El Dorado Canyon

El Dorado Canyon Rulebook

Table of Contents

The Goal

The goal of this game is to gain gold (by mining or stealing) and infamy (by attacking your neighbors), but your final score will be the lesser of the two, not the greater of them.

Components

Gold: gold cards.
Infamy: infamy cards.
Camp card.
Characters: character cards.
Starting cards: the 4 starting cards have a white star in the left corner.
Town cards: town cards have a gold cost in the left corner.
Players will need to provide a first player marker, which can be any object the players choose.

Table Set Up

Place all the gold and infamy cards in 2 stacks on the table within easy reach of all players.
Shuffle together the town cards, turn 3 face-up on the table, these are the town cards available for any player to buy.
Shuffle together 2 character cards per player, discard the rest from the game, place the character deck on table.

Player Set Up

All players will take each of the 4 starting cards, they are identical and have a white star in the left corner; this forms your starting hand.
Also take a camp card, place in front of you and draw a character card, placing it face-up and to the left of your camp card (next to the word "character" on the camp card).
Take 3 gold and place it above your camp card in the "unbanked gold" area.
The cards in front of each player will look like this.

Gameplay

The player who is wearing the most cowboy-themed piece of clothing is first player, they take the first player marker and play begins.
All players pick one of the cards in their starting hand to play. Once all players are ready, the first player says "ready...draw!" and all players reveal their card face up in front of them at the same time.
The text (on the card you played) that you can read is going to be action you will take.
All the cards will be resolved in a specific order (see Priority). You pick up your card and place it back into your hand unless it has "use once" or "once per character" written on it (see Symbols and Terms).
The first player marker is passed to the next player clockwise around the table when a turn is complete and a new turn begins.

Starting Cards

Go to Town: move all unbanked gold to bank, you may buy 1 card from town, and you are GONE; you may spend 1 gold to discard all face-up town cards and replace them with 3 new town cards, from which you may purchase 1. OR take 2 gold from the table, but if you are attacked, only take 1 gold.
Pistol: attack the character to your left or right (depending on arrow direction), lose 1 ammo, gain 1 infamy, do 1 damage to the character you targeted.
Secret Hideout: place your health and ammo at 5 and you're GONE; OR place your health and ammo at 4, gain 2 gold and you're GONE.
Take Cover: block 1 damage from each attacker and they discard 2 infamy; OR discard 1 gold and gain 5 ammo.

Priority

The order that cards happen in is dictated by the Roman numeral in the top right corner of every card.
All cards that have a "I" on them are resolved first around the table clockwise, starting with the first player, then cards with "II" in the same manner, and so on for "III" and "IV".
If a character dies before their action occurs, they don't get to take any action that turn.

Being GONE

Whenever a card with an arrow is played and the targeted character is GONE, the effect continues around the table in the same direction until it targets a character who is not GONE.
A player will turn their Camp card over to GONE for 2 reasons:
- They resolved a card with GONE written on it (Go to Town, Secret Hideout).
- Their character's health reached 0 and was killed.
Whenever a character is GONE, they are GONE for the next turn as well.
Remember: your character is not GONE until your card has been resolved. Ex: Go to Town (IV) does not make your character GONE before attack actions (III) occur.
When a character is GONE, it means that they are not active in the game for that turn; a character cannot be interacted with at all while they are GONE.

Card Types

Card types are shown by a symbol: event, defense, steal, attack, and gain.
Event cards are discarded when played and they can't have any impact on an opponent's event card.

Card Anatomy

The symbol at the top indicates what type of card this is: event, defense, steal, attack, or gain.
The name of the card.
The text shows what a card does, what you gain and what you must discard.
The picture shows what effect this card has on the opponent sitting next to you.
The arrow shows which opponent (left or right) will be targeted.
The Roman numeral indicates the priority of the card.
The cost shows the cost of a card to buy.

Gold

All gold that is gained in any manner is unbanked (unless specifically stated otherwise); when you play the Go to Town card, you take all your unbanked gold and you bank it (move it from above your camp card to below your camp card).
Only banked gold counts at the end of the game.
Gold can be used in the game to buy town cards, which are better or different versions of the cards you start with.
All gold that is spent may come from banked or unbanked gold.

