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Step-by-Step Guide: How to Play Celestial and Master the Skies
Celestial is an exciting push-your-luck card and board game where players fly between sky-high cities in an adventurous airship ride! Will you risk everything for legendary treasures? Or play it safe and land early for modest rewards? Gather your friends to find out!
What You Need To Play Celestial
- Objective: The objective of Celestial is to win the pot by bluffing everyone out of the game or by having the highest-ranking hand in the game.
- Number of players: 5 to 9 players
- What you need: 1 Standard 52-card deck and poker chips
- Type of game: Poker card game
- Audience: 13+
Setting Up The Celestial
City Tiles: Place the 9 “City” tiles in order, from lowest (1) to highest (25), forming the path your airship will travel.
Treasure Cards: For each city, shuffle its matching treasure cards and place them facedown near the city tile.
Aircraft Placement: Place the aircraft figure on the first city tile (“Wind City”).
Characters: Each player selects an Adventurer tile and puts their matching pawn inside the aircraft.
Deck: Shuffle all “Equipment,” “Power,” and “Turbo” cards into one deck. Deal cards to players:
- 2–3 players: 8 cards each.
- 4+ players: 6 cards each.
Place the deck facedown and choose a player to be the first captain.
How To Play Celestial
Captain Role: The current captain rolls the dice that present challenges (obstacles) such as storm clouds, lightning bolts, pirates, or birds.
Overcoming Obstacles: The captain must play matching “Equipment” cards to overcome the rolled obstacles. Other players can help with power cards in some cases.
Decisions: Before the captain attempts to overcome the obstacles, each adventurer decides:
- Stay onboard the airship and risk the outcome to try for more valuable treasure
- Disembark at the current city, collecting a treasure card from that city (the further along, the better the treasure)
- If the captain succeeds, the airship moves to the next city, and the next player becomes the captain.
- If the captain fails, the airship crashes, all remaining passengers lose out on treasure that round, and the next round begins with everyone boarding at the start city.
How To End The Celestial
The Celestial ends as soon as a player’s total treasure value reaches or exceeds a set target, commonly 50 points, with all players having had an equal number of turns. The player with the highest total treasure value wins the game.
Strategies To Win Celestial
Push Your Luck Carefully: The further you travel, the greater the rewards, but also the greater the risk. Decide when to drop out based on your hand and the obstacles rolled.
Watch the Captain’s Cards: Try to estimate what cards the captain may have. If they look likely to fail, jumping off early is safer.
Card Management: Save powerful or rare equipment cards for tough challenges or rounds where you are the captain.
Treasure Diversity: Secure several smaller treasures early if the captain seems unreliable, but don’t play too conservatively or you’ll miss out on big points later.
Table Talk: Use negotiations and bluffing to encourage other players to stay or leave based on your intentions.
Also Read: How to Play THE CREW: Rules, Setup, and Mission Strategies
