Clans of Caledonia rules refresher

Read the refresher

Your goal is to have the most victory points after five rounds. You get there by spreading your clan's units across the map, producing goods and income, trading at the Market, fulfilling Export contracts, and earning Glory from each round's Scoring tile.

For setup, build the map from the four Map modules on random sides, with the lettered rocks meeting in the middle in alphabetical order going clockwise. Draw four Port bonus tiles and place one beside the factory at each corner of the map, on the spot marked for your player count. In a two player game, the misty shaded spaces around the edge are out of play, but every loch stays in. Flip the Market board to the side for your player count, and put the clear price markers on the circled starting prices. Put the Export board on the side for your player count. Lay five random Scoring tiles face up in its slots, one for each round, so everyone can see what's coming. Place an Export contract face up on each box; in a three player game, one box stays empty. The Glory tokens and the Cotton, Tobacco and Sugar cane import tokens start off the board.

Each player fills their board with four each of Sheep, Cows, Cheese dairies, Bakeries, Fields and Distilleries. Put Workers on the four forest spots, which are Woodcutters, and the four mountain spots, which are Miners. Fill the Merchant track with five cubes and keep two Merchants in your stock. Put your Shipping token on the leftmost space and your two Technology tiles arrow side up. Take your four Port markers, your Settlement token, and an Export box tile on the side for your player count.

Pick a random start player; turn order in round one runs clockwise. Draw one more Clan tile than there are players, and pair each one with a random Starting tile. In reverse turn order, starting with the last player, each player picks a clan along with its Starting tile and takes the goods and money shown on it. Each clan has its own special abilities, so remind yourself of yours.

Then place your first Workers. Going clockwise from the start player, everyone deploys one Woodcutter on an empty forest space or one Miner on an empty mountain space. Then, going back the other way, everyone deploys a second Worker, which doesn't need to be next to the first. You pay for both the land and the Worker. Land costs one to six pounds, as printed on the space. A Woodcutter costs six and a Miner costs ten. A space only ever holds one unit.

Now the shape of the game. There are five rounds, and each round has four phases. First comes Preparation, which you skip in round one. Flip the previous Scoring tile face down, refill any empty Export boxes, and everyone takes their Merchants back from the Market. Second comes the Action phase. Going in turn order, each player takes exactly one action per turn until everyone has passed. The actions are Trade, Obtain an Export contract, Expand, Upgrade Shipping, Upgrade Technology, Hire a Merchant, Fulfil an Export contract, and Pass. You can take any of them repeatedly in a round, except Pass. When you pass, you're out for the round. Move your Turn order token to the leftmost open spot for next round and collect the passing bonus money shown there, even in the final round. The order of passing becomes next round's turn order. Third comes Production, and fourth comes Scoring, where everyone who meets the round's Scoring tile requirement gains the Glory it shows.

Here's how the actions work in more detail.

Trade uses the Merchants in your stock, not the ones still on your board. Choose one type of good. Place one Merchant per unit on that good's buy area or sell area, and pay or receive the current price for each unit. Then move the price marker one step per unit: up when buying, down when selling. You trade only one type of good per Trade action. You may never have your own Merchants on both the buy and sell side of the same good. Merchants stay on the Market until the next Preparation phase.

Obtain an Export contract lets you take any contract from the Export board onto your empty Export box. You pay the cost for the current round, shown next to the Scoring tiles. In round one, though, you receive five pounds instead of paying. You can only hold one unfulfilled contract, and you can never get rid of one.

Expand places one unit, taken from the top of its column on your board, onto an empty space. That space must be neighbouring, or within Shipping reach of, any of your units. Neighbouring means adjacent with no river between. You pay the unit cost printed above its column plus the land cost. Grassland takes Sheep, Cows, Fields and the three factories. Forest takes Woodcutters, and mountain takes Miners. A space with mixed land types allows any matching unit. Each unit you remove from your board reveals the income it will produce.

Expanding also triggers two bonuses. The Neighbourhood bonus applies when you expand next to an opponent's unit. You may immediately buy the good that unit produces, using your Merchants as normal. Basic goods are two pounds cheaper and processed goods are three pounds cheaper, and prices still move afterward. You can do this for each neighbouring opponent unit. However, you can never buy more than three of the same good this way in a turn, or four in a two player game. The Building bonus applies when you place your fourth Cheese dairy, Bakery or Distillery while your Export box is empty. Draw three contracts, keep one or none, and pay for it as normal. The rest go to the bottom of the pile. You may take these two bonuses in either order, but only after the expand is finished.