Infamy

You gain infamy when instructed to do so by a card you played.
You discard infamy when instructed to do so by an opponent's card; if you don't have infamy to discard, you do nothing.
You also gain one infamy for:
- Killing an opponent's character.
- Killing a character who is bad if your character is good, or vice versa.
- Certain character abilities gain you infamy.

Characters

Each player will control 1 character, they represent the person you hired from town to do your dirty work for you; they mine you gold, shoot other characters for you, anything you want.
Every character starts with 5 health & 5 ammo (indicated by tokens placed on the 5's of your character card).

Character Card Anatomy

The ammo track: a token will indicate how much ammo you have.
The health track: a token will indicate how much health you have.
Whether a character is good or bad.
The ability of the character.
The name of the character.
If your character has no health, discard that character to your graveyard and draw a new one.
If your character has no ammo, you cannot use cards that require ammo.

Character Abilities

If a character card says "immediate", it means you take the reward right when you place that character in front of you.
When the ability on a character card is triggered, the reward is taken immediately.
If an "immediate" ability would end the game, ignore that ability.

Killing Characters

When a character's health is X, the player places it face-down in their graveyard and flips their camp card to GONE.
The player that killed that character gains one additional infamy for the kill & steals all unbanked gold from that player.
Banked gold isn't stolen, infamy is not lost, and purchased cards are not discarded when a character dies.
After being GONE for an additional turn, the player whose character died, draws a new character card, flips their camp card back over to CAMP, and joins the game.

End-Game & Scoring

The game will end when either:
- A player has 10 infamy at the end of a turn.
- A player needs to draw a character card and there isn't one to draw.
When an end-game condition occurs, the players finish that turn.
Final score calculation:
- Count all your infamy and banked gold separately, whichever number is SMALLER is your initial score.
- Then subtract one point for every character card in your graveyard.
Example above: this player ends with 7 infamy and 9 banked gold; 7 is smaller than 9, so 7 is his initial score; then subtract 2 points for 2 character cards in his graveyard and his final score is 5.
If there is a tie, character's current health is the tie-breaker.

Additional Questions

If you have more questions, go to www.youtube.com/eldoradoFAQ to watch a rules explanation video.

FAQ

If I control a "good" character and I kill a "bad" character, how much infamy do I get?
- You gain 1 infamy for the kill, 1 infamy for the opposite "good/bad" affiliation, and then most likely 1 infamy for the attack (although not always).
What happens if a character shoots themself?
- You lose, just kidding, but you should. Your character loses health, uses ammo, doesn't gain any infamy, even for a kill.
How does Round the Rosie work?
- All players pass the card they played the direction the card indicates, the cards then happen in front of new people; if a player can't take the action, they don't. Then all cards are passed back to their original owners. Cards that have "use once" or "once per character" written on them are not discarded because they have not been used once by the person who bought/owned the card.
Is there a hand limit?
- No.
How does Advanced Mining work?
- You gain 4 gold, but if you are attacked you gain nothing. OR you gain 1 gold, and you gain 1 infamy per player who is attacking you.
How does my character gain back health?
- The Secret Hideout card allows you to gain back health, but after you play it, you won't have it in your hand again until your character dies, and there isn't any other way to gain health.

Symbols and Terms

Gold (coin icon)
Infamy (skull icon)
Ammo (bullet icon)
Attack (burst icon)
Steal (hand icon)
Damage (blood-splatter icon)
Health (heart icon)
Blocks damage equal to the number of damage symbols next to it, from each player, that turn (no-symbol icon).
Bank all (gold icon): move all your unbanked gold to your bank (below your camp card).
Buy (card icon): you may purchase 1 card from the face-up town cards, pay the gold cost and place into your hand.
Once per character: play once, place under character card; return to hand when character dies.
Use once: play once, discard facedown under the town deck.
GONE: turn camp card over to GONE, skip next turn.
Give to attacked player: after resolved, give this card to the player who was attacked.