How to Play Castles of Burgundy

When you play Castles of Burgundy, you are a prince trying to build a profitable realm. On your turn, you will acquire tiles that represent various assets that can be added to your realm to improve it. For example, there are ships you can build to facilitate trading, city buildings that allow you to be more efficient, animals to score you points, and mines that generate resources for you to invest in. In each phase you will roll two dice and use them to take actions.

Objective

The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Setting Up to Play Castles of Burgundy

Board setup

• Sort the hexagonal tiles by color of the backs.
  • Shuffle the tiles with animals on them facedown. Make a pile of them.
  • Shuffle the tiles with buildings on them facedown. Make a pile of them.
  • Shuffle the yellowish tiles with scoring bonuses and special abilities facedown. Make a pile of them.
  • Shuffle the black tiles facedown and make a facedown pile of them.
• From there, take the hexagonal tiles and place them on the appropriate spaces on the board, corresponding to the number of players. You should also do so for the black tiles.
• Shuffle the square goods tiles and separate into 5 piles of 5, place on spaces A-E
• Place 12 square bonus tiles onto the bonus spaces

Player setup

Each Player gets the following:

• 1 player board
• 1 Dark green castle tile
• 3 goods tile from the leftover goods
• 2 dice in player’s color
• Same colored score track piece
• 1 Silverling coin
• 1 Victory point(100/200) tile for later
• Worker tiles depending on turn order (first-1, Second-2 etc…)

Then, place your player marker on the turn order track and give the white die to the first player.

Phase setup

• In each phase, (except for the first), remove all remaining hexagonal tiles from board
• Draw new hexagonal tiles and place on matching colored depots (you should have already done this for 1st phase)
• Draw black hexagonal tiles and place them on black depot (again, you should have already done this for 1st phase)
• Take the goods tile for current phase and place face up on spaces below phase spaces

Round Set Up

Each phase consists of 5 rounds. At the beginning of each round, all players roll their dice, but the starting player will also roll the white die. Based on the result of the white die, place the goods tile associated with the current round onto the depot matching that result. Now, you’re ready to take your turns.

Castles of Burgundy Gameplay Rules

Turn Overview

Starting with the first player, that player will take 2 actions per round with one action per dice. On your turn, you can change the results of the dice by spending workers (2 to 3, 6 to 1). Multiple workers can be used at once. Once you have a dice result you’re happy with, use those dice to take actions.

The actions include:

• Take a hexagonal tile
• Add a hexagonal tile to your realm
• Sell goods
• Take 2 workers

In addition to the 2 dice actions, you can purchase a hexagonal tile from the central black depot for 2 silverling coins at any point during your turn. If you choose to do so, place that purchased tile into your storage area.

Once the phase is over (5 rounds have been played), all players with mines will receive corresponding number of silverling coins. Some knowledge tiles may take effect. Once you’ve resolved all that, move on to the next phase.

Actions you can perform in Castles of Burgundy

Take hexagonal tile

When you elect to take this action, you will take a hexagonal tile in a depot corresponding to your dice roll (can be modified). When you do so, place it in storage. If storage is full, you must discard a prior tile, even if the second action is to place the new tile.

Add a tile from storage to your realm

Take a tile from your storage and place it in a space matching the dice roll on your player board. The new tile must be adjacent to a previous tile and match the color of the space.

Once you place a tile, each tile can activate an effect:

• Knowledge (yellow tiles)
• Ship (blue tiles)
• Animal (green tiles)
• Castles (dark green tiles) – take an additional action (as if you rolled an extra dice of any result)
• Mine (grey tiles) – no immediate effect, 1 silverling at end of each phase for each mine you have
• Building (beige tiles)

If, by placing a tile, you’ve successfully covered up an entire region, you’ll score points!

1. Depending on the size of the region, you’ll score between 1 and 36 points (table on game board)
2. Depending on phase of the game, you’ll score between 10 and 2 points (value below phase spaces)

Furthermore, if you’re the first player to cover all of one type of region on your player board, you’ll take the first bonus tile of that color. If you were the second player to do so, you’ll take the 2nd bonus tile. Points on bonus tile vary depending on the number of players (2 players – 5, 3 players – 6, etc).

Sell goods

You may elect to use your die roll to sell a good. To do so, you will sell a good matching the die result. All goods of that type will then be sold (turned over). For each sell action, you get 1 silverling outright (not per tile) and 2-4 points (for 2-4 players) for each tile you turned over.

Game End

The game ends after the 5th round of the 5th phase. Here’s how you score any remaining items:

• Each unsold good – 1 point
• Each silverling – 1 point
• Every 2 workers – 1 point
• Score for VP yellow tiles

More Information

Castles of Burgundy Yellow Knowledge tiles and what they do

Knowledge tiles give you certain bonuses to scoring and can even allow you to break certain rules so that your actions are more efficient.

1. Ignore rule of one building per type in your realm
2. One worker and one silverling per mine at end of phase
3. 2 Silverlings when sell goods
4. One worker and one silverling when sell goods
5. When using ship, take goods from two neighbouring spaces
6. May buy from all 7 depots
7. 1 victory point more per animal tile (not per animal)
8. Adjust by 2 per worker
9. Adjust all die used to place Buildings by +/- 1
10. Adjust all die used to place Ships or Animals by +/- 1
11. Adjust all die used to place Castles, Mines, or Knowledge by +/- 1
12. Adjust any die used to acquire new hexagonal tiles by +/- 1
13. Receive 1 silverling each time the player takes the “take 2 workers” action
14. Receives 4 workers each time the player takes the “take 2 workers” action
15. Receives 3 points for each good type that was sold at end of game
16. (16-23) Receive 4 points for each corresponding building in your realm
17. Receive 4 points for each animal type
18. Receive 1 point for each sold goods tile
19. Receive 2 points for each bonus tile claimed

Ship tiles

Whenever a you add a ship tile, you takes all goods on any one depot and place it in your goods storage. Goods of same color are placed in the same stack. If the storage is full, any remaining goods are left behind. The player then move the playing piece one space to the right of the turn order track. If it is occupied, the piece goes on top of the previous pieces. The rightmost and topmost player takes the first player position and white die and can go first the next round.

Animal tiles

Animal tiles score points immediately when placed. You get points equal to the number of animals in the tile plus previous placed animal tiles of the same type in the same pasture (connected light green spaces). The animal tiles do not have to be next to each other.

Castles of Burgundy Building tiles and what they do

A player may only place one building per type in city (unless they have the knowledge tile that allows them to break that rule). When you place a building, you’ll get an immediate effect:

• Warehouse – Sell good of player’s choice
• Carpenter’s workshop – Take a building tile from any numbered (not black) depot
• Church – Take mine, knowledge, or castle from any numbered depot
• Market – Take ship or animal from any numbered depot
• Boarding house – Take 4 workers
• Bank – Take 2 silverlings
• City Hall – Add a second hexagonal tile from storage to your realm
• Watchtower – Take 4 points