpass this here. Also, there is no limit on how many species
you can have but when you add a species in your collection keep in mind that you have
to place them either left or right from your collection you cannot put them in between. You can play a card face down as a trade on
a species. Here the details you are interested will
be the trade and the description itself. The Snowflake or sun symbol and the number
are useless when you adapt your species. And last but not least, at the end of your
turn only you could discard as many cards as you want to replace them and draw new ones. If you're a lot of people you could do those play cards phase altogether. That way you don't have to wait for everyone
to finish their turn and the game will be faster. I actually play it like this because I like
a faster game-play. Notice though that this may give a chance
for a selected number of players, ughh to cheat... So try to be fair but also be aware. Those evolution trait cards are also color coded, so you have
gray for defensive traits, green for eating traits, red for carnivore traits, blue for climate traits and yellow for any other traits. Now after everyone is done and ready we reveal all of the facedown traits. Each species can
have maximum 4 traits. If you have 4 though, you can add another one
but you must discard one. Also, you can never have the same card trait
in one species and you will see that some cards cannot work together but I will show
you some examples in a while. Now we go to the 4th phase: modify the environment.
First, resolve any cards which trigger before food cards. How do we know which cards are those? Look here! long neck and fertile for example
have this symbol on the top left corner. This means that they belong in this card group
and they are activated and resolved before the food cards. Only then you can reveal the food cards played in
the watering hole and now we first have to decide where the climate marker will move,
if at all, due to the majority of snowflakes or Sun symbols. Here, it will be moved towards a warmer climate because there were more suns played. If the climate marker ends in a region
with an event card we must resolve that event card right now. Otherwise, we incur population loss due
to climate. Let's say the climate marker reached the tropical area. Notice here there is one sun and 5 to 6
numbers. This means that all species body size 5 to
6 must suffer 1 population loss because there is 1 sun. Now we must add or remove plant food to/from the watering hole based both on the food cards and the climate track For example, the climate marker reached the tropical region where there is a 12 for plant food. So we will add to that 12 plus 0 plus
3 plus 7 and minus 1 equals 21. So we will add 21 plants from the food bank to the watering hole. Sometimes you may have to remove food or not add any, as you see there are also minus numbers. Remember that if there was an event card you may have to ignore this step because you play the event card instead and then you discard it and draw a new one from the corresponding pile. On the top of these cards There's always written where you have to place
them if you draw them. Look here for example, if there is a meteorite you don't add food to the watering hole and for the rest of the game. Super crazy card, super interesting game!!! Great.... And now we are ready to feed our species. During
the feeding phase we play one by one. Starting with the first
player she must feed one of her hungry species. You can choose which species you want to feed first. If your species are hungry you must try to
feed them. Otherwise, they will suffer the consequenceeeeees!!!! When are they hungry? Whenever you have a free space next to its
population like here. This species has two populations being hungry. So if you decide to feed a herbivore you take one plant food from the watering hole plus any bonuses you may have from evolutionary traits. If your species is a carnivore though and it is hungry, You must attack one other species following some rules. First of all, all species start generally, anyways
by default by being herbivores. If you want to turn a species into a carnivore
you have to add one carnivore card to that species as a trait in the "play card"
phase. Rule of thumb when attacking: BODY SIZE You can only attack smaller species than your
carnivore like here. I could attack this one. On top of that, You must always have the counteracting traits
for example there are defensive traits that sometimes add body size or add mechanics
that you must overcome to attack. In that example this species is protected
by "warning call" from its neighbour. So my Carnivore can not attack it, but if I had "ambush" on my carnivore, this card allows me to ignore "warning call" specifically and attack this species. If you cannot attack any species from your
opponents I'm sad to tell you you must attack one of your own species. You can never choose, most of the times to stay hungry. Carnivores
always take meat equal to the body size of the attacked species that they're hunting. If you get extra than you can collect. You just do not add them to your species. Carnivores also may have herbivore traits
from previous turns but remember they can never get plant tokens. On the other hand, herbivores could collect
meat food if they have special traits like "scavenger" or through "cooperation" that you will
discover throughout the game. You will repeat this feeding phase multiple times. If you are hungry you must eat. So each player takes turns one by one and
every time you must feed one population from one of your species, which ever you want
and can. The feeding phase ends when all species are unable to eat or when those species that
have a choice because of some traits for example like "fat tissue" choose not to eat or if there
is no more food left. A species can generally not eat more than its population. Few exceptions like "fat tissue" card allows you
to do so. When feeding phase is done any hungry populations are lost. Like here those 2 populations were left
hungry, so be gone. If one species loses its last population it
goes extinct and goes back in the box then you close the gap between any species remaining like so. If a species goes extinct and you had
food on its board you still collect that food in your purse. Also, let's say that this species had
3 traits: You will discard them, along with the species board and then draw immediately
3 new ones for your hands. You always draw as many traits as you discarded. Okay so feeding phase is over and this means
that now you collect all food from the species boards to your purse and you pass on the dinosaur first player indicator to the next player. Then you start again with the five phases. The game ends when the last card from the
evolution trait card pile is drawn. If this happens and there are no more cards
just draw the necessary amount of cards from the discarded pile and this will be the last
round of all complete five phases of the game. Then you count your overall points: each surviving
species is worth equal to its population. One point for each trait on the species and
one for each food collected in your purse. In case of a tie: The player with the most trait card points
wins. And if still there is a tie. The player with the most population
points wins. If there is still a tie, the player who is a biologist wins! If you have no biologists in your groups,
too bad find one and play again. You will see that the rule book has some kind of a reference section for the trait cards but also for the climate event cards where you can see more
details if you have further questions and further questions. I think it's very normal. The first time you play you will
feel a bit lost because you don't, you're not aware of the cards like what cards are
there. What kind of combinations. Nice combos you can do but it's really fun
to discover this while playing and if you have more questions you will see that the
rulebook is actually very very well designed it makes it easy but without losing the proper
information you will see that there is a lot of additional information you may need. And everything is really really nice and well
written so go ahead and try. There are also some cool variations and you
can adjust those rules. For example you can avoid the climate event cards,
if this is your first time that you play or if you have a new player in your company you
can just play without those cards. I actually really like them because apart
from the fact they have a really cool design. They also add the parameter where you can interact
more with each other. It's part of your strategy based basically
on how you want to manipulate and influence the weather. And this is a very nice elaborating strategy
that will influence your game and I think that's actually a really cool thing but if
you're new maybe you can just avoid those cards and have a smooth easier first round.
You can of course play the quick play version which is what I told you that you can do the
"play cards" altogether so you don't have to wait each other, if you are less than five
to six players you can remove cards for example if you are four players you would move 30
cards from the pile or if you play with two players you can remove half of the cards. And that way the game is faster. You can see here you can adjust the body size
population boards basically upside down It's exactly the same thing. But if you have a smaller table you may you
may need a little bit more space. You can adjust this. I really like those things because the designers
have, you can see they have put a lot of effort and a lot of thought and ideas on how to make
the game easier smoother. And that is it guys. Now you also know how to play. The rules are
not complicated. Nor much You just have to give it a bit of a try. Play it a couple of times to get a rhythm,
find the different combinations of cards you could do. What kind of cards exist. It's really not so many rules and it's a very
wonderful design. I really adore this game. And if you like this tutorial give me a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe. Leave your comments below and I would really like to hear your opinion about this amazing beautiful game. Thanks a lot for watching. See you next time. Ciao.
