Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Secrets
Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Secrets Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 4x Barbicans
- 9x Moats
- 40x Swan tokens
- 4x Small Secret Passages
- 4x Straight Secret Passages
- 4x Corner Secret Passages
- 4x King's Favor tiles
- 4x Secrets Reference cards
- 30 new Room tiles:
- 3x 100 Room tiles
- 3x 150 Room tiles
- 3x 200 Room tiles
- 3x 250 Room tiles
- 3x 300 Room tiles
- 3x 350 Room tiles
- 3x 400 Room tiles
- 3x 450 Room tiles
- 3x 500 Room tiles
- 3x 600 Room tiles
Room Completion Rewards (reference card)
- Activity: 5
- Outdoor: Take 10000
- Food: Take 1 extra turn
- Utility: Take 2 Bonus cards, keep 1 of them
- Corridor: Place a free Hallway or Stairs (limit 1 per turn)
- Living: Re-score the completed room's points
- Sleep: Choose 0, 1, or 2 rooms from a stack and place them face down on the Room deck
- Downstairs (only for 2nd, 4th, 6th...): Take any one of the Room Completion Rewards
Moat Completion Reward (reference card)
- Moat: Choose 0 or 1 room from a stack and add it directly to your castle
Setup Changes
Use the regular Castles of Mad King Ludwig setup, making the changes listed here when you play with Secrets.
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Give each player a starting Barbican. When playing with Barbicans and Moats, you won't use the Foyer tiles that come with the base game.
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Give each player 3 different Secret Passages: 1 Small, 1 Straight, and 1 Corner.
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Create and shuffle the room stacks as follows for each player count.
100-300 players (rows shown by player-count icons, 2 / 3 / 4 players):
Base Secrets Hallways Moats 3 2 (Swan icon) 5 5 4 3 (Swan icon) 7 7 6 3 (Swan icon) 9 9 350-600 players (rows shown by player-count icons, 2 / 3 / 4 players):
Base
Secrets
The Secrets expansion consists of 4 parts and also 4 new Favors. You may play with almost any combination of expansion parts along with the base game. When playing with the Secrets expansion, set up the game using the rules in the base Castles of Mad King Ludwig game and follow the additional setup instructions shown above.
Barbicans and Moats: These constrain the size of your castle, while at the same time offering potentially huge bonuses for each of the rooms in the castle.
Secret Passages: Secret Passages provide both flexibility for your castle layout, along with the ability to double connection bonuses and allow connections without adjacency penalties.
New Rooms: The 30 new rooms add variety to the existing set of rooms in the game. In addition, the Secrets rooms have Swan icons printed on them.
Swans (must play with New Rooms): When you purchase a room that has Swan icons on it, you collect Swan tokens, which can be exchanged for cash during the game or points at the end of the game.
Favors: Three of these are specific to Secrets: Moats, Swans, and Rooms without Swans, while the fourth (Courtyards) can be used with the base game.
Barbicans and Moats
Each player starts with a Barbican tile instead of the Foyer from the base game. All players start with a Barbican, even if some players state they will not purchase any Moats during the game.
Instead of purchasing a Room tile, Stairs, or Hallway (or taking 5000), players may install a new Moat section adjacent to one or two of their existing Moat sections (or next to their Barbican) for 5000. When a Moat is purchased, discard the top Room card (or remove the room tile if one or more is on top of the room deck and place it in the game box). Moats were traditionally used to protect a castle, but in Ludwig's case, they just look so cool that you'll get bonus points for placing them. When you purchase a Moat, you'll score 3 points for the Moat itself, and 1 point for every room in your castle, except Corridor and Outdoor rooms. An additional Moat scores an additional 3 points for the new Moat, and 1 additional point for every room in your castle.
(Diagram: when this Moat is placed, score 3 points for the Moat itself. Then score 5 points for the 5 rooms currently in the castle. From this point on, rooms (except Corridor and Outdoor rooms) constructed in this castle score +1 additional points when placed.)
You can only build rooms inside of a completed Moat, except for Outdoor rooms, which can be built inside or outside of the Moat. Outdoor rooms are not allowed to have their fence edges touch the stone edge of the Moat. No rooms may ever overlap any portion of a Moat or Barbican.
(Diagram caption: The Greenhouse overlaps the water, so it cannot be placed here.)
An Outdoor room that is connected to the Barbican drawbridge is considered connected to a Corridor room. The Barbican is not complete until an Outdoor room is connected to the drawbridge (and the other entrances of the Barbican also have rooms connected to them). Rooms outside the Moat can only be connected to rooms within the Moat via the Barbican's drawbridge.
If you complete a Moat by placing 3 Moat sections (creating a completely enclosed area in conjunction with your Barbican), you receive the Moat Reward: you may pick up any stack of rooms and look through it, choosing zero or one room to place immediately, at no cost to you. That room is scored as if you had purchased it in the normal fashion. Then you shuffle the unselected rooms and place them face down from where you picked them up.
