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Pax Porfiriana
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Erosion
2009
Rules assistance for Erosion
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.
- 30 min
- 10+
- Complexity 2.0/5
Rules assistant for Erosion
What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
Erosion is a board game released in 2009 for 2–5 players, 30 minutes per game, and ages 10 and up. It was designed by Phil Eklund and John C. Douglass and its main mechanics are Hand Management and Open Drafting.
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About the game
In Erosion, uplift your mountain by eroding those of other players. At the end of each round, gain points for cards in your mountain and delta. The basic rules introduce the four player actions: Weathering, Hillslope, Fluvial, and Draw Cards. The advanced rules add details: atmospheric change, ice ages, glaciers, flood volcanism, quakes, etc. Mountains are far more dynamic than the limitations of human lifetimes would suggest. Their growth and death involve cycles that keep the planet habitable. The machinery of these cycles is called erosion: the weathering of rock and its transport to the sea. Once there, it is subducted into the mantle, where volcanoes return the silicates, sulfates, water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen to the surface. Almost every step of the erosion process is catalyzed by water. For instance, in your turn you may weather rock using crystallization (busting rock by growing evaporated salt crystals), then transport the remains to the River using creep (movement propelled by wet/dry and freeze/thaw cycles). Once plunked in the River, the eroded material is moved as sediment to the sea. Braided rivers carry the maximum sediment load, but they are the least stable (and the trickiest to play). The role of erosion in atmosphere control is often overlooked. Every mountain is a titanic terraformer and greenhouse gas scrubber. Weathering removes 100 billion tons of oxygen and 800 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Although the biological functions of respiration and decay contribute more to the atmosphere than erosion, during many past episodes it was the other way around. Left unchecked, a major orogenic (mountain-building) event removes so much CO2 that the oceans would freeze over in less than an Erosion game turn (6 million years, the same scale as for the game American Megafauna). On the other hand, a major flood volcano such as the Deccan Traps has poured hundreds of trillions of tons of CO2 back into the air, dwarfing the outputs of all human industry combined.
Editions
- ErosionenSierra Madre Games2009
Categories
Mechanics
Designers
Publishers
- Sierra Madre Games
Questions and answers
Erosion supports 2–5 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 Erosion is 30 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 Erosion for ages 10 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.
Erosion has a complexity rating of 2.0 out of 5 from BoardGameGeek players, which makes it a medium-light game. The rating reflects how much rules knowledge, planning and decision-making a typical game demands. Expect a longer first teach for heavier games, and use a preparation guide before game night.
Erosion belongs to these categories: Card Game and Educational. Its main mechanics are Hand Management and Open Drafting. 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 Erosion are: Phil Eklund and John C. Douglass. 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 Erosion as a base game. It can be played on its own with the components in the box and does not require any other title. Expansions, if any exist, add new content or rules on top of it and are listed separately in the catalogue with a link back to this base game.