Cascadia

**Cascadia** is a 2021 board game that challenges players to create the most harmonious ecosystem by puzzling together habitats and wildlife in the Pacific Northwest region. The game is designed for 1-4 players and has a playing time of 30-45 minutes. The game is considered light-weight with a complexity rating of 1.84/5, making it suitable for ages 10+. The game is designed by Randy Flynn, illustrated by Beth Sobel and published by Flatout Games. In Cascadia players take turns building out their own terrain area and populating it with wildlife. The goal of the game is to place habitat tiles to create matching terrain that reduces fragmentation and creates wildlife corridors, which will score players points at the end of the game. Additionally, players must also strategize placing wildlife tokens to maximize points scored by them as the wildlife goals are randomly determined by one of the four scoring cards for each type of wildlife.

## Components

* 85 Habitat Tiles, including 25 Keystone Tiles (representing Mountains, Forests, Prairies, Wetlands, and Rivers).
* 100 Wildlife Tokens, including 20 each of Bear, Elk, Salmon, Hawk, and Fox.
* 5 Starter Habitat Tiles.
* 21 Wildlife Scoring Cards (4 for each type of wildlife - Bear, Elk, Salmon, Hawk, and Fox - plus 1 Family/Intermediate card).
* 25 Nature Tokens (Cones from the mighty Douglas Fir).
* 1 Cloth Bag (for Wildlife Tokens).
* 1 scorepad.

## Setup

1. Place all Wildlife Tokens in the Cloth Bag and shuffle them thoroughly.
2. Based on the number of players, determine the number of Habitat Tiles needed using the provided chart.
3. Randomly select the required Habitat Tiles without looking at them and stack them face down within easy reach of all players.
4. Any excluded Habitat Tiles should be returned to the box, as they will not be used in the current game.
5. Randomly select 1 Wildlife Scoring Card for each of the five types of wildlife and place them in the center of the play area for all players to see. Put the remaining Wildlife Scoring Cards back in the box.
6. Distribute one Starter Habitat Tile face-up to each player. Any remaining Starter Habitat Tiles are not used in the current game.
7. Reveal 4 Habitat Tiles from the face-down stacks and place them face-up in the center of the play area.
8. Draw 4 Wildlife Tokens from the Cloth Bag and pair them with each of the 4 Habitat Tiles to form combinations. These pairs are placed in the play area.
9. Place the Nature Tokens within easy reach of all players.
10. Determine the first player, either by who most recently saw one of the wildlife in the game or by a random selection.

## Gameplay

* Players take turns in a clockwise order.
* Each turn, a player selects a combination of Habitat Tile and Wildlife Token and adds them to their expanding environment (including their Starter Habitat Tile).
* Both the selected Habitat Tile and Wildlife Token are replaced with new ones from the respective stacks and the Cloth Bag at the end of the player's turn.
* The game continues until there are no more Habitat Tiles available to replace the ones selected by players (each player will take exactly 20 turns).
* Afterward, the game proceeds to final scoring, and the player with the most points wins the game.

## Awards and honors

* 2022 Spiel des Jahres Winner
* 2022 Spiel des Jahres Nominee
* 2022 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Best Family Game Nominee
* 2022 International Gamers Award Solo Winner
* 2022 International Gamers Award Solo Nominee
* 2022 Gra Roku Family Game of the Year Winner
* 2022 Gra Roku Family Game of the Year Nominee
* 2022 Gra Roku Best Two Player Game Nominee
* 2022 Gioco dell’Anno Nominee
* 2022 Geek Media Awards Family Game of the Year Winner
* 2022 Geek Media Awards Family Game of the Year Nominee
* 2022 American Tabletop Strategy Games Winner
* 2021 Golden Geek Light Game of the Year Winner
* 2021 Golden Geek Light Game of the Year Nominee
* 2021 Golden Geek Best Solo Board Game Nominee
* 2021 Golden Geek Best Board Game Artwork & Presentation Nominee
* 2021 Cardboard Republic Architect Laurel Nominee

## Useful pages

* Wildlife scoring cards
* Biomes