The number of Moats is limited, and if the stack of Moat sections is depleted, it counts for a depleted stack scoring at the end of the game. No player may purchase more than three Moat sections in a single game. There are not enough Moat sections for all players to complete their Moats. A Moat section may not be placed if it will overlap a previously placed room.
Moats are counted as rooms for the "Rooms without Swans" Favor but are not counted for the "Completed Rooms" Favor. The 1000 square ft size of each Moat does count towards the total square footage of your castle for the game end tiebreaker.
If the removal of a card from the Room deck when building a Moat results in depleting the Room deck, the game will end at the end of the current turn.
Secret Passages
Each player starts with 1 Small Secret Passage, 1 Straight Secret Passage, and 1 Corner Secret Passage.
Secret Passages can be used to connect any two rooms. This allows for all sorts of placements that otherwise could not be done, and provides opportunities for additional scoring. Secret Passages have two entrances on them, one on either end. Secret Passages cannot connect to other Secret Passages, and Secret Passages cannot be built unless both ends are connected to entrances.
Secret Passages can be played at any time on a player's turn, whenever they place a room (or collect 5000). They directly connect two rooms that are not directly connected otherwise, and provide double conditional connection bonuses for those rooms. Any number of Secret Passages may be placed during a player's turn, as long as they connect directly to the room being placed. If additional rooms are being placed on a turn, Secret Passages may be placed along with those additional rooms.
(Diagram caption: A Secret Passage cannot be used to connect two rooms which are connected through a different set of entrances.)
A Secret Passage cannot be placed between two rooms that are already connected. If a Secret Passage is placed between an Activity Room that is adjacent to another room where a penalty is incurred, that penalty is still in effect. However, if a Secret Passage is placed between an Activity Room and a room which is not adjacent but would normally result in a penalty, you do not incur Activity Room conditional penalties (the Secret Passages mute the sound).
When a Living room reward is scored (because all doors connect to other rooms), any rooms connected to the Living room via Secret Passage are included in the re-scoring.
(Diagram caption: When the Library is completed, the Room Completion Reward for the Living room results in 23 points: 2 for the Library, 6 for connecting to the Sanctum, 6 for connecting to the Parlor, 6 for connecting to the Fountains, and 3 for connecting to the Small Yard.)
Secret Passage entrances are placed on top of existing doors, but cannot be placed so that the Secret Passage itself is overlapping any other portion of a room or Moat.
Secret Passages are not counted as rooms for the "Rooms without Swans" or the "Completed Rooms" Favors. Secret Passages do not count towards the total square footage of your castle for the game end tiebreaker.
Swans
When a room with a Swan icon on it is placed below the contract board, take a Swan token from the supply and place it face up (displaying the color of that particular Swan token) on that building. If a room has two Swan icons, place two Swan tokens face up on that room. When a player buys a room with one or more Swan tokens on it, he takes those Swan tokens and places them to the side of his castle, face up so that all players may see which Swan tokens he has collected.
Swan tokens can be used in the following two ways:
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On your turn, exchange any 1 Swan token for 1m, any 2 for 3m, any 3 for 6m, any 4 for 10m, or any 5 for 15m. You may not exchange more than 5 Swans on any turn. Used Swans go back in the box and are not counted towards the Swan Favor, if it is in play.
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Each set of unique Swan tokens at the end of the game is scored by the player who has them: 1 for 1pt, 2 for 3pts, 3 for 6pts, 4 for 10pts, 5 for 15pts. Swans counted for points at the end of the game are counted towards the Swan Favor if it is in play.
(Scoring example: 15 + 3 + 1 = 19. Five different Swan tokens score 15, a further set of two different Swan tokens scores 3, and a further single Swan token scores 1.)
King's Favors
There are four new King's Favors in Secrets:
The Swans Favor is based on how many Swan tokens you have at the end of the game (of any type).
The Rooms without Swans Favor is based on how many rooms you have in your castle that do not have Swan icons, including Corridors, but not including Secret Passages.
The Courtyard Favor is based on how many Courtyards you have in your castle. A Courtyard is a completely enclosed area with at least one entrance. A completed Moat creates at least one Courtyard if there is at least one door going into it. Water edges of a Barbican/Moat cannot be used as the edge of a Courtyard.
The Moats Favor is based on the number of Moat sections you have in your castle (the starting Barbican tile counts as a Moat section, so if you don't build any additional Moats, you'll still qualify for last place).
Solo Game with Secrets
There are no changes to the solo game when played with Secrets; you can purchase Moats, place Secret Passages and acquire Swan tokens as in the normal game. However, the score targets are slightly different: <60: Court Jester, 61-80: Servant to his Royal Majesty, 81-95: The Duke of Castle Building, 96-110: The Supreme Prince Regent of Palaces, >110: King of Grand Castle Construction.