Castlecards Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Aim of the Game
• Components
• Set Up
  • For 2 players
  • For more than 2 players
• Game Turn
• Actions
  • Buy Gold Cards
  • Explore a Dungeon
  • Attack
  • Night Attack
  • Defense
  • Building a Siege Weapon
  • Go to the Academy
  • Playing the King
• Actions Besides the Game Turn
  • Playing the Thief
  • Support an Attack
  • Repealing an Attack
• Loot
• General Rules

Aim of the Game

Assaulting rival castles. The winner will be the only player with his castle still standing.

Components

110 cards divided into the following decks:

• Fortress deck
• Village deck
• Siege deck
• Dungeon deck
• Academy deck

The Fortress deck consists of Castle and Walls cards that make up your fortification. They are played at the beginning, and if you run out of Castle you'll lose the game.

The Village deck generates the resources of the game: Soldiers, Bowmen, Gold, Builders, Explorers, the King, the Thief, Duke, Night. At the beginning of each turn, everyone draws one.

The Siege deck consists of siege weapons that will allow you to improve your attack strength; in some cases, they allow assaulting a walled castle. They are earned with builders and gold.

The Dungeon deck contains threats but also treasures; defeating your enemies with explorers will give you additional Village cards.

The Academy deck provides strategies to repel an enemy attack. They are reaction cards that can only be used when you are attacked and only once. They are earned with the Duke and gold.

Set Up

For 2 players

Each player starts with a fortress composed of 1 Castle and 3 Walls, which he will place face-up in front of him following the diagram in Figure 1. The Siege, Academy and Dungeon decks are shuffled and placed on the table. The Village cards are shuffled and 4 cards are dealt to each player, plus 1 Academy card. Decks are placed on the table.

Figure 1. Initial placement of each player Fortress in 2 players game.

For more than 2 players

Each player starts with a fortress composed of 1 Castle and 2 Walls. The Siege, Academy and Dungeon decks are shuffled and placed on the table. The Village cards are shuffled and 5 cards are dealt to each player.

Game Turn

The player who has most recently seen a castle or the youngest player game will start the game.

Each element of the fortress has a defense value indicated by shields. The goal is to assault the rival castles but they cannot be attacked while preserved by walls, so first they will have to be destroyed (unless an assault weapon of the siege deck is used).

Each turn begins by drawing a card from the Village deck and then an action will be performed (with one or several cards at once, see Actions). It is required to perform an action; even if the card used has no effect (you cannot "pass turn").

After performing an action (or actions allowed by your cards, i.e using the King) the turn ends. The only castle that manages to survive will be the one who wins the game.

Actions

These are the actions you can perform in one turn after drawing a Village card:

Buy Gold Cards

Gold can be used to buy village's resources. You can play 1 gold card and earn 2 Village cards with it (you can only use 1 gold in this action). It can also be combined with builders or be used to pay the Duke.

Explore a Dungeon

Explore dungeons is a way to earn additional cards. A dungeon has 2 indicators: the danger level (torches), and the treasure. If there is no danger, a single explorer will take the treasure. If there is a monster, the danger is represented in an amount of torches. If the amount of torches of your explorers is higher than the dungeon's, you'll defeat your opponents and get the treasure. The treasure will be as many Village cards as indicated by the icon.

Attack

To launch an attack you should gather army formations, represented by soldiers, bowmen and / or siege weapons cards (you can attack with one or several cards at once). Choose your attack cards and show them on the table, indicating the card you want to attack. You can choose to attack any wall, no matter their position.

An attack is successful if the total number of swords (attack) is greater than the shields of the attacked card (defense).

However, after launching an attack, the player attacked can use, if available, reaction cards (Academy deck) to try to repel the attack (see Figure 2). These cards are discarded after use, whether they repel the attack or not.

If your attack defeats the opponent, the card attacked is defeated and it will be flipped on the table; attack cards will be placed into the discard deck (if there were soldiers or archers attacked in the cards, they will also be placed into the discard deck). The victorious player gets an extra card, as loot, from the village deck.

If you are defeated, the attack cards remain in the discard deck and passes the turn.

When all the Wall cards from one player are removed (or when an assault weapon is used, like the Battering Ram or the Siege Tower) his castle may be directly attacked, and in case of defeat, he is eliminated. However, in games with more than 2 players, the eliminated castles remain in the game. They cannot draw cards but they will be able to support attacks from other players, and at their turn, may give cards (the remains of his village) to the players they want.

In games with more than 2 players, other players can add attack cards in Figure 2 step 2.

