For tips on how to play niagara, see Tips_niagara

Objective

• Players paddle canoes along the Niagara river to collect gems of five different colours and bring them safely back to shore without being swept over the waterfall.

Game end

• To win, a player must return either:
  • 5 different coloured gems (1 of each)
  • 4 gems of the same colour
  • 7 gems of any colour

Tie break

• The value of the gems.
• The gems closer to the waterfall have a higher value. In order the gems are:

Cards

• Players have a set of 7 paddle cards which they play to determine the speed of their canoes and the speed of the river.
• All players must select the card they will play before the players then move their canoes in turn order.
• Once a card has been played it is not available to play again until all 7 cards have been played.

River movement

• After all the players have moved their canoes the river moves causing all the canoes on the river to be swept downstream.
• The river moves the same number of places as the lowest value paddle card played plus or minus a modifier depending on the weather.
• At the beginning of the game the weather is set to 0 so there is no modification but each player also has a cloud card as part of their set of paddle cards that allows them to adjust the weather and hence make the river speed up or slow down.

Canoe movement

• The number on the paddle card determines the number of spaces that the canoe moves - it costs 2 paddle points to pick up (or offload) a gem.
• Thus if a player chose their 5 card they could move their canoe 5 spaces *or* they could move their canoe 3 spaces and pick up a gem
  • Or they could offload a gem and move their canoe 3 spaces.
• Both canoes may be moved with the same paddle card
  • Both canoes are moved the same amount, the paddles points are not split between the canoes.
• When both canoes are out of the water only one can be launched in that turn.
• If both canoes are in the water they must both be moved using the full value of the paddle points - a player cannot chose not to move one canoe and must always use the full value of the paddle points.
  • However if one of the canoes is out of the water a player may choose not to launch it.
• Canoes may only move upstream or downstream in a single turn - it is not permitted to change direction in the middle of the turn.
  • However one canoe could move upstream and the second one downstream.

Stealing

• Players may steal gems from other canoes, but only after moving upstream and only if they finish on the same space as the other player.
  • And only if they have an empty canoe and hence space to load the gem.
• Turn order is therefore crucial for stealing.