Azul
50 questions players ask about Azul, answered in plain words and graded by where the answer comes from. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-10-29.
50 questions players ask about Azul, answered in plain words and graded by where the answer comes from. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-10-29.
This is stated directly in the setup steps.
The player who has most recently visited Portugal takes the starting player marker and fills the factory displays, and so goes first. The rulebook gives no other way to choose.
The Factory offer rules describe the marker being placed in the centre first.
No. At the start of the round the starting player puts the marker in the centre of the table and takes the first turn. The marker only goes to a floor line when a player first picks tiles from the centre, so the first player has no penalty for it in round one.
The setup text says tiles are randomly drawn and sets no colour limit.
No. Each factory is filled with exactly 4 tiles drawn at random, so it can hold up to four of one colour. A two-per-factory limit is a house rule and appears nowhere in the rulebook.
The setup rules require all players to use the same side.
No. The rules say every player must use the same side, either the coloured wall or the gray variant side. Mixing sides is only a house rule.
Several players agree and nothing in the rules allows secrecy.
No. Boards are open information and no rule lets you screen them. Hiding boards would only be a casual house rule.
Two players derive or cite the same figure; it is not official.
Players commonly cite 240 points, reached only in an idealized game with no broken tiles, every colour completed and the starting marker never taken. It is a theoretical figure, not something the rulebook states.
Turn options in the Factory offer are mandatory and allow no passing.
You must take every tile of one colour from a single factory display or from the centre. You cannot pass or take zero tiles, even if every tile will land on your floor line.
The Floor line rule covers tiles you cannot place.
Yes. You may take any colour, and tiles you cannot or do not want to place go to your floor line from left to right. This also applies when you are forced to take the last tiles in the centre.
The Floor line rule explicitly includes tiles you do not want to place.
Yes. Any tiles you picked that you "do not want to place" go to the floor line, so taking the penalty on purpose is legal.
The Factory offer rule says to add the picked tiles to one pattern line, with excess going to the floor.
No. All tiles taken in one turn go to a single pattern line; whatever does not fit goes to the floor line, even if another line could take it. The same colour may be built in different lines over separate turns.
The relayed intent is clear but second-hand; the rulebook wording alone is ambiguous and players disagree.
Intended answer: no. Place as many tiles as fit in the chosen line and only the excess goes to the floor; you may instead send the whole pick to the floor. The publisher relayed the designer's intent in 2022, but the "do not want to place" wording led some players to read partial placement as legal.
Several players agree, following from the turn rules.
No. You take the marker only as a side effect of picking all tiles of one colour from the centre, so it cannot be taken on its own.
Option b of the turn lets you pick from the centre at any time.
Yes. Once tiles have been pushed to the centre, you may take them on any turn. Tiles you leave there stay available for later turns.
The Factory offer section states the end condition.
It ends only when the centre and every factory display are empty. Players take differing numbers of tiles per turn, so turn counts need not be equal, and the bag running out does not end the round.
Spelled out in the Factory offer and Preparing the next round rules.
The first player to pick from the centre in a round takes the marker onto the leftmost free space of their floor line. That player starts the next round and returns the marker to the centre at the start of that round.
The Scoring section notes it counts as a normal floor tile.
Yes. It counts as a normal tile in your floor line, so it costs the penalty of the space it occupies. After scoring it is placed in front of you rather than the box lid. Holding it when the game ends changes nothing special.
The designer's answer is only relayed second-hand by a player.
The previous starting player simply remains the starting player and takes no marker, so no penalty from it. This was reported as the designer's answer, who said the situation is too unlikely to be in the official rules.
The rulebook never states this directly; several players and a self-identified publisher reply agree, and the rulebook illustration shows it.
Yes. You may build several unfinished lines of one colour, started on different turns, provided the matching wall row does not already hold that colour. You may add to only one line per turn, and you need not finish one line before starting another.
This restriction is spelled out at the end of the Factory offer rules.
No. Tiles of that colour cannot go in that pattern line, so you would put them on the floor line or pick another colour. The rule applies from the second round onward because the wall starts empty.
Several players agree and no rule allows rearranging.
No. Tiles on a pattern line stay in it until the line is completed and its rightmost tile moves to the wall; wall tiles never move. A line can only receive more tiles of its own colour.
There is no official procedure. The usual advice is to undo the move if it was just made; otherwise move the illegal tiles to the floor line, since tiles that cannot be placed according to the rules belong there. Groups may also allow a legal correction.
The line stays unfinished. Tiles only return to play when discards refill the bag, so if a colour is exhausted you simply cannot finish it. Players treat this as bad luck, and unfinished lines cost no points.
The Floor line rule sends overflow tiles to the lid.
The floor line has seven spaces, so a round can cost at most 14 points. Extra tiles beyond the last space go to the box lid with no further penalty.
The Scoring section says you can never drop below 0 points.
No. Penalties can reduce your score only to 0, never below, so unused penalty points are lost.
The Scoring section says to remove all floor tiles after deducting.
