Basilica Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Game Components
  • The Board
• Game Preparation
• Game Start
• Turn Sequence
• The Three Possible Actions
  • Action: Place Vault
  • Action: Place Builder
  • Action: Execute Order
    • Paid Orders for the Opponent
• Refilling Order and Vault Spaces
• Tile Stack Exhaustion
• Movement of the King Along the Score Track
• Scoring Points
• Areas
• Wild Tiles and Areas
• Checking Majorities and Calculating Points for Areas
• Score Track
• Continuing Play After Scoring Points
• Game End
• Order Descriptions
  • Order: Promote
  • Order: Move Builder
  • Order: Recruit
  • Order: Confuse
  • Order: Stained Glass
  • Order: Scaffolding
  • Order: Disaster
• Ranks
• Credits

Overview

During their turns, players place tiles that enlarge the cathedral, forming same-colored areas, and they place cubes representing their builders onto these tiles to gain an advantage in an area and control it for themselves. In addition, players execute orders to move or remove builders, increase builder abilities, block spaces, or tear down parts of the cathedral built earlier. Points are scored three times over the course of the game, and the game ends after the third scoring.

Game Components

• 58 cathedral tiles: four 10-tile sets, one per color (yellow, blue, red, green), plus 18 two-color (wild) tiles
• 8 scaffolding tiles
• 12 stained glass tokens
• 8 promotion tokens (4 per player)
• 2 coin tokens (1 per player)
• 2 score tokens (1 per player)
• 12 builder cubes (6 per player)
• 1 board
• 1 king pawn
• this manual

Each cathedral tile shows a cathedral vault on one side and an order symbol on the other. Depending on the player's choice, a tile can be used to build a new vault in the cathedral, or to carry out the order printed on its back (see Order Descriptions below).

The tile set includes both single-color tiles and two-color (wild) tiles. A wild tile counts as having both of its colors at once. What that means for building areas is explained under Wild Tiles and Areas below.

The Board

• A — Score track
• B — Order spaces (3 spaces, holding the 3 order tiles currently available)
• C — Vault spaces (3 spaces, holding the 3 vault tiles currently available)
• D — Base of the board, with 5 starting slots for tiles

Game Preparation

1. Place the board on the table.
2. Each player takes a coin token, 6 builder cubes, and 4 promotion tokens, all in the same color. These form that player's supply.
3. Each player puts one of their builder cubes just before the "1" space of the score track — this cube marks that player's score throughout the game.
4. Place the king pawn just before the first space of the score track as well.
5. Thoroughly shuffle all the cathedral tiles with their order sides face up, then stack them beside the board.
6. Set aside a space near the board for tiles that get discarded during play.
7. Place the remaining components — scaffolding tiles, stained glass tokens, score tokens — near the board.
8. Draw 3 tiles from the stack and place them order-side up on the board's 3 order spaces.
9. Draw 3 more tiles from the stack and place them vault-side up on the board's 3 vault spaces.

Game Start

Whoever most recently visited any cathedral, basilica, or medieval church takes the first turn. If neither player has visited such a place, use any other type of temple or sacred site instead. If both players last visited at the same time, the younger player goes first.

Turn Sequence

Players alternate turns: player A's turn, then player B's turn, and so on. On a turn, a player must perform exactly three of the possible actions — passing, or performing fewer than three actions, is not allowed. After the third action, the turn passes to the opponent.

The three possible actions are:

• Place Vault
• Place Builder (only possible immediately after Place Vault)
• Execute Order

A player may perform any combination of the three actions, with the restriction that Place Builder can only follow immediately after Place Vault.

Example turns:

• A) 1 – Place Vault, 2 – Execute Order, 3 – Place Vault
• B) 1 – Execute Order, 2 – Execute Order, 3 – Place Vault
• C) 1 – Place Vault, 2 – Place Builder, 3 – Execute Order

The Three Possible Actions

Note: in this game, "adjacent" always means horizontally or vertically adjacent, never diagonally.

Action: Place Vault

Choose one of the 3 vault tiles on the board's vault spaces and place it in the cathedral, following these rules:

• It must be adjacent to another tile (vault or scaffolding) or to one of the starting slots on the board.
• It must be placed within the 5-tile-wide cathedral plan marked out by the 5 board slots.
• Wild tiles can never be placed adjacent to other wild tiles.

