How to play Clock Domain

The goal

Everyone starts with the same small team budget: 7 Seat Licenses and 3 Test Chips. Each turn you play cards from your hand to earn $, then buy new cards for your deck. When the game ends, the player whose deck holds the most VP (from Silicon cards) wins.

Setup

The table holds the Supply: three Licenses (Seat $1, Floating $2, Enterprise $3), three Silicon cards (Test Chip 1 VP, Engineering Sample 3 VP, Production Silicon 6 VP), Bugs (−1 VP), and 10 kingdom cards picked at random or from a preset. Each player shuffles their 10 starting cards and draws 5.

Your turn

Pipelined cards finish. Any Pipelined card you played last turn does its second half now, then counts as in play for this turn.
Action phase. You have 1 Action. Spend it to play an Action card from your hand. Cards that give +Actions let you keep playing.
Buy phase. First you collect the team bonus (below). Then play your Licenses (the game does this for you by default) and buy one card whose cost is no more than your $. +Buy lets you buy more than one card, splitting your $.
Clean-up. Everything you played, everything left in your hand, and everything you bought goes to your discard pile, except Pipelined cards that have not finished. Draw 5 new cards. When your deck runs out, shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck.

Roles and the team bonus

Every kingdom Action belongs to one of six roles. When your Buy phase starts, you get +$1 for each different role among your cards in play beyond the second: three roles is +$1, four is +$2, six is +$4. A deck of one strong card repeated gets nothing; a cross-functional team pays.

Bugs and the bug bounty

Attacks can give you Bugs, worth −1 VP each and useless in your hand. Whenever you trash a Bug during your own turn, you get +$1. Lint, Bug Bash, Equivalence Check and Refactor can all trash Bugs.

The game ends

The game ends after any turn where the Production Silicon pile is empty, or any three Supply piles are empty (four with 5–6 players). Most VP wins. Ties go to whoever took fewer turns; if still tied, the winners share the win.

Words on the cards

Trash: Remove a card from the game. Trashing weak cards makes your good cards come up more often.
Gain: Take a card from the Supply without paying for it.
⚔ Attack: An Action that hurts every other player.
↺ Reaction: While a Reaction card (Formal Engineer, Model Checker) is in your hand, other players' Attacks do not affect you. It is revealed for you automatically.
⧗ Pipelined: Does something when you play it and something else at the start of your next turn. It stays in play until then. Pipelined cards have an orange lower half and the ⧗ glyph.
♛ Silicon: Victory cards. They are worth points at the end but do nothing in your hand, so buying them too early slows you down.

Coming from Dominion?

Turn structure, setup sizes, end conditions and tiebreak follow Dominion's base game. Three rules are new: the team bonus, the bug bounty, and Pipelined cards (which work like Seaside's Durations). Most kingdom cards play like a Dominion card; the table lists which.

Clock Domain	Dominion
Seat / Floating / Enterprise License	Copper / Silver / Gold
Test Chip / Engineering Sample / Production Silicon	Estate / Duchy / Province
Bug	Curse

Kingdom card	Role	Plays like	Difference
Whiteboard	Architect	Cellar	Same
Lint	Design	Chapel	Trashes up to 3, not 4.
Formal Engineer	Formal	Moat	Revealed for you automatically.
Intern	Verification	none	New: +1 Action, +$1, look at your top card and discard it or keep it.
Spec Review	Architect	Harbinger	Same
Testbench	Verification	Village	Same
IP Vendor	Management	Workshop	Same
Nightly Regression	Verification	Fishing Village	Same
Peer Review	Design	Vassal	Same
IP Block	none	Gardens	1 VP per 2 different roles among your cards, not per 10 cards.
Scope Creep	Management	Militia	Same
Synthesis	Design	Smithy	Same
Refactor	Design	Remodel	Same
Loop Unroll	Architect	Throne Room	Same
Bug Bash	Verification	none	New: reveal 3, Licenses to hand, Bugs trashed.
Timing Closure	Physical	none	New: cantrip, +$2 with 3+ roles in play.
Model Checker	Formal	none	New: a cantrip Moat.
Late Spec Change	Management	Witch	Others discard their top card and gain a Bug only if it cost $3 or more.
FPGA Prototype	Verification	Laboratory	Same
Chief Architect	Architect	Festival	Same
All-Hands	Management	Council Room	Same
Place & Route	Physical	none	New Pipelined card: +$2 now, +2 Cards next turn.
Equivalence Check	Formal	Sentry	Same
Process Shrink	Physical	Mine	Same
Customer Demo	Architect	Market	Same
Signoff STA	Physical	Library	Same
Talent Poaching	Management	Bandit	Same
Headhunter	Management	Artisan	Same

Rows marked ≠ differ from Dominion or are new.

Strategy tips

Early on, buy Licenses and Actions, not Silicon. Start buying Production Silicon once you can reach $8 regularly.
Too many cards without +Actions collide in your hand. Pair them with Testbench, Chief Architect or Nightly Regression.
Mixing roles pays every turn. Three cheap cards from three roles add $1 before you play a single License.
Against Late Spec Change, keep a Lint or Bug Bash around: each Bug you trash on your turn is worth $1.

Bots

Easy bots play loosely and are good for learning. Normal bots play a money strategy with the strongest attack or draw card on the table. Hard bots simulate games on the kingdom before turn one and play the plan that tested best.