
- BGG rank
- BGG #3,979
- BGG rating
- 6.9
Archon: Glory & Machination
- 2–4 players
- 90–120 min
- Complexity 3.2/5
- 2013

Rules assistance for Crisis: Inventors
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
Crisis: Inventors is an expansion for Crisis released in 2017 for 1–5 players, 45–120 minutes per game, and ages 14 and up. It was designed by Sotirios Tsantilas and Pantelis Bouboulis and its main mechanics are Commodity Speculation and Worker Placement.
Description from the publisher: The Inventors are engineers (+1 modifier) that are moonlighting as Battlemekk designers for Axia's underground Diesel Demolition Derby league. They have the ability to command their robotic creations to do their bidding and will not hesitate to do so. At the beginning of the game, add the Inventor tiles to the bag of Employee tiles. If you draw an Inventor tile when setting up for a new round, place it along with the other Employee tiles in one of the spaces of the 9. EMPLOYEES location. Immediately place the Robot Employee under the Inventor tile, removing it from the Temp Employee location, which is now unavailable. This still happens even if an event has made the Temp Employee unavailable. If the second Inventor is drawn in the same round, return its tile to the cloth bag and draw another Employee tile. During the 3. PLANNING phase, a player can reserve an Inventor Employee just like any other, and claim it during the 4. OPERATIONS phase. When claimed, the player also takes the Robot tile and may keep it until the end of the round, as the normal rules allow. This may only happen once per Inventor tile. When resolving 13. PRODUCTION, an Inventor may be used to fulfill a necessary Engineer position in a Company card. Just like with other Engineers, an Inventor may also be used as a bonus Engineer Employee, adding +1 to any modifier that a Company card may have. They were part of the Diesel Demolition Derby Kickstarter campaign as promotional cards (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ludicreations/diesel-demolition-derby).
Crisis: Inventors supports 1–5 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.
The listed playing time for Crisis: Inventors is 45–120 minutes. This is the publisher’s estimate for a full game. The actual duration depends on the group, the player count and familiarity with the rules: first sessions usually run longer, while experienced groups often finish faster. Setup and teaching time are not included in this estimate.
The catalogue lists Crisis: Inventors for ages 14 and up. This is the publisher’s recommendation and reflects reading demands, rule complexity and small components rather than theme alone. Younger players can often join with help from an adult, so check the age guidance on your edition and consider your group’s experience with board games.
Crisis: Inventors belongs to these categories: Economic, Political, and Industry / Manufacturing. Its main mechanics are Commodity Speculation and Worker Placement. Categories describe the theme and setting of a game, while mechanics describe what players actually do on their turns. Each mechanic links to a catalogue hub with similar games, which helps when you want something comparable.
The credited designers of Crisis: Inventors are: Sotirios Tsantilas and Pantelis Bouboulis. These credits come from the published game data and name the people responsible for the game’s design, not its illustrators or publishers. Designer pages on MeepleRules collect other titles by the same designers, which helps when you enjoy a game and want to find similar ones.
The catalogue lists Crisis: Inventors as an expansion for Crisis. Expansions add new content, rules or scenarios to the base game and usually cannot be played on their own, so you need Crisis to use it. Check that your edition of Crisis is compatible, as some expansions were revised between editions.