Orléans rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are chasing the most victory points, scored from coins, goods, and above all from your trading stations and citizen tiles multiplied by how far you have developed. You get there by pulling followers out of your bag each round, assigning them to places, and using those actions to recruit more followers, expand your city, and travel the map.

For setup, each player takes a bag, five coins, a player board, ten trading stations, seven wooden markers, and a merchant token that starts in Orléans. Put one marker on the first space of each of the six character tracks and one on the first space of the development track, so your development status starts at one. Your four coloured followers, the farmer, boatman, craftsman, and trader, go on the market spaces of your board, not in the bag. Sort the neutral character tiles onto their buildings on the main board, stack the technology tiles on their space, and sort the place tiles into two stacks by the Roman numeral on the back. Thirteen citizen tiles go on the marked spaces of the main board and the Beneficial Deeds board, and the fourteenth waits on the table. Pull the lighter Pilgrimage hour glass tile out, shuffle the other seventeen, then put Pilgrimage face down on top, so the first round is always Pilgrimage. Shuffle the goods tiles face down and deal one face up onto each road and waterway space, then sort the leftovers onto the goods market. At two and three players you also remove a batch of neutral character tiles and some goods, at three players the spaces marked with a four stay empty, and at two players the spaces marked with a three or a four stay empty. Youngest player is start player.

The game lasts eighteen rounds, each with seven phases. The start player flips an hour glass tile, which sets this round's event. Then the census pays and taxes players on the farmers track. Then everyone draws followers from their bag onto their market. Then the planning phase, where you assign those followers onto action spaces. Then the action phase, going around the table one action at a time until everyone has passed. Then the event resolves. Then the start player token moves one seat to the left.

Now the detail. In the census, whoever is furthest ahead on the farmers track takes a coin from the supply, and whoever is furthest behind pays one. Any tie means nobody gains or nobody pays. At two players, the trailing player does not pay, but the leader still collects.

In the followers phase you may draw up to the number shown by your marker on the knights track, starting at four, and you may never draw more than your market can hold. Unused tiles stay on the market and clog it. For each follower you choose not to draw, you may instead move one character tile from an action space back to your market.

In planning, you place tiles from your market onto the action spaces of places. A place is only activated once every one of its spaces is filled. You can fill a place across several rounds, and an activated place you don't use stays loaded for later. You cannot shift a tile from one action space to another.

In the action phase, beginning with the start player and going clockwise, you either take one action or pass. Once you pass you are out for the rest of the round. After performing an action, the followers from it go back into your bag. Technology tiles never come off; they stay on their space for the rest of the game.

The core places work like this. The farm house gets you a farmer, moves you up the farmers track, and pays the good shown. The village lets you choose one of three: a boatman, which advances the boatmen track and pays coins, with the first player reaching the last space getting a citizen tile instead; a craftsman, which advances the craftsmen track and gives a technology tile, usable only after you have passed; or a trader, which advances the traders track and lets you take a place tile, from stack one on your first advance and from either stack afterwards. The university gets a scholar and development points. The castle gets a knight and raises how many followers you draw, up to seven, and the first player to take the fourth knight gets a citizen tile. The monastery gets a monk, and monks can stand in for any other character tile, though nothing can stand in for a monk. Once your marker is on the last space of a track, you can no longer take that action.

Technology tiles have their own rules. Your first one in the game must replace a farmer. After that they may replace anything except a monk. Only one technology tile per place, never at a place that needs only a single tile, and never moved once placed.

The ship moves your merchant along a blue waterway to an adjacent town, and the wagon does the same along a brown road; either way you may take one goods tile from the connection you used. Empty connections are fine, you just get nothing. The guildhall builds a trading station in the town your merchant is in, provided no station is there already, and Orléans is the exception where every player may build one. The scriptorium gives one development point.

The town hall takes one or two character tiles, and it activates even with just one. Using it sends those tiles to free matching spaces on the Beneficial Deeds board for one, two, or three coins each, or on Canalization a coin or a development point. Filling the last space of a deed earns you its citizen tile. Those spaces demand the exact character shown, so no monk substitutions, and the tiles stay there for good. You may never send your own coloured followers to the town hall.

On the development track, moving onto or past a coin space pays you, and the first player onto or past a citizen tile space takes it. Passing a status space raises your development status to that value, which matters for the income event, and for scoring at the end.

The events come three of each. Pilgrimage blocks recruiting monks and is the only one that applies during the action phase. Income pays coins equal to your development status. Harvest costs one food, meaning grain, cheese, or wine, returned to the goods market, or five coins if you have no food. Taxes cost one coin per three goods you hold. Trading day pays one coin per trading station you built. Plague makes you draw a random tile from your bag and return it to the board, though drawing one of your own coloured followers means you lose nothing. If you ever cannot pay, you undergo torture, replacing each missing coin with a trading station, a random follower from your bag, a step back on the development track that does not cross a coin space, a goods tile, a place tile, or a technology tile, in any mix. Everything lost that way leaves the game, apart from development points, which you can earn back.

After the eighteenth round the game ends. Before scoring, whoever has built the most trading stations takes the last citizen tile, and on a tie nobody does. Then score one point per coin, and for goods: brocade five, wool four, wine three, cheese two, grain one. Finally, add up your built trading stations and your citizen tiles and multiply that total by your development status. Most points wins. A tie goes to the player further along the development track, and if that is still tied, you share the win.

A turn, played out

It is round 9, and you are start player. You flip the hour glass tile: Harvest. In the census you alone lead the farmers track, so you take a coin. The player to your right alone trails it and pays one. Your knights marker shows 5, so you draw 5 tiles from your bag onto your market: a neutral trader, a monk, a knight, a scholar and a farmer. In planning, the trader goes onto the town hall, which activates with just that one tile. Your ship has sat half loaded since last round with one empty space. The monk fills it, because a monk can stand in for any character. The ship is now activated. The other 3 tiles stay on your market for later rounds. In the action phase you go first and use the town hall. A deed on the Beneficial Deeds board has one free space left, showing a trader and worth 2 coins. Your trader goes there, and it stays for good. You take the 2 coins. You filled the deed's last space, so its citizen tile is yours. The player to your left takes an action, and so does the next player. Then it is your turn again, and you use the ship. Your merchant sails from Orléans down a blue waterway to the adjacent town, and you take the cheese tile lying on that waterway. The monk and the other tile from the ship drop back into your bag. You pass. Harvest now resolves. You hold 1 grain, 1 cheese and 1 brocade. The grain goes back to the goods market, and the cheese, worth 2 points at the end, stays. That new citizen tile will score once, times your development status, currently 3.