In Chartae, players take on the role of cartographers solving the intricate puzzle of an ancient map.

With only nine square tiles, each representing a piece of the puzzle, players must carefully place or rotate them to connect land and water zones. One player focuses on linking land, while the other strives to unite water, turning every decision into a strategic challenge.
 

Game is designed originally by Reiner Knizia and details can be found on Board Game Geek here: Chartae | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

Rules are very simple and quick to play for a game with such deep puzzling strategy:

Objective: Two players compete to connect the most zones of either land or water by the end of the game.

• Setup: Put the tiles in a stack - the supply
• Gameplay:
  • Players alternate turns. One player aims to connect land zones, the other aims to connect water zones.
  • On a player's turn, they choose between:
    1. Placing a new tile from the supply onto the board.
    2. Rotating an existing tile 90 degrees clockwise already on the board.
       1. Note: A rotation action cannot be performed more than two times in a row 
          so if both players choose the rotation action consecutively, the next player’s 
          action must be a placement action
  • Tiles must be placed or rotated to continue building the shared map.
• End of Game: Once all nine tiles are placed and the map is complete, the game ends.
• Scoring: The player who has the most connected zones of their assigned terrain (land or water) wins.