Nucleum · Board game rules
How do players use their playerboards?
Quick answer
Player boards hold your income tracks, Urban Building/Mine/Turbine supply, Contract spaces, and the top row where you place Action tiles until you Recharge.
Details
Each player board is set up with three Income markers (Thaler, Workers, VP) on their starting positions, 12 Urban Building tiles arranged by level, 4 Turbine tokens, and 4 Mine tiles placed in a specific top-to-bottom order [p.6 — SETUP - PLAYER BOARD]. It also holds your Initial Contract on the bottommost Contract space and displays your chosen Experiment's Turbine Effect and Technology tiles [p.6 — SETUP - PLAYER BOARD].
During play, when you take the "Play an Action tile" option, you place the tile on the leftmost free slot at the top of your player board and then resolve its actions; these tiles stay there until you perform a Recharge [p.10 — GAMEPLAY - GENERAL RULES]. Urbanize, Industrialize, and Contract actions all draw from pieces and spaces on your player board: you take Urban Buildings, Mines, or Turbines from their designated rows (paying the cost listed to the left of that row) [p.12 — GAMEPLAY - ACTIONS EXPLAINED][p.13 — GAMEPLAY - ACTIONS EXPLAINED], and you place newly acquired Contracts on empty Contract spaces on the right side of your player board [p.13 — GAMEPLAY - ACTIONS EXPLAINED].
Your income tracks (Thaler, Workers, VP) on the player board are advanced whenever you gain an income advancement, and are the source of the Thaler/Workers/VP you collect during a Recharge [p.8 — GAMEPLAY - GENERAL RULES][p.17 — GAMEPLAY - RECHARGE]. Recharging also retrieves all Action tiles from the top of your player board back into your pool, resetting your available actions [p.20 — RETRIEVING ACTION TILES].
Watch out: You cannot remove, replace, or "hold" Contracts off your player board — once you take one, it must go on an empty Contract space, and you cannot swap it out later [p.14 — GAMEPLAY - ACTIONS EXPLAINED].