Castello Methoni
Castello Methoni Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game
In Castello Methoni, players are ambitious merchants of the Republic of Venice.
Each turn, you'll build walls and houses for your powerful family.
Closing off an area of the board allows you to erect a tower by paying some money.
Watch your opponents though, as they can buy the neighboring domains to expand their power.
The game ends when you're out of walls. Points are awarded for remaining coins, occupied areas, and personal objectives.
I. Contents
- 1 Game Board (divided in triangular spaces)
- 1 Scoring Pad
- 38 Coins (30 Silver Ducats, 8 Gold — 1 Gold is worth 5 Ducats)
- 36 Walls
- 60 Land Cards (9 of each type: Mountain, Forest, Plains, Furrows, Desert, Fields), plus 6 Markets
- 6 Objective Cards
- 75 Houses (15 in each of the 5 colors)
- 20 Towers (4 in each of the 5 colors)
- 25 Villas (5 in each of the 5 colors)
II. Game Setup
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Place the game board in the middle of the table.
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Depending on the number of players, prepare a supply of Walls as follows:
- 3 players: 30 Walls
- 4 players: 33 Walls
- 5 players: 36 Walls
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Place 1 Ducat on each Market on the board (6 Markets). Also, place 4 Ducats next to the board to form the Bank.
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All players now share the 60 remaining coins:
- 3 players: 20 Ducats each
- 4 players: 15 Ducats each
- 5 players: 12 Ducats each
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Each player receives 15 Houses, 5 Villas and 4 Towers in their color.
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Shuffle all Land Cards and deal 5 cards face down to each player. Form a pile with the remaining cards and place it within easy reach of the players.
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Each player secretly receives 1 Objective Card. Place the remaining cards back in the box. Players can check their own Objective Card anytime during the game, but they may not look at an opponent's objective.
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The player who last went to an island goes first!
III. The Game Turn
The first player plays their turn, then the game plays clockwise.
On your turn, you may play up to 2 cards from your hand.
When you play a card, you can take one of the following actions:
A) Build
B) Trade
You can take the same action twice if you like.
End of Turn
Once you played 1 or 2 cards, your turn ends.
Discard the cards that you played and draw as many cards from the draw pile to replace them.
If the draw pile is exhausted, shuffle the discard to create a new draw pile.
A) Build
When you take a Build Action, choose a space that matches the card that you played (depending on its land type), and build a Wall on any free border of that space (ie not a border where there already is a Wall, nor inside a Domain).
Then, place one of your Houses on any side of the Wall.
Once you placed your House, take a House from the player on your left OR on your right, and place that House on the other side of the Wall.
There can be several Houses in the same space.
Note: You can't place a House in the sea. If you build a wall on a seashore, simply place your House on the land, but don't place any other House.
Market Card
A Market Card allows you to build a Wall on the border of any Market Space or along the seashore, regardless of the land type.
If you manage to close off an area of one or several spaces when building a Wall, that area becomes a Domain (see next section).
Claiming a Domain
A Domain is a space or group of spaces closed off by Walls.
When you form a Domain, you must acquire it. You cannot form a Domain if you don't have enough money to acquire it.
Note: If your cards force you to close an area and form a Domain that you can't buy, you may show your hand to the other players, discard it, draw 5 new cards and play your turn. This should be extremely rare though.
When you acquire a Domain, you must follow these steps:
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Payment Pay 1 Ducat per Domain space to the Bank. AND Pay 1 Ducat per Domain House to their respective owners.
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Upgrade If there are 3 Houses of the same color, remove them and give them back to their owner. In exchange, that player now places one of their Villas in the Domain. Repeat the process until all groups of 3 Houses have been upgraded in the Domain.
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Tower Place your Tower in the Domain to mark it as yours. This also activates the Market(s) in the Domain, if any (see The Market).
Once you placed a Tower, the position of the buildings in the Domain do not matter. However, we recommend that you sort them per kind of building.
Annexing Domains
If you place a Tower in a Domain that is directly adjacent to another Domain (ie a Domain that shares a Wall with yours), you may immediately annex that Domain. If you annex a Domain, follow these steps:
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Payment Pay 2 Ducats for each Domain space and 1 Ducat for each House, and 5 Ducats for each Villa. You must pay this cost to the owner of the Domain, regardless of the buildings' colors.
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Destroy the Walls Remove all Walls that separated your previous Domain from this new one and place them back in the supply.
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Upgrade Joining two Domains may result in new upgrades, for instance if you had one House in your first Domain, and two in the one that you just annexed. Replace any new group of 3 Houses of the same color with Villas, as usual, until all groups of 3 Houses have been upgraded.
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New Tower The previous owner of the Domain retrieves their Tower, as there can be only one Tower per Domain.
If you have enough money, you can annex more than one Domain.
If you annex your own Domain, you do not need to pay for it, but you must still follow steps 2 to 4.
B) Trade
The Trade Action allows you to get 2 Ducats from the Bank.
To take this action, you need to play either a Market Card, or a Land Card that matches an activated Market Space of the board.
A Market Space is activated as soon as it is in a Domain with a Tower.
Note: If there is only 1 Ducat in the Bank when you take the Trade Action, you still take it. If there are no Ducats left, you receive nothing.
The Market
There are 6 Market Spaces on the game board, one for each type of Land Space (Mountain, Forest, Plains, Furrows, Desert, Fields).
Place 1 Ducat on each Market at the beginning of the game.
The 1st player who places their Tower in a Domain that includes a Market takes the coin that is on it. This activates the Market, as it can now be used by all players (see Trade).
At the beginning of your turn, you collect 2 Ducats per Market in your Domain(s). If there are not enough Ducats in the Bank, take what you can.
Objective Cards
Every player is dealt 1 Objective Card at the beginning of the game.
It is secret to other players but you can see yours anytime during the game.
At game end, during the final scoring, reveal your Objective Card.
You score 1 Victory Point for each Land Space in your Domain(s) that matches your Objective Card.
Component Limitations
All buildings (House, Villas, Towers) are limited to the quantities provided.
If you run out of a given building, you cannot place it.
- If you don't have any Houses left when you build a Wall, you must build Houses of your left and right players.
- If you or the other players have no Villas when you're upgrading Houses, then you can't upgrade them.
- If you don't have any Tower, you cannot claim a Domain.
IV. Game End
When a player takes the last Wall from the supply, the game ends at the end of that player's turn (even if Walls go back to the supply during this turn).
V. Scoring
Score points as follows:
- 3 VP for each Land Space inside your Domain(s)
- 1 VP per Ducat
- 1 VP for each Land Space of your Domain(s) that matches the Land types of your Objective Card
- 10 VP for the player who owns the largest Domain, and 5 VP for the player who owns the second largest Domain (if there is a tie, all tied players score the matching VP)
- 1/3/6/10 VP for the number of Towers played on the game board (ie 1 VP if you placed 1 Tower, and 10 VP if you placed them all)
If players are tied after scoring, compare the value of the tied players' largest Domain (ie what it would cost to acquire it). The highest value wins.
If players are still tied, they share victory.