How to Play

Dominant Species

2-6 players 120-240 min 7.8 Board Game Geek Rating

Players control animal species (mammals, reptiles, birds, etc.) competing for survival during an approaching ice age. Using action pawn placement, they adapt their creatures, migrate across terrain tiles, and evolve to dominate different environments. Victory comes from accumulating the most points through territorial control and species propagation before the ice age ends.

Published 2010

Dominant Species

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

1
Place starting terrain
Position one of each Earth tile in the center of the board with the Tundra tile in the middle
2
Create tile stacks
Shuffle remaining tiles and form 3 stacks of 8 tiles each, with the top tile face-up
3
Prepare dominance deck
Place the Ice Age card at the bottom of the dominance deck, then draw 5 cards and place them in designated spaces
4
Distribute starting elements
Take 2 of each of the 6 element types and place them on the marked intersection points of Earth tiles
5
Draw elements for action spaces
Draw 4 elements each from the bag and place on the Adaptation, Abundance, and Exploration spaces
6
Distribute player components
Each player receives 1 animal board, 10 dominance markers (cone shape), 9-p action markers (cylinder shape), and 65-5p species cubes (cube shape), where 'p' equals player count
7
Set score markers
Place one cube of each player's color on the 0 space of the scoring track

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

1
Place action markers
Following initiative order from left to right, each player places one action cylinder on an available eye-marked space
2
Continue placement
Repeat until no player has unused action markers remaining
3
Resolve actions
Execute placed action markers from top to bottom and right to left (executing is not mandatory)
4
Initiative
Move one position forward/left in turn order, then place the action marker on a remaining empty space
5
Adaptation
Take one available element and add it to your animal board
6
Regression
After each element type, every player must remove one matching element from their animal board
7
Abundance
Take one element from this space and place it on any free corner of an Earth tile
8
Wasteland
Remove all element types present here from the tundra and adjacent Earth tile borders
9
Depletion
Remove one element matching the type on this space from any Earth tile (returned to draw bag)
10
Glaciation
Only the player with the leftmost action marker executes this
11
Proliferation
Choose an element on Earth tiles matching your action marker's element type
12
Exploration
Take one available face-up Earth tile and place it adjacent to at least one existing tile
13
Migration
Move species equal to the number shown on the space from any tiles to adjacent tiles
14
Competition
For each of the 3 associated Earth tile types, select one tile where both you and an opponent have species
15
Dominance
Select one Earth tile not yet chosen this Dominance phase
16
Extinction
Remove all endangered species from the board (species are endangered if the tile has none of their required elements or no elements at all)
17
Award survivor card
Give to the player with the most species on tundra tiles (no one receives it in case of tie); that player scores points
18
Refill dominance cards
Replace missing dominance cards with new ones
19
Shift glaciation markers
Move action markers on Glaciation spaces one position to the left
20
Clear element spaces
Remove elements from Regression, Depletion, and Exploration spaces
21
Cascade elements
Move all elements from Wasteland, Abundance, and Adaptation spaces down to Depletion, Wasteland, and Regression spaces respectively
22
Draw new elements
Place 4 new elements from the draw bag onto Adaptation, Abundance, and Exploration spaces
23
Reveal new tiles
Flip tiles from their stacks to replace missing ones, ensuring 3 tiles are available

Winning

How to claim victory.

1
Trigger game end
The Ice Age card ends the game when drawn
2
Complete final actions
Execute any remaining Dominance phase steps and the first two Reset phase steps
3
Final scoring
Score every Earth tile based on which player has the most species on each tile
4
Determine winner
The player with the most points wins
5
Break ties
In case of equal points, the player higher on the food chain wins

watch & Learn

Let the pros teach you with these top videos.

Dominant Species. Tutorial

Dominant Species. Tutorial

Instructional

Turno de Ejemplo: "Dominant Species"

Turno de Ejemplo: "Dominant Species"

Instructional

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FULL rules

Looking for the full details? Grab the complete rulebook as a downloadable PDF.

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