Overview

Eight-Minute Empire is a quick area-control and set-collection game where players build empires by purchasing cards that grant both actions and goods. Each card provides an immediate action (deploying armies, moving, building cities, or destroying enemy armies) plus a good for end-game scoring. The player with the most victory points from controlling regions, continents, and collecting goods wins.

Components

• 1 double-sided game board
• 42 cards (some marked with “5” for 5-player games only)
• 5 sets of player pieces (each set: 14 wooden cubes/armies and 3 wooden discs/cities)
• 44 coin tokens
• 10 goods tokens (for variant play)
• Rulebook

Setup

1. Place the board on the table.
2. If playing with 2, 3, or 4 players, remove the five cards marked with “5” in the top-right corner. Shuffle remaining cards into a face-down deck. Draw 6 cards and place them face up in a row along the top of the board.
3. Each player takes one color set of 14 armies (cubes) and 3 cities (discs). Each player places 3 armies on the starting region.
4. 2-player special rule: Players take turns placing one army at a time of a third, non-player color in any region until 10 neutral armies have been placed.
5. Place coins in a supply pile. Each player takes coins based on player count:

Players	Coins Each
2	14
3	11
4	9
5	8

Turn Structure

First-Player Bid (Once Per Game)

Each player secretly selects coins in a closed fist. All reveal simultaneously. The highest bidder pays their bid to the supply and chooses who goes first. Other players keep their coins. Ties go to the youngest player. If all bids are zero, the youngest player goes first.

Card Selection (Repeated Each Turn)

Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player on their turn:

1. Selects one of the 6 face-up cards.
2. Pays the coin cost based on card position (left to right): 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3.
3. Places the card face up in front of them.
4. Immediately performs the action shown on the card (or ignores it).
5. Remaining cards slide left to fill the gap; a new card is drawn to the rightmost position.

Actions

Each card shows one action (performed immediately upon purchase):

Action	Effect
Place Armies	Place the indicated number of armies on the starting region or any region where you have a city. Armies may be split across valid regions.
Move Armies (land)	Move armies the indicated number of total movements across adjacent land regions. Movement may be split among multiple armies (e.g., 3 movement = 1 army moved 3 times, or 3 armies moved 1 each). Cannot cross ocean dotted lines.
Move Armies (land/sea)	Same as Move Armies, but may also cross dotted ocean lines between regions.
Build City	Place one of your city discs in any region where you have at least one army. Multiple cities (from any players) can exist in a region.
Destroy Army	Remove one army belonging to any player from any region on the board.
And/Or Actions	Cards with two actions joined by “or” let you choose one; cards with “and” let you perform both.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

The game ends when each player has purchased a set number of cards:

Players	Cards Each
2	13
3	10
4	8
5	7

Players score victory points from three sources:

1. Regions (1 VP each): You control a region if you have more armies there than any other single player. Cities count as armies for control. Ties mean no one controls the region.
2. Continents (1 VP each): You control a continent if you control more regions in it than any other single player. Ties mean no one controls the continent.
3. Goods (variable VP): Each card collected provides one good. “Wild” goods can be assigned to any good type. VP values depend on how many of each good you have, as listed on the card (e.g., Crystals: 1/2/3/5 for 1/2/3/4 cards).

Tiebreakers (in order): Most coins remaining, most armies on the board, most controlled regions.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Cities count as armies for determining region control but are not removed by the “Destroy Army” action.
• A player may take a card and choose to ignore its action entirely.
• When the card row has a gap after a purchase, slide all cards left before drawing a replacement to the rightmost position.
• The 2-player neutral army setup prevents easy domination of empty regions.
• Wild goods cards are assigned after the final card is purchased, before scoring.

Player Reference

Coin costs by card position (left to right): 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3

Cards per player by player count:

2P	3P	4P	5P
13	10	8	7

Starting coins per player:

2P	3P	4P	5P
14	11	9	8

Scoring checklist:

• 1 VP per controlled region
• 1 VP per controlled continent
• Goods VP per card set (check individual card values)