In Prehistories, send your best hunters track the animals in the valley and then ask your shaman to paint your achievements on the walls of your cave. Being quick will let you pick your preys first but being strong will get you the best catch. Will you risk wounds that could weaken your whole clan? The first to convey the wishes of the elders, through the paintings, will be the winner.
Place the Animal tiles on the main board, then pick the objectives for the game. Each player takes the 12 cards of the clan of their choosing and then place their cave and the corresponding Totem tokens in front of them. Each player then draws the first three cards of their deck. It is their starting hand. To collect the Animal tile, the lowest value indicated next to each tile needs to be reached. Players simultaneously pick the hunters they want to send from their hand of cards. The player with the lowest total will play first as their hunters are the fastest. The player with the highest total will play last but will be able to hunt more animals or bigger ones. Although, as they are slower, there might not be anything left to hunt¦
During the hunting phase, you can choose to hunt with or without getting wounded. If the total of the hunter cards reaches the value indicated by the green arrow, you successfully hunt without getting wounded. You collect the Animal Tile and you draw two clan cards to refill your hand. If the total of the hunter cards reaches the - lower - value indicated by the orange arrow, you successfully hunt but you get wounded. You collect the Animal Tile and come back weakened by the hunt. You only draw one clan card to refill your hand. Two wounds and more, and you cannot draw any clan card for your next turn.
After the hunt, the Shaman will paint your achievements by placing the collected Animal Tiles in your cave. Paint as well as you can, to obey the wishes of the Elders, known at the beginning of the game. Therefore, you'll need to plan the necessary hunts for these. When you accomplish any objective, place the required number of Totem tokens on the corresponding objective card. The first player to spend their 8 Totem tokens wins the game.
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- You are the leader of a prehistoric tribe, deciding which members of your tribe go hunting and what prey they want to catch. To guide you, the Elders have created challenges that you can complete by painting on the wall of your cave.
- Each round in Prehistories, you and your fellow tribe leaders bid simultaneously (and secretly) to decide who hunts where. The more hunters you have, the bigger the game you can catch, but the slower you are. The fastest player - that is, the one with the smallest sum of hunters - goes first, but they have few hunters with which to hunt. To hunt, you assign your hunters to one or more locations to catch the prey waiting there. Prey is represented by polyomino tiles, and the larger the tile, the higher the sum required. If you have just enough hunters to catch your prey, they might be wounded in the process, which means you'll draw fewer hunter cards at the end of the round to refill your hand. (They distrust your leadership when you get them injured!)
- In the second phase of a round, you paint your cave with the animal tiles collected during the hunting phase. Your cave is represented by a 7x7 grid that starts with a few tiles already in place. The first tile you place goes in the left-hand column, and all subsequent tiles must touch tiles already placed, with all tiles being oriented so that the animals are viewed with their legs (or fins) down. (Cavemen have simple tastes and want everything to be representational.)
- When you fulfill the wishes of the Elders by painting your cave in certain ways - such as completing a horizontal line or connecting opposing corners or surrounding a legendary animal on all sides - you place one or more totem tokens on that challenge. Whoever first discards their eight totem tokens wins.
