Changes to note this year:
The event format matches players by their success in their latest game and allows them to drop their lowest score - encouraging play-against-the-leader tactics. Players score points as a percentage of the winner's score on each board.

Games have a 5-hour time limit. This year the time limit will be strictly enforced. 30 minutes prior to the time an announcement will be made that this is the last round, and Final card play will follow.

PLEASE CONFIRM YOU HAVE THE CORRECT NUMBER OF CARDS IN EACH DECK. Players at a game where the cards are found to be wrong after Turn 1 will count that heat round as a loss. NO EXCEPTIONS. It is every player's responsibility to make sure the game is set up properly

WBC HOUSE RULE: The Attribute of Master Art is amended to allow its owner to immediately discard one card during the turn of its purchase in addition to its normal discard abilities during the Buy Card Phase.

The official AH FAQ and Errata will be in effect: these can be found below, but have frankly never been an issue.

4.2 What is the extent of the Bay of Biscay? A. It is considered adjacent to all Coastal Provinces between Edinburg and Seville.

Q. Does Paris connect directly to Portsmouth? A. Yes

Q. Is the Coastal area of Barca (VIII) connected to the Eastern Med? A. Yes

Q. Does the Norwegian Sea have any practical purpose? A. Only artistic consistency for separating Coastal waters from Oceans.

Q. Are Iceland and West Africa treated like any other Coastal province except that they are only accessible across a sea? A. Yes

Q. Is St Gali a satellite of Nuremburg? A. Technically no, since it lacks an arrow into Nuremburg. However, house rules allowing it are encouraged since that was our intent.

4.4 Are tokens in their home capital doubled for defense AND for attacks? A. Yes

4.4/9.53 How does nationalism affect the doubling of the original owner's strength in his capital? A. Example: If Genoa attacks his own capital held by Paris with a Domination marker, Genoa needs 5 (5 x 2 = 10). But if Venice has the Domination marker and Nationalism, Genoa needs 6 (6 x 2 = 12) tokens to attack. But if Genoa has Nationalism and Paris is there instead, Genoa needs only 5 tokens. In the latter case, nationalism has no effect since the market number must be matched in tokens regardless of their strength.

9.32 - If all expansion tokens have been purchased (none remain in stock) when a player loses a domination marker to a disaster (such as Rebellion), may the player replace the marker with a square token from his expansion pool? Must he? A. Yes, the player may -- at his option -- use expansion tokens in such cases. Alternatively, you may leave the space empty if you have none in stock.

9.32 - Can Armor and Stirrups be played in the same turn by the same player to obtain a +2 advantage? A. Yes

9.32/9.61- How does Chaos affect the order of play? A. Players in chaos are assumed to be buying zero expansion tokens and play order is determined in the usual fashion. Note that to be able to cancel a Surplus or Shortage as the first player, you must bid negative tokens for the right to go before the chaos player's bid of 0.

9.32 If Armor or Stirrups has been played and Gunpowder or Longbow is played later in the same Play Cards Phase, the Armor/Stirrups card is not discarded when it is voided. Since it has already been played, Armor/Stirrups cannot be an unplayable misery burden, but it does not have any effect vs the player(s) who later played the Gunpowder/Longbow cards in that round.

9.33 If you have Printed Word and play a leader with two credits, one of which is for an Advance you have, you get the rebate for the one you have even if you don't buy the other Advance. Moreover, it is possible to gain credits for two or more advances from a leader, if all advances are already owned.

9.33 Can a player who owns Printed Word and Patronage, patronize a leader to claim a rebate? A. No - read the last sentence of 9.33.

9.33 If you have Printed Word and play a leader with two credits, one of which is for an Advance you have, you get the rebate for the one you have even if you don't buy the other Advance.

9.41 All Galleys of a player with The Heavens may use it to cross one sea. The limit is not one sea per player per turn, but rather one sea for any shipment per turn.

9.5 Can you attack through a newly controlled area to a second area via Caravan? A. Yes

9.5/9.53 Can extra expansion tokens be placed in a friendly dominated province for defense purposes even though they will be eliminated at the end of the Expansion Phase? A. No. Any Dominated province cannot receive extra tokens except for the purpose of placing sufficient tokens to attack that Domination.

9.51 As long as you pay 3 tokens for the first and 6 tokens for the second, can you buy more than one Expansion card in an Expansion Phase? A. No. The rule is quite specific about being able to purchase only one.

9.53 Are only white tokens lost in a failed attack? For example, if there are two blue and 3 purple tokens coexisting from a previous turn in Marseilles and purple moves in four white tokens to challenge blue but loses, does Purple lose only the four new ones? A. No. Purple loses all tokens.