A tile placed touching nothing is illegal, as is a tile placed outside the 5-wide plan, or a wild tile placed next to another wild tile.

In rare cases a player taking the Place Vault action may be unable to place any of the 3 available vault tiles (this happens if all 3 are wild and every legal spot would put them next to another wild tile). When this happens, discard all 3 vault tiles from the board's vault spaces and replace them with 3 new tiles drawn from the stack.

Action: Place Builder

This action can only be taken immediately after Place Vault. The player places one of their own builder cubes onto the tile that was just placed during their Place Vault action this turn — it cannot go on any other tile.

The player must have a builder cube available in their supply. If all of a player's builders are already on the board, that player cannot perform Place Builder until one of their builders is removed from the cathedral and returned to their supply.

Note: a vault tile can never hold more than one builder.

Action: Execute Order

Take one of the 3 order tiles from the board's order spaces and carry out the order it shows (once), then discard the tile to the discard pile. Orders let a player add, move, or remove builders, remove vaults from the cathedral, and so on — see Order Descriptions below for the full list.

Immediately draw a new tile from the top of the stack and place it order-side up on the now-empty order space.

Paid Orders for the Opponent

Some order tiles also offer a paid order for the opponent. These tiles carry a coin icon together with a box showing the symbols of the specific paid order. When a player executes such an order, the opponent may hand over one coin (if she has one) to immediately perform the paid order shown — outside of her own turn. The paid order always happens after the main order on the tile.

Note: performing a paid order during the opponent's turn does not reduce the number of actions that player gets on her own next turn.

Refilling Order and Vault Spaces

The board's 3 order spaces and 3 vault spaces must always hold a tile each.

• Whenever a vault tile is taken from the board, immediately refill that vault space: take the order tile lying directly above it, flip it to its vault side, and place it there.
• Whenever an order tile is taken from an order space (whether to execute its order, or to be flipped and moved to a vault space), immediately refill that order space with a new tile drawn from the stack.

Refilling always happens right after the action that emptied the space.

Tile Stack Exhaustion

If the tile stack runs out, shuffle all discarded tiles together to form a new stack.

If the stack runs out a second time, the game ends at the exact moment a tile is needed to refill an empty board space but none remain. Because of this, the game may end before the third scheduled scoring — in that case, perform the third (final) scoring immediately once the game ends.

Movement of the King Along the Score Track

The king starts the game just before the first space of the score track and moves forward as the game progresses, marking the passage of time and triggering the three scorings.

• Whenever a player adds a vault tile showing a crown symbol to the cathedral, move the king forward one space.
• Whenever the king lands on a score-track space marked with a crown, the current player's turn ends immediately and scoring is calculated.

Scoring Points

Points are scored immediately whenever the king moves onto a crown-marked space on the score track. This automatically ends the current player's turn, even if that player has not yet performed all three of their actions. The third such scoring automatically ends the game.

During scoring, players check every area formed by vaults in the cathedral and calculate the points each area is worth.

Areas

Vaults in the cathedral connect into areas defined by tile color. An area is a connected group of adjacent tiles all of the same color (red, yellow, green, or blue).

• There can be more than one area of the same color, as long as no tile of one area is adjacent to a tile of the other.
• A single tile with no same-colored tile adjacent to it forms its own one-tile area.
• Areas of the same color that touch only diagonally are not connected, and therefore do not form one area.

Wild Tiles and Areas

Two-color tiles are wild. A wild tile is treated as belonging to both of its colors at once, so it can be part of two different areas simultaneously. However, if a wild tile belongs to two areas of different colors, it does not merge them into a single area.

Note: unlike an ordinary vault tile, a lone wild tile does NOT form a one-tile area for a given color unless it is adjacent to at least one other tile of that color.

Checking Majorities and Calculating Points for Areas

When scoring an area, determine who holds the majority there and how much the area is worth:

• The player with more builders in the area scores 1 victory point for every tile in the area.
• The player with fewer builders in the area scores 1 point for each of their own builders in the area.
• If both players have the same number of builders in the area, neither scores any points for it.

Ignore any area that contains no builders at all — it scores nothing.

Note: when working out an area's value and majority, take promotions and stained glass into account (see the individual order descriptions below).

