Nucleum: Patroni

Players agree during setup whether to use them. If used, each ability can be used once per game, costs the listed VP, and may be used at any point during your turn; flip your Patron card to mark it as used (pp. 3–4).

That depends on the setup method: you can take the matching Patron when choosing an Experiment, use Patron cards in the Expert Variant, or deal each player a random Patron that determines their Experiment board (p. 3).

Yes. Spend 3 VP while performing an Urbanize or Industrialize action to do it without network requirements (p. 4).

Spend 3 VP while fulfilling a Contract to gain its non-VP and non-Technology rewards again; you do not repeat its VP or Technology rewards (p. 4).

No. Return the Councilor card to the box if you aren’t playing with Nucleum: Court of Progress. When available, Councilor lets you spend up to 10 VP to gain that many Thaler minus 1 (pp. 3–4).