Studio AletheiaHow to Play
Every number on a card is a claim you can defend.
Academy Assemble! is a card game built from the history you study. Each card is a person, place, event, idea, or invention, rated in the six G.R.A.P.E.S. domains. Learn what the numbers mean, how a duel works, and how your evidence can change a card.
Six lenses on every card.
Historians use G.R.A.P.E.S. to study any civilization. Every card is rated in all six domains, so every card can be looked at six ways.
Geography
Land, water, climate, location and movement.
Religion
Beliefs, gods, temples, rituals and faiths.
Achievements
Inventions, writing, art, buildings and ideas that lasted.
Politics
Rulers, laws, governments, wars and power.
Economics
Farming, trade, money, taxes and work.
Social Structure
Who is at the top, who is at the bottom, and how people live.
The person, place, event, idea, or invention.
A scene that shows the card's story.
Six numbers from 0 to 5, one for each domain.
What kind of card it is (Location, Leader, Event, Philosophy, Institution and more) and a short phrase that sums it up.
The numbers are not random.
Every rating answers one question: how much of this card's story happens in this domain? Each number is set by the same scale, checked against the same rules, and backed by evidence from your lessons.
Defining
You can't explain this card without this domain. It is the main reason the card matters.
Nile Floodplain, Geography: no flood, no Egypt.
Major
A large, direct effect that the lessons clearly show.
Nile Floodplain, Economics: the flood fed the surplus.
Significant
A real effect, but shared with other causes.
Indus Cities, Social Structure: planned cities shaped daily life.
Minor
Some connection, but brief or indirect.
Nile Floodplain, Religion: the river shaped beliefs, but the pharaoh cards carry religion.
Trace
The lessons barely touch it.
The Huang He, Politics: the river is a place, not a ruler.
None
No connection at all. Rare.
Same budget for every card
Every card's six numbers add up to about 14 to 17. No card is simply "stronger." Cards differ in shape, not power, so the question is never "which card is best?" but "where is this card strong?"
Every card has an identity
Every card has at least one 4 or 5. That is its identity domain, the reason it is in the deck.
A rating is a claim
Each number is a historian's claim, and claims need evidence. If you can prove a number is wrong, you can change it on your own card with a One-Pager.
Nile Floodplain
Location · Predictable Abundance
Total 14. Almost all of its story is the land and the food it grew. Strong in G and E, weak almost everywhere else.
Constantinople
Location · The second Rome
Total 17. No 5 at all. Its story is spread across geography, faith, building, power and trade, so it is a flexible card, not a weak one.
Rating a place, not a person
Rate the card's own subject. The Huang He is a river, so its Politics is low even though Chinese dynasties ruled beside it. The dynasty has its own card.
Not enough evidence?
If the lessons don't show a strong connection, the number stays low. "The lessons don't tell us enough to rate it higher" is an honest historian's answer.
Why this matters
Placing a card means comparing evidence across domains, and changing a number means writing claim, evidence and reasoning. That is the work historians do.
The G.R.A.P.E.S. Showdown.
Two players. Seven spaces. Each of you places a card in every domain, and the higher number wins that domain. Win the most domains to win the hand.
Build your deck
From your collection, choose 10 cards. Look at their shapes: a deck with a 4 or 5 in every domain is hard to beat. Shuffle and place your deck face down.
Draw and place
Draw one card at a time and place it face down in a domain space. A card can go in any domain, but it only counts with that domain's number.
- Don't like your draw? Put it on the bottom of your deck and draw once more. You must use the second card.
- Gamble if you want: a card that is strong in one domain can be risked in another.
- Face down means hidden from your opponent. You can always look at your own cards.
The Reveal Set
Each player calls three domains, like G, P, S or A, P, E. Place cards in your three called domains, then both players flip them face up at the same time. If you are playing your Consequence Card this hand, play it now, before the Hidden Set (see below).
The Hidden Set
Now place your last three domains face down. You get to see your opponent's revealed cards first, so place carefully. Your opponent is doing the same thing.
The Bonus card
Place one more card face down in the Bonus space. On a slip of paper, secretly commit it to one domain.
Reveal and compare
Flip the domains in order: G, R, A, P, E, S. In each domain, the higher number wins.
- If you are losing or tied in the domain you committed your Bonus card to, you may play it. It replaces your card there. It does not add to it. It cannot win a domain taken out of play by a Consequence Card.
- Win the most of the six domains to win the hand.
Breaking a 3 to 3 tie
Play a Blind Round. Each player places the other player's cards into domains without looking. Luck decides it.
Win the match
Play best of 3 hands, or best of 5 or 7 when there is time. Your teacher sets the match length.
The Consequence Card: once per match, and it must be played
Some events in history are too serious to be a card you play to win. They are Consequence Cards instead. A Consequence Card has no ratings and can never win a domain. What it does is take one of your own strong domains out of play.
- You must play it. Each player has one Consequence Card and must play it during one of the match's three hands.
- When: right after the Reveal Set is flipped, before anyone places the three face-down cards of the Hidden Set.
- Target: one of your own three face-up cards, in a domain where that card is rated 4.
- Effect: neither player can win that domain during this hand. It is open again in the next hand.
- Bonus cards: a Bonus card cannot win back the targeted domain. Otherwise Bonus cards work as usual.
- The final hand: if you reach the final hand with your Consequence Card unused, you must play it if you have an eligible target. If you have none, your opponent chooses two domains to take away from the domains you won once the final hand is decided. If you won fewer than two domains, you have already lost. If taking them away creates a tie, the tie stands.
- It does not count as one of your 10 deck cards, and it can never be traded.
- Before you play it, name the event and say who paid the price. You study each Consequence Card in Move 5 of a One-Pager.
Learn it, earn it.
Your collection grows as the year goes on. Everyone starts with the same cards, and every new card comes from learning.
River Valley cards
Every student starts with the River Valley cards. Your first deck comes from these.
Earned by lessons
Each unit is a Booster Pack. You earn its cards by completing the lessons. Missed a lesson? Complete the make-up work to earn its cards.
Hold 20, play 10
Keep up to 20 cards in your collection, and build a 10-card deck from them for each match. Your earned cards appear in your Character Hub.
Trade on Fridays
Rare cards are prestige versions of regular cards and play exactly the same. Trading happens only during Friday class play, with your teacher watching.
Prove it, and the number changes.
After each group of lessons, a G.R.A.P.E.S. One-Pager lets you redesign one card. If your teacher accepts it, it becomes your own student card, printed and slabbed.
Change a number with evidence
Challenge any rating with evidence from your lessons. If your teacher accepts your reasoning, the new number goes on your card, marked as changed.
Earn the Keep-All Bonus
If your evidence supports every original number and you change none, you earn +1 to your card's highest-rated domain. If two domains tie for highest, you choose one.