Challenge 1: Empire of the Five Suns

The Legend of the Five Suns is an Aztec creation myth about how the world in its current form came to be. In the beginning the Gods created the world and creatures to inhabit it. However, the give light to the world a god would have to jump into a fire, sacrificing themself to become the Sun. The first to sacrifice themself was Tezcatlipoca, the "4-Tiger" sun, however (either due to losing a leg or being a God of the Night) he was only able to become half a sun. This world was populated by giants, until a fight between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl led to the former summoning a rain of jaguars to devour everyone, and so the first world ended. The second Sun was Quetzocoatl, the "4-Wind Sun" and the second world was populated by people of normal size, until they failed to worship their Gods enough and were turned into monkeys by Tezcatlipoca and blown off the face of the Earth by Quetzalcoatl. This cycle continue for two more Suns, until Quetzocoatl, hating the destruction of his people, stole their bones from the underworld and dipped them into his blood to resurrect them. The world was then repopulated under the Fifth and current sun, Huitzilopochtli, who lives in constant war with the moon. This world is said to be destroyed in an earthquake.


Today you will be playing a game inspired by this myth. As you may have noticed you each have access to a subforum, with 1 member of each of the other tribes. You will all be playing in 1 of 7 3-player games, I will explain the rules of the game first and then how you can win the challenge.

Game Rules

In this game you have each been given 35 tiles or "buildings", you all will have 5 copies of each of the 7 unique buildings you can place in this game, with each building having a number 1-5 corresponding to a specific "age". Throughout the course of this game you and your 2 competitors will be placing your buildings on a 6x6 grid like the one below:



The game will take place over 6 rounds, in each round you and your opponents will have 4 turns each. On your turn you will place a building on the grid, and play will pass to the next player. This will repeat until the end of the round. AT THE END OF THE ROUND, you will score your buildings (as denoted in the "buildings" section below) and any "end of Age" actions will occur if applicable (this will be explained later).

Turns will snake i.e turns in each Round will go Player 1 -> Player 2 -> Player 3- Player 3 -> Player 3 -> Player 2 -> Player 1, and repeat as such. In Round 1 Player A will go first, In Round 2 Player B will go first, in Round 3 Player C will go first, in Round 4 Player C will go first, in Round 5 Player B will go first and in Round 6 Player A will go first.

Buildings


You may notice that there are 36 spaces on the grid, yet over 6 rounds with 12 turns in them, that is 72 placements. This is where the "End of an Age" comes in. In the game there are 5 Ages, and the end of each corresponds to a round. The end of Age 1 will occur at immediately following the scoring phase of Round 1, the end of Age 2 will immediately following the scoring phase of Round 2, and so, except the end of Age 5 will be immediately following the scoring phase of Round 6, and as such it will last 2 rounds. At the end of an Age, all buildings that correspond to that age (denoted by the number on the tile) will be destroyed simultaneously. However, right before they are destroyed, they will be scored again, even if they were just scored at the end of a round. Furthermore, if a tile is placed after the Age it is supposed to be destroyed, it will never be destroyed (i.e An Age 3 tile placed in Round 1 will be destroyed after Round 3, but an Age 1 tile placed in Round 3 will never be destroyed). If at any point the grid becomes full, and no one can place a tile, the round will end and scoring will occur. As such you should plan you placements carefully.

To be clear Age 1 ends right after the scoring for Round 1, Age 2 ends right after the scoring for Round 2, Age 3 ends right after the scoring for Round 3, Age 4 ends right after the scoring for Round 4 and Age 5 ends right after the scoring for Round 6

Below is an example Age 1 round that should hopefully help with any questions:


After the end of Age 5/Round 6, everyone's scores will be totaled. The 2 tribes whose members scored the most total points across all their games will win immunity, and the remaining tribe will attend tribal council. HOWEVER, the game that has the highest score between all 3 players will have each player earn a token of devotion. The text of the token of devotion is as follows:



All ties for immunity/reward will be broken by looking at the score at the end of Round 5 with the higher score winning, and so on, until the tie is broken.

We recommend each of you to schedule a time to play your game for ease of play (and a suggestion based upon you applications has been put down), though you are more than welcome to play it non-live before and between sessions, we will periodically double check your scores but we recommend you keep track of them in your thread, since we can not be around all the time. Barring any extensions, you will have 48 hours to play your games. You game matchups are listed below. Good luck to you all.

Time Expectations: When played live with 2.5 minutes per move, a game should take 3 hours, but can take less or more time.
Communication: You may discuss this challenge freely with your group, but not your tribe.

List of Matchups