1. Place the Game Board in the center of the table. For a 1-4 player game, use the side of the board with the “1-4” in the upper-left corner. The reverse side of the board with the "5-6" requires the Order & Chaos Expansion.

2. Each player selects a Faction and collects its Faction Components:

A. Place the Capital City (C.C.) Board in each player's area.

B. Collect the 20 Units and 8 Constructs (3 C.C. Levels, 3 Towers, and 2 Vessels):
i. Place the Units and Vessels below the C.C. Board under, or near, their corresponding slots. This is considered a player's supply.
ii. Place the Towers and C.C. Levels to the left of the board.
iii. From the supply, place 2 Serfs and 1 Warrior into the Courtyard at the top of the C.C. Board.

C. Place the 3 Hero Cards near the right side of the C.C. Board. Leave enough room to place future Spell Cards in the 3 slots designated for Scribed Spells (see Scribe a Spell).

D. Place the 2 Action Tokens into the Courtyard (top of the C.C. Board).

E. Place 3 Resource Tokens (1 Ore, 1 Mana, and 1 Food) onto the "2" space of the Resource Track (note the Watermark images of the Resource types).

F. Collect a complete set of 7 Tactic Cards (each listed "X of 7").

G. Place the Score Token off the board next to (but not on) the “1" space on the Score Track, designating a starting score of "zero".

3. Shuffle the Spell Cards and place the deck face-down near the top of the Game Board. Also designate an area for a face-down Discard Pile nearby. Then, deal 1 Spell Card to each player to be placed in their "hand," also referred to as a player's Spell Library. Always keep cards in your Spell Library secret from other players.

4. Take 3 Resource Tokens (1 Ore, 1 Mana, 1 Food), from the unused tokens in the box and assign them randomly to the three spaces of the Tax Track (one on the “4” space, one on “3,” and one on “2”); this determines the starting Tax Track values.

5. Give the youngest player the First Player Token, or choose who starts the game using
any other method. You can also download our Heroes of Land, Air & Sea mobile app
which provides a randomizer for selecting the starting player.

6. Players next decide on which Continents to place their Capital Cities. Starting with
the player to the right of the first player (with the First Player Token) and going
counterclockwise, players place their Lv. 1 C.C. Construct in a Capital City Region on
a Continent adjacent to another player's Continent, except for the first player to choose,
who may choose any Continent to start on.

Note: there is only 1 C.C. Region per Continent and therefore each player will have their own Continent to start

7. Shuffle the Exploration Tokens face-down, and then place them face-down onto
Regions on the Map:

A. Most Land Regions get 1 Land Exploration Token (brown). Exceptions: no Capital Cities Regions with a C.C. get a token, and each Swamp Region gets 2 tokens.

B. Most Sea Regions get 1 Sea Exploration Token (blue). Exception: center Sea Region(s) get 2 tokens (the Octopus region in a 1-4 player game, plus the Sea Serpent region in an expansion 5-6 player game).

C. Any unused Exploration Tokens are returned to the box without being revealed.

Note: In 1-2 player games, one of the four continents, chosen by the player(s), will not be used and is not accessible by players. No Exploration Tokens should be placed on this continent. Regardless of player count, all Sea Regions are accessible and should receive Exploration Tokens..