(This summary help section is in beta and may be incomplete in areas -- feel free to help expand it!)
Goal and Summary
The goal of Galactic Cruise is to get the most points during the game. You can do this from connecting your campus network, building your ship, visiting cruise destinations, and more!
On your turn, you'll usually be taking two actions at a campus building (or one nearby) to help prepare for your galactic cruise. Once you're ready, you can liftoff and visit stops on your cruise schedule for points and resource while you prepare for the next one.
After a certain number of launches and achievements among all players, the game will end with players finishing up, and then most points wins!
Starting the game
Each player will start by picking some blueprints and also put out their gear between two buildings. (If this is your first game, feel free to just pick something!)
Turn Structure
(Start Of Turn Extra) Continue your cruise
Only applicable if you already launched a ship. (This step usually only happens later in the game.)
Move your ship one day forward on the schedule, and do that day:
Day In Space
For this activity, multiply the number of orange guests on the cruise times the number of orange tags on your cruise ship components, then receive the orange guest bonus that many times. (Guest bonuses are listed top right corner of the campus map.) Repeat for purple and teal guests.
Destination
Instead, if you land on a orange, purple, or teal space, you can first optionally deliver your upgrade token to get one of three upgrades at the destination.
You must pay ads for each guest you want to score -- 1 ad for each that matches the destination color, and 2 ads for each that doesn't. Each one you pay for scores 3 points, plus 1 for each upgrade token at that destination. (Note scoring at each destination is separate from the other days.)
Return to Earth
On last day on each schedule, guests return to earth (back to the supply), and your pilot and completed ship go back to you to be used again.
(Option 1) Taking two actions
In addition to continuing your cruise (if applicable), you can take two actions. Pick a worker to send to one of the six buildings. If it already has another player's worker, you can bump it back to that player, giving them a bonus. (You can't bump your own worker though.)
You can take two actions (same or different) as follows
- An action at your building
- An action at an adjacent building connected by a gear of yours.
- An action at an adjacent building connected by at least one opponent's gear, if you pay 0-2 Money to every opponent that has a gear. (Cost depends on reputation)
See the Actions section below for more info on the actions.
(Option 2) Call a meeting
The call a meeting option lets you get access to your workers again, and after you pull them back, you can also choose an action to do next to one of your gears.
(Option 3) Launch your ship
If you have all the requirements, you can launch your ship instead of taking actions or calling a meeting. At the start of the next several turns, you can do the "Continue your cruise" part above. Note this will add a cube to the progress track, which moves everyone closer to the end of game.
See the Launching your Ship section below for more info
(End Of Turn Extra) Check for achievements
On the bottom left of the board, there are three achievements for this game. If you have fulfilled the criteria, you can move a cube to the progress track, which moves everyone closer to the end of game.
Actions
Get Resources / Ads
You'll need resources if you want to launch your ship:
- 1 food for each guest or pilot on the ship
- 1 oxygen for each ship segment on the ship
- 1 fuel for each fuel on the chosen schedule
Keep in mind your resource storage (with the gears) limits how many food/oxygen/fuel you can have at one time, but there is no limit to ads.
Action - Buy resources and ads
May pay 1 money for 2 resources from the supply May pay 1 money for 2 ads from the supply
Action - Get for free from the silo
May take 3 resources (if available) from the company storehouse (called the silo)
Action - Replenish one type of good in the silo
Discard an agenda in hand to move tracker to max level for one good, gaining 1 money per step moved. Also gain 1 reputation.
Build a ship
Each two adjacent ship segments can hold one guest -- for example, a ship with 3 segments can hold 2 guests. Keep in mind the cockpit/engine don't count as segments.
A ship will need at least one guest (thus at least two segments) to launch.
Action - Get a new ship
Pick any of the cockpit/engine sets. (Limit 3 ships per player.)
The engine displays the immediate bonus when bought, and the cockpit displays the launch and endgame bonus. Keep in mind, a player will lose 5 points for any ship that wasn't ever launched.
Action - Get Blueprints
Get up to two blueprints from the supply -- the market refreshes after completing this action. Getting blueprints is typically free, but you can pay an extra cost (plus the build cost) to build them immediately to your ship.
Action - Build ship segments
Pay the build cost to build them to your ship. (They're worth points at the end of the game.)
Schedule/advertise a cruise
You must pick the cruise schedule you want to go on as a separate action before launching your ship, though you don't have to advertise this schedule in advance.
Action - Schedule a cruise
Move your Consultant to a cruise you want to use when you launch. Note you can't move this once scheduled and you can only have one cruise scheduled at a time.
You also get a funding bonus and flip that token over. You can't use that exact funding bonus anymore -- the token will get moved when you launch your ship.
Action - Advertise a cruise
You can advertise any cruise for which you can pay the ad cost, including ones you haven't scheduled. You can move up to two guests from the right side, paying their ad cost to under the cruise schedule. Each guest moved this way scores you 1 money per destination on the cruise, plus an additional reputation if the guest's color matches a day on the cruise.
Upgrades and improvements
Action - Buy a Development (Gears)
To get a technology or improve your network, pay the cost of the leftmost gear in the food, oxygen, or fuel rows -- you can pay for it in money or with the resource the gear started on (money/food for gears in the food row, and so on).
You can move the gear to the network, increasing the action combinations you can do. Or, you can move it below a technology, giving a passive bonus for the game. (Players can also pay 0-2 money to temporarily activate a technology, depending on their reputation.)
At end of game, each column emptied of its gears will score points.
Action - Hire an expert worker
You can buy one of two expert workers from your board -- each costs 12 Money but can be discounted. The left expert worker costs 3 less for every one-time-use (black) upgrade token you've used. The right expert worker costs 2 less for every gear you've moved off the food or oxygen rows.
Expert workers have an additional bonus that normal workers don't -- see the between the buildings on the main board. Also, because you gain the worker to your Break Room, you get also funding bonus as part of the action.
Action - Get agenda cards
You can get up to two agenda cards from the display, or spend a reputation to get the one discarded (as long as you didn't play it this turn). Keep in mind the display doesn't refill automatically.
Action - Refill agenda cards
First, gain each bonus from the empty card slots in the agenda display. Then discard any number of them, and refill the empty spaces in the display.
Launching your ship
Choose a pilot
Pick a worker from the Break Room to serve as a pilot for the ship
Add guests to the ship
Each guest must be in its own cabin between two ship segments. (This means your ship must have at least two segments.)
Take presold (advertised) guests from the below the schedule, or pay ads to get them from the right side/ supply. Any presold guest you don't take will cost you 2 reputation.
Pay resources
Pay resources (1 food per guest/ pilot, 1 oxygen per ship segment, 1 fuel per fuel on the schedule).
Start the cruise!
Note some parts of launch will be automated online, such as adding a cube to the progress track, scoring your cockpit, and moving your upgrade token onto the ship (to be delivered to a destination).
End of game
When the progress track is filled up for all three years, finish out the round (equal turns), then all players get an extra turn. Also, each player gets an extra "continue your cruise" action after this extra turn. At this point, additional end of game points are scored (such as scoring ships and leftover items), and most points wins!