Figure 2. An attack sequence where (1) the attacked card has 3 shields, (2) an attack that contains 4 swords is made and therefore you can defeat it but (3) the player attacked responds with a reaction card, the trap, eliminating 2 enemy swords so that (4) the attack stays in 2 swords, finally below the defense and thus is defeated.

Attacks can also be launched directly to the units stationed in defensive positions. For example, if an opponent has a Wall card with 2 archers defending, you can launch an attack against the entire wall (2 + 1 + 1 = 4 shields in this case) or only against units (1 + 1 = 2 shields), in which case you will only eliminate those units and loot cards would not be earned since any fortress card was destroyed

Night Attack

You can make a night attack using the Night card. In this case, the opponent will not see the attack and his defense will blind. All attack cards are placed underneath the night card (remaining hidden) and attacked card is announced. If other players join the attack, they will also place their cards underneath the Night Card. The attacked player can choose to react with an Academy card or not, without knowing which cards are involved in the attack (if any). Once he decides it, all the cards are displayed and the attack is resolved.

Defense

In your turn you can also choose to enhance the defense. A Bowmen card can be placed to enhance the defense of a wall or a Soldiers card in the castle. Only one can be put just in each turn, it is placed under the card of Fortress, sticking out by the sides to display the total shields; the color always needs to match. The limit of the added cards equals the original shields (one wall has 2 shields, thereforet 2 cards more can be added). See Figure 3.

It also can be done inversely, that is to say, to recover a card previously placed in a defensive berth as action in your turn.

Building a Siege Weapon

In order for building a siege weapon it is mandatory to gather 4 constructor cards (they can be mixed with gold, having at least 1 constructor and always 4 cards in total). Siege weapons are used for stronger attacks.

In the siege deck there is also assault weapons, they have the flag of the castle in the upper right corner. They allow to directly attack the Castle, although it has walls. Any other weapons can be used as defense.

Go to the Academy

The Duke is in charge of defining the strategies of the defense. Using 1 Duke and 2 Golds (or otherwise) you can get a academy card. This is used for reacting before an enemy attack: resting swords, adding shields to a defensive position, removing siege weapons, etc. Dukes are removed from de deck after using them once.

Figure 3. In this case the wall from above has the maximum of defense allowed (one card for each shield), the other wall has one defense and the castle has another that add 1/2 shield. The third wall has been demolished.

Playing the King

When you play the action of the King, you can perform 2 consecutive actions (apart from having played the King). These can be what you want, in this case including to draw cards of village (for example you can draw a card and then play with gold, that gets two more cards; or to play one gold and then to make an attack; or to make two consecutive attacks; etc.).

Actions Besides the Game Turn

Playing the Thief

Always when playing gold on the table, the player that holds the thief can play it and earn the gold of such move (for example, if a player plays one gold to draw 2 cards, then another one can play the thief and take that gold; if a player played 3 golds to complete a constructor and building a siege weapon, the thief can take the 3 golds).

Support an Attack

In game of more than 2 players it is possible to make an action besides the turn: When a player (in his turn) launch an attack against another one, the other players have the possibility of sending attack units, therefore adding a stronger attack. Once they all have decided to intervene or not, the victim will have the chance to react to the attack.

Repealing an Attack

When a player attacks you, you can use Academy Cards, if you have them, to try to repeal their attack. You can use as much as you want all of a sudden.

Loot

In the games of two players, you can get 1 Loot card for each eliminated fortress card. Such loot card proceeds from the Village deck and is placed directly to the hand.

In the game with more than 2 players the loot card is secret. The player that get that card can neither see it nor use it and will place it in front of him on the table, facing down.

When a player loses his castle, he will keep the cards holding in his hands, that represents the rest of his village. His enemy will draw half of his loot cards that he has on the table (rounded up) and the rest will be kept by the player that lost the castle, with the rest of cards on hand.

The player without castle, in his game turn cannot draw new cards, but use cards of their hand giving away resources to any player that wants to get benefited of the game. In addition, he can continue doing actions out of their turn or supporting other attacks that go on the game, if he still keeps armored units.

When only 2 players are remaining in the game, they can take the cards in the loot.

The players without castle cannot win the game, but they can influence in the game: set your alliances before starting the game if you want to play in teams!

General Rules

• There is no limit of cards on hand.
• Always it has to make an action, even if with it you lose a card without effect (that can't be passed).
• Only one Fortress card can be attacked in one turn (except with the King, which allows more actions).
• Academy cards can be used at once only.
• If the village deck is used, it is set again with the discard deck, removing not relevant cards (siege, academy…) and shuffling.
• Cards placed as additional defense must match in color.
• It is possible to make an attack only to cards betted in defense.
• The Battering Ram can pass only 1 wall (the last one).
• The Siege Tower can pass all the walls to assault a Castle.