No. Penalties are applied at the end of every wall-tiling phase and the floor line is then emptied, so nothing carries forward.
Wall-tiling starts only once the Factory offer phase has ended.
Only in the wall-tiling phase, after every tile has been drafted from the factories and the centre. Moving a tile as soon as its line fills is a common mistake and changes the scoring.
The wall-tiling steps say top to bottom, scoring each time a tile moves.
Work from the top pattern line to the bottom, moving the rightmost tile of each complete line and scoring it immediately before the next one. Do not place everything first and then score; order changes the result.
The Scoring section describes exactly this procedure.
A tile with no adjacent tiles scores 1. Otherwise count the horizontal run it joins (including itself) if there is one, then the vertical run (including itself) if there is one, and add both. A direction with no neighbours adds nothing, so a tile linked only horizontally to two others scores 3, and one in a row of 3 and a column of 3 scores 6.
The rule scores each tile immediately as it is moved.
No. Each tile scores once, when it moves to the wall, counting its neighbours at that moment. Only the newly placed tiles score each round.
Several players quote the same designer ruling and later printed rule; the rulebook text used here predates it.
All tiles of that pattern line go to your floor line, not just one. This happens on the gray side when the tile's row has no space left that is not in a column already holding that colour. The designer ruled this and later rulebook printings added it as a special case; the version in this repository omits it.
Several players agree and the rulebook has incomplete lines staying.
No choice. Tiles go to the floor when drafted; in wall-tiling only a complete line with no legal wall space is forced to the floor. Incomplete lines simply stay on the board for the next round.
The Preparing the next round rules describe lid tiles refilling the bag only when it runs out.
Discards go into the box lid. Only when the bag is empty while you are filling the factories do you pour the lid tiles back into the bag and continue. Refilling happens as needed, so it can occur several times in a game, but not before the bag is empty.
The rulebook covers this case explicitly.
Refill the bag from the lid first. If the lid is empty too, start the round anyway with the tiles available, leaving some factories short. This is rare but can happen in late rounds of a four-player game.
The End of the game section places the end after the Wall-tiling phase.
No. The game ends after the wall-tiling phase of the round in which at least one player completes a horizontal row of five. Everyone finishes the round, so others can complete rows too. Games typically last five or six rounds.
Running out of tiles is covered in round preparation, not as an end condition.
No. Only a completed horizontal row ends the game. If the bag and lid are exhausted you just continue with whatever tiles remain.
Floor deductions are part of wall-tiling, which precedes final scoring.
Yes. Everyone completes the last wall-tiling phase normally, including floor deductions, and then the bonus points are added.
The End of the game section lists the values.
After the game ends, each complete horizontal row scores 2, each complete vertical column 7, and each colour with all five tiles on your wall 10. You can earn several of each. They are scored only at the end, not when completed.
The End of the game section lists only bonuses and no penalty.
No. Unfinished lines neither score nor lose points when the game ends; only the bonus scoring applies.
The End of the game section states the tie-break.
The tied player with more complete horizontal rows wins. If that is also equal, the victory is shared; players report this happens occasionally.
The Variant play section covers columns and the Factory offer rule covers rows.
No, neither. The variant's own rule forbids repeating a colour in any vertical column, and the normal pattern-line restriction keeps a colour from entering a wall row that already holds it. Older printings did not state the row part.
One answer from the expansion forum; no other source.
No. The coloured space is not reserved for that colour. You can play the colour elsewhere in the line, but then the special space stays empty.
Two players agree; another disputes.
An empty printed space does not stop that colour being placed elsewhere in its row or column, but doing so uses that colour up in the line, so the printed space stays empty. Players also report that once the printed space is filled, the same colour cannot be repeated in that column, as on the gray side.
A single player explains this; no official source.
Crystal Mosaic x2 spaces are printed on the board and double the score when covered, and you can cover several. Special Factories x2 tiles are claimed by matching colour, and each is used only once.
Several players give the same advice; no official ruling.
Not by the rules, which have all players use the same side up. Players say it works but is unbalanced because the boards score differently and one has double-bonus spaces.
Several players give the same reading.
They count toward complete rows and columns, since they are physical tiles on the wall, but not toward the 10-point colour bonus.
One player quotes the rule; unconfirmed elsewhere.
Yes. The additional rules let any wall line contain several Joker tiles.
A Joker on the gray side never blocks other tiles, because it takes the colour of the wall space beneath it and the gray side has no coloured spaces. Whether a Joker may be placed in a column that already holds its pattern line's colour is disputed and the Joker rules do not say.
You can avoid the problem by taking only the colour tile. If you must overflow, players disagree on whether you may choose which tile goes to the floor. Nothing in the rules requires Jokers to be placed first during drafting; the Joker-to-rightmost-space rule applies only in wall-tiling.
A single player states this.
Only one per player for the whole game, so the tiles cannot be stockpiled.
One player gives a reading; another prefers a different one.
Probably the first player of the round, since the marker taken this round only changes order next round. Another player prefers using the current marker holder for convenience, so the rules are not settled on this.