Score the most points by claiming and completing cities, roads, monasteries, and fields.
Shuffle all tiles, place the starting tile face-up, and give each player 7 meeples.
Shuffle all 71 land tiles face-down into a draw pile.
Place the single starting tile (darker back) face-up in the center of the table.
Give each player 7 meeples in their color.
Choose a first player — the game begins!
Draw a tile → place it → optionally deploy a meeple → score completed features.
Draw one tile and place it so its edges match all adjacent tiles (roads connect to roads, cities to cities, fields to fields).
Optionally place one meeple from your supply onto the tile you just placed: as a knight (city), highwayman (road), monk (monastery), or farmer (field).
If placing this tile completes any city, road, or monastery, score it now and return all meeples from that feature.
Complete cities quickly, sneak meeples into shared features, and dominate the fields.
Complete small cities (2–3 tiles) early for quick points and meeple returns.
You can share a city or road by playing adjacent tiles — whoever has more meeples scores it.
Farmers score big at game end but their meeples are locked until the last tile. Use sparingly.
Monasteries surrounded by 8 tiles score 9 points — place them centrally.
Watch opponents' meeple supply — crowding someone out of tiles can strand their followers.
Every edge of your tile must match all adjacent tiles. If you can't place it legally, discard and draw again.
You can't place a meeple on a feature that already has one — but tiles can merge two separate features with different meeples.
Completed cities score 2 points per tile (+ 2 per pennant). Incomplete at game end: 1 point per tile.
Completed roads (both ends closed) score 1 point per tile. Same for incomplete roads at game end.
Farmers (meeples lying flat) claim fields permanently until game end. They score 3 pts per completed city their field touches.
Score 1 point per surrounding tile (max 9 when fully surrounded). Incomplete at game end: 1 pt per tile including itself.
Ready to learn another game?
🎲 Browse all games