Overview

The players place land tiles turn by turn. As they do so, the roads, cities, fields, and cloisters emerge and grow. On these, the players can deploy their followers to earn points. Players score points during the game and at the end. The player with the most points after the final scoring is the winner.

Preparation

Place the starting tile face up in the middle of the table. Shuffle the remaining land tiles face down and stack them in several face-down stacks so that all players have easy access to them. Place the scoring track near one edge of the table to leave room for the players to place land tiles in the middle of the table.

Playing the game

Players take turns in clockwise order beginning with the starting player. On a player's turn, he executes the following actions in the order shown:

1. The player must draw and place a new land tile.

2. The player may deploy one of his followers from his supply to the land tile he just placed.

3. If, by placing the land tile, cloisters, roads, or cities are completed, they are now scored.

Placing land tiles

First a player must draw a land tile from one of the face-down stacks. He looks at it, shows it to his fellow players (so they can advise him on the "best" placement of the tile), and places it on the table, using the following rules:

• The new tile (with red borders in the examples) must be placed with at least one edge abutting one previously placed tile. The new tile may not simply be placed corner to corner with a previous tile.
• The new tile must be placed so that all field, city, and road segments on the new tile continue to field, city and road segments on all abutting tiles (cloisters are always complete within single tiles).

In the rare circumstance where a drawn tile has no legal placement (and all players agree), the player discards the tile from the game (into the box) and draws another tile to place.

Deploying followers

After the player places a land tile, he may deploy one of his followers, using the following rules:

• The player must only play 1 follower on a turn
• The player must take it from his supply
• The player may only deploy it to the tile he just placed
• The player must choose where to deploy the follower on the tile: knight (in a city segment), thief (on a road segment), farmer (in a field segment), or monk (in a cloister)
• The player may not deploy a follower on a field, city, or road segment if that segment connects to a segment on another tile (no matter how far away) that already has a follower (from any player) on it.

When a player has deployed all his followers, he continues to play land tiles each turn. Although a follower may not be recalled, followers are returned to players when cloisters, roads, and cities are scored.

Scoring completed cloisters, roads and cities

If a cloister, road, or city is completed by the placement of the land tile, it is now scored.

Completed road

A road is complete when the road segments on both ends connect to a crossing, a city segment, or a cloister, or when the road forms a complete loop. There may be many road segments between the ends. The player who has a thief on a completed road scores one point for each tile in the completed road (count the number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count just once).

The player moves his scoring marker forward on the scoring track a number of spaces equal to the points earned. If you pass 50 on the scoring track, lay your marker down to indicated a score greater than 50 and continue along the track.

Completed city

A city is complete when the city is completely surrounded by a city wall and there are no gaps in the wall. There may be many city segments in a city. The player who has a knight in a completed city scores two points for each tile in the city (count the number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count once). Each pennant on segments in the city earns the player 2 points.

What happens when a completed city or road has more than one follower?

It is possible through clever placement of land tiles for there to be more than one thief on a road or more than one knight in a city. When this occurs in a completed road or city, the player with the most thieves (one a road) or the most knights (in a city) earns all the points. When two or more players tie with the most thieves or knights, they each earn the total points for the road or city.

Completed cloister

A cloister is complete when the tile it is on is completely surrounded by land tiles. The player with a monk in the cloister earns 9 points (1 for the cloister tile and 1 each for the other tiles).

Returning followers to players' supplies

After a road, a city, or a cloister is scored (and only then), the followers involved are returned to the appropriate players' supplies. The returned followers may be used by the players as any of the possible followers (thief, farmer, knight, or monk) in later turns.

It is possible for a player to deploy a follower, score a road, city, or cloister, and have the follower returned on the same turn (always in this order).

1. Complete a road or city by placing the new tile.

2. Deploy a knight or thief.

3. Score the completed city or road.

4. Return the knight or thief.

The farms

Connected field segments are called farms. Farms are not scored. They exist only as places to deploy farmers. Farmers are only scored in the final scoring. Farmers remain in the field segment where they are deployed for the entire game and are never returned to the players' supplies! Farms are bordered by roads, cities, and the edge of the area where the land tiles have been played.

Game end

At the end of the player's turn in which the last land tile is placed, the game ends. Then follows the final scoring.

Final scoring

First, all incomplete cities, roads, and cloisters are scored. For each incomplete road and city, the player, who has a thief on the road or knight in the city, earns one point for each road or city segment. Pennants are worth 1 point each. For incomplete roads and cities with more than one follower, use the rules for completed roads and cities to determine who scores. For an incomplete cloister, the player with the monk on the cloister earns 1 point for the cloister and 1 point for each land tile surrounding it.

As farmers supply cities, they score points accordingly

Farmers score as shown below:

• Only completed cities are used for scoring farmers
• The farm must border a completed city to supply it. The distance of the farmer to the city is unimportant.
• For each city a farm supplies, the player who deployed the farmer earns 4 points, regardless of the size of the city.
• A farmer can supply (and score) several cities when they are adjacent to his farm.
• Several farms can supply a single city. In such a case, the player with the most farmers in the farms supplying the city earns the 4 points. If two or more players tie with the most farmers, each of those tied for most earns 4 points.

In this way, all cities are scored one by one. When all cities have been scored, the final scoring is complete. The player with the most points is the winner!

Tips:

• Place farmers so they are lying in their fields so that all players can more easily see which fields they are in.
• Remove followers as you score the unfinished roads, cities, and cloisters. This will make scoring the farms easier.

Variants using the 12 expansion river tiles

Remove the special starting tile from the game. Instead, begin the game by laying the spring that starts the river. Set aside the lake tile and shuffle the remaining 10 river tiles face down and draw from these before drawing from the tiles from the normal game. These tiles are played and followers may be played as in the normal game with one exception: a river tile may not be placed so that the river makes a "U" turn. Followers may not be placed on rivers. Once these 10 river tiles have been played, the next player plays the lake and then play continues with the normal tiles.