Q. I have a token co-existing with another player's token and then I take control of that province. Can I use the Wind/Watermill to force a trade from the beaten player? A. No. "taken from another player" means that you must control a province before it can be taken from you. You cannot lose that which you do not possess.

Cathedral can be used once per turn against a non-owner on either offense or defense.

Q. If you want to Cathedral a province containing tokens of more than one player, does that count as one use of Cathedral or one vs each player in that province? A. One vs each and if any of those players is not subject to Cathedral, the province cannot be taken by Cathedral.

Q. Since it is legal to remove a round token and replace it with a square one, could you then add a square(s) from Expansion to create a new domination token in an effort to gain the free Expansion card? A. No. You must actually need a new Domination token by virtue of already having 25 in play to remove a Domination token voluntarily and even then a "rebuilt" Domination token would not count towards the Expansion bonus.

Q. Can a player buy more expansion tokens than he has available in order to pay off Holy Indulgence penalties with the extra since that payment is made before he actually uses his tokens? A. No ­ although he can actually pay more for them in an attempt to go last during the Expansion Phase.

9.61 The rule states that a commodity die roll of 12 affects both Gold and Ivory equally. Does this mean that if there is a shortage, there can be two cards drawn by the respective majority holders? At the beginning of the next turn, to remove a shortage would the player need to pay $10 or $20? A. Yes. $10.

Q. When there is a double Shortage or Surplus, does this mean that the player draws twice //pays twice? A. Yes

9.7 Civil War is played on a player who owns or buys Renaissance. Both Civil War and Renaissance use the term "at the start" when referring to a round. Which goes first? A. The Civil War penalty is enacted first. A player with an unused Renaissance power may then trade places.

Marco Polo is worth $40 after Mongol Armies for both Cosmopolitan and Overland East.

10. Under "diplomacy", is it legal to play an event card such as Black Death and hold an auction to decide who it is played on, or to offer a Silk card in your hand in return for cash, or if a player discards a card using Master Art, paying him to pick it back up and play it instead, or to pay a player not to attack one of your cities, or to attack another player's province instead? A. NO! Players may plead, protest and whine all they want but the actual payment of bribes for services rendered is strictly illegal. That is not to say that a player could not be influenced into taking a different course of action in exchange for a promised favor in return, but such promises are entirely unenforceable and any direct payment for services rendered should be considered the lowest form of cheating. Remember it is strictly illegal to show any card before it is played. You can promise to play a card a certain way, but you absolutely cannot show the identity of any card you hold until it is played.

11.1 If someone has bought all 26 Advances, is the final turn still played out with a FINAL CARD PLAY as if the deck had run out of cards?  A. Yes

11.1 During the final turn's Income Phase do you still roll for new Shortage/Surplus status to apply to the Final Card Play? A. Yes

11.2 Can a card be discarded (with Master Art) instead of played after the Final Turn Income Phase and before the Final Card Play? A. No

11.2 Is the FINAL CARD PLAY phase considered a different turn as far as the cards are concerned? I.e., If Enlightened Ruler is played during the final turn, does it still protect him in the Final Card Play? A. No; Yes

11.2 When do rerolls occur in the case of a tie with the War card? A. That same phase, for each player remaining during their Play Card phase, until the tie is broken (possibly continuing into the next turn during the next Play Card Phase).

Q. Does Gunpowder's advantage over Longbow apply to ties in War in addition to Gunpowder's +1 which caused the tie? A. Yes

11.2 CIVIL WAR: If this card is played in the Final Card Play, must the victim lose half his cash since he has no tokens? A. No - he would lose half of his 0 tokens; i.e. 0. The only effect of this card if a player has no tokens is the reduction of his capital, and an increase in misery.

11.4 A tied War continues in the next player's Play Card turn. If that player is in the War, he can play a military advantage card before the War continues.

Q. When Alchemist Gold is played, the card specifically says that cash spent on patronage defense is not vulnerable. No mention is made of cash spent to purchase a card with Urban Ascendancy. Is this an oversight in the rules, or is cash already spent with Urban Ascendancy subject to Alchemist Gold? A. The phrase "penalty cannot exceed current cash" covers this. The penalty is half of the written cash (which would include money spent on Urban Ascendancy) but it cannot exceed cash on hand so if the Urban Ascendancy money is all a player had, he would not lose it.

WBC HOUSE RULE: The Attribute of Master Art is amended to allow its owner to immediately discard one card during the turn of its purchase in addition to its normal discard abilities during the Buy Card Phase.