Artifacts

Artifacts are an optional play component introduced in the Shattered Empire Expansion for Twilight Imperium Third Edition

When playing with Artifacts, the 4 Special Objective Cards (with pictures of Artifacts on their front) are placed in the Common Play Area

There are 8 Artifact tokens:

• 4 Real Artifacts (Worth 1 Victory Point to the player that controls the planet that the Artifact is on)
  • Imperial Datacache
  • Precursor Fossil
  • Lazax Armory
  • Ancient Shipwreck
• 4 “Dummy” Artifacts (Worth 0 Victory Points)

Artifacts can never be moved or destroyed

Setup

After creating the Game Board, starting with the Speaker, each player chooses 1 non-Mecatol, non-Home system planet that is not adjacent to a home system or in a system that already contains an artifact. 1 Random Artifact token is placed face down on each planet that was chosen

Discovery and Control

When a player gains control of a planet that contains a face down Artifact token, that Artifact token is immediately revealed

• If the Artifact token is a Real Artifact, that player immediately claims the corresponding Special Objective Card and gains 1 Victory Point.
• If the Artifact token is a "Dummy" Artifact, the Artifact token is removed from the game to no effect

Once an actual Artifact is revealed, it remains face up on the planet it was found on for the rest of the game

If a player loses control of a planet that contains an Artifact, the player returns the the corresponding Special Objective Card to the Common Play Area and loses 1 Victory Point. If another player has taken control of that planet they claim the Objective Card and 1 Victory Point instead