Score Track

Players mark points earned by moving their cube forward on the score track by the number of points scored.

If a player's marker passes space 30, it wraps back to the start of the track and that player takes their score token, showing the "+30" side face up. If the marker passes space 30 again, it wraps around once more and the score token is flipped to its "+60" side.

Continuing Play After Scoring Points

1. Remove builders and promotion tokens. After scoring, both players take all of their builders and promotion tokens off the cathedral and return them to their supplies.
2. Remove cathedral tiles. Part of the cathedral is now considered finished: discard the two rows of cathedral tiles closest to the board (removing any stained glass tokens on those discarded tiles as well), then slide the remaining tiles forward until they touch the board, keeping their relative arrangement unchanged. Also remove all scaffolding tiles regardless of where they are. Stained glass tokens on tiles that were NOT discarded stay in place.
3. Continue play. The next turn belongs to the opponent of whoever's turn triggered the scoring.

Game End

The game ends immediately at whichever of these happens first: the third point scoring, or the second time the tile stack runs out (see Tile Stack Exhaustion above). In the latter case, points are scored one final time.

The player with the most points at the end of the game wins. Equal scores are a tie.

Order Descriptions

Order: Promote

Promote one of your builders already in the cathedral: take one of your promotion tokens, turn the side showing the desired rank face up, and place it under that builder. See Ranks below for what each rank does.

A builder that has already been promoted can be promoted again — replace its promotion token with a new one from your supply. A promotion token always stays with its builder: if a promoted builder is removed from the board, its promotion token comes off too and returns to its owner's supply.

The supply of promotion tokens is limited. If you have none left in your supply, you cannot promote another builder.

Paid order for the opponent (cost: 1 coin): The opponent may also promote one of her builders, but must choose a different rank than the one you just assigned.

Order: Move Builder

Move one of your builders from its tile to an adjacent vault tile. Note: each tile can hold at most one builder.

Order: Recruit

Place a builder on any unoccupied vault tile in the cathedral.

Paid order for the opponent (cost: 1 coin): The opponent may place one builder on an unoccupied tile adjacent to a tile where she already has a builder.

Order: Confuse

Remove one of your own builders from a tile and return it to your supply. Then move one of the opponent's builders to an adjacent unoccupied vault tile, exactly as with a Move Builder order. If the opponent has no builder on the board (or none of her builders can legally be moved), this order cannot be chosen.

Paid order for the opponent (cost: 1 coin): Instead of the active player choosing, the opponent decides which of her own builders is moved and where — as with a Move Builder order. The opponent cannot refuse to have a builder moved; she only controls which builder moves and its destination.

Order: Stained Glass

Place a stained glass token on any tile where you currently have a builder. Each tile can hold at most one stained glass token, and stained glass tokens remain in play as long as their tile does.

When scoring, each stained glass token adds 2 points to the value of its area, regardless of which player holds the majority there. This bonus is added to the area's value after other modifiers (such as the architect's doubling) are applied.

Note: the supply of stained glass tokens is considered unlimited — improvise more if they run out.

Order: Scaffolding

Place two scaffolding tiles in the cathedral, following the placement rules for the Place Vault action but ignoring color restrictions. Scaffolding tiles act as obstacles to placing vault tiles: scaffolding has no color, belongs to no area, and vaults and builders cannot be placed on it. Scaffolding tiles cannot be discarded or moved, and they remain in play until the next scoring, at which point all of them are removed.

Note: the supply of scaffolding tiles is considered unlimited — improvise more if they run out.

Order: Disaster

Discard one vault tile from the cathedral. A vault tile can only be discarded this way if it currently has no builder on it.

Ranks

• Architect — When scoring an area containing an architect, the reward for the player holding the majority there is doubled. This applies even if the architect's owner is not the one receiving the points — a poorly placed architect can benefit the opponent! If an area has multiple architects, their effects do not stack; the area's value is only doubled once.
• Master Mason — Counts as two builders when calculating majority in its area.
• Strongman — If there is a tie for majority in an area, the player with a strongman there wins the tie. Two strongmen in the same area cancel each other out.

Credits

Game author: Łukasz M. Pogoda. Development: Ignacy Trzewiczek. Published by Portal Games. English translation: Anna Skudlarska and Russ Williams.