Upgrade Shipping costs four pounds and moves your Shipping marker one space right. With no shipping, you can't cross any water. The first upgrade, river crossing, lets you cross a river to an adjacent space. The next level lets you cross one loch space instead, then two loch spaces, and so on. No matter your level, you can never jump over a land space, not even along a river.

Upgrade Technology costs ten pounds and flips one Technology tile, so that kind of Worker earns two pounds more. Hire a Merchant costs four pounds and moves a cube from your board into your stock.

Fulfil an Export contract means paying the goods on the left of the contract and taking everything on the right. Contracts never ask for Grain or Milk. Meat must be paid by slaughtering. Beef comes from a Cow and mutton from a Sheep: you return the animal from the map to your board, which frees its space and cuts that production. When you import Cotton, Tobacco or Sugar cane, immediately move that token along the Export board track one step per unit. If it reaches or passes a marked step, you gain one pound. If you forget at that moment, you lose that pound. Lay the finished contract face up beside your box. The direct bonuses come in three kinds, taken in any order. Money is paid out straight away. A free space gives an Expand action without the land cost, though you still pay for the unit and all normal rules apply. A bonus upgrade gives a choice: Technology for just five pounds, Shipping for free, or a free Merchant, either hired from your board or pulled back from the Market.

Port bonus tiles are a free action, used before or after your main action. You can use a tile if it's neighbouring, or within Shipping reach of, any of your units. Each player may use each Port tile only once in the game. Mark it with one of your Port markers. You can use several in one turn.

In Production, Woodcutters earn four pounds each, or six upgraded. Miners earn six each, or eight upgraded. Each Sheep makes one Wool, each Cow one Milk, and each Field two Grain. After that, you may convert goods. Each Cheese dairy can turn one Milk into one Cheese. Each Bakery can turn one Grain into one Bread, and each Distillery one Grain into one Whisky. The inputs can come from anything in your stock, including goods produced moments ago.

The game ends after the fifth round's Scoring phase. You score one point per step on the Glory track. Each basic good in stock scores one point and each processed good scores two. Money scores one point per ten pounds. Hops score one point each, counted from your fulfilled contracts. Cotton, Tobacco and Sugar cane are scored by rarity across the whole table. The one whose token went furthest on the track is worth three each, the next is worth four, and the least imported is worth five. If import amounts tie, Cotton counts as rarest, then Tobacco, then Sugar cane.

Then come two majority awards. For fulfilled Export contracts, with three or four players, the most earns twelve points and second earns six. With two players, only the most scores, and it earns eight. For Settlements, a settlement is any cluster of your neighbouring units, and a lone unit counts as one. Count only your largest group of settlements that are all within Shipping reach of each other. With three or four players, the most scores eighteen, then twelve, then six. With two players, only the most scores, and it earns twelve. In either award, tied players pool the points for the places they occupy and split them evenly, rounding down. The highest total wins, and leftover money breaks ties.

A turn, played out

Round 3, three players, and you are green. You hold 41 pounds, 2 Wool, no Cheese, and 4 Merchants in your stock. Your Export box holds a contract asking for 3 Cheese and 2 Wool, and paying 2 Cotton plus a bonus upgrade. You could spend 10 pounds flipping your Miner Technology tile, but that contract is worth more, so you Expand. A grassland space with a land cost of 2 sits directly beside your Sheep, with no river between. It also touches a blue Cheese dairy and a red Cheese dairy. You take the top Cow from its column, pay the cost printed above that column plus 2 for the land, and place it. The empty slot on your board now shows the income that Cow will bring. With the expand finished, the Neighbourhood bonus kicks in. Cheese stands at 12 on the Market, and a processed good is 3 cheaper this way. For blue's dairy, you put 2 Merchants on the Cheese buy area and pay 9 each, 18 in total. The marker then climbs 2 steps, to 14. Red's dairy offers more at 11 each, and you would happily take 2, since spare Cheese scores 2 points at the end. But with 3 players you can never buy more than 3 of the same good this way in a turn. You already have 2, so you place 1 Merchant, pay 11, and the marker climbs to 15. Your fourth Merchant stays in your stock. Blue and red each take a turn. Then you Fulfil the contract: you hand over 3 Cheese and 2 Wool, and take 2 Cotton. The Cotton token moves 2 steps along the Export board track and passes a marked step, so you claim 1 pound on the spot. For the bonus upgrade, you skip Technology for 5 pounds and the free Merchant, and take free Shipping. Your marker moves right to river crossing, so the forest across the river from your Woodcutter is now in reach. The finished contract goes face up beside your box, which is empty again.