For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game FAQ
87 questions players ask · Updated Nov 12, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup
Choosing a Fief to Visit
Bringing in Friendly Rulers
Playing Out Dialogues
- If you cannot follow suit and hold a trump card, must you play the trump card?
- Does a discard change the ruler's current statement?
- If I hold a card of the suit the ruler led, can I play a trump card instead?
- Can you use an ally ability during a visit more than once, or use several allies in one visit?
- If the ruler's statement is in the trump suit and you cannot follow suit, can you play any card, and is the statement lost?
- Does a trump card beat a higher non-trump card in a dialogue?
- If the ruler's statement and your card have the same number but not the same suit, do you lose the trick?
Ally Abilities
Ally Abilities: Claws and Flowers
- Can Jack of Claws be activated with eight or more cards in hand?
- Where does Queen of Claws draw from, and does drawing from the score pile change your score?
- Can you use part of the Queen of Claws ability when one of her piles is empty?
- How does Prince of Claws decide how many cards to draw?
- How many cards does Baron of Claws draw, and is the deck shuffled if none are left?
- Does putting your highest-valued card into the score pile raise your score with King of Claws?
- When King of Claws puts tied cards into the score pile, are they the highest cards in hand?
- Does Jack of Flowers draw a card for each card it discards?
- With Jack of Flowers, do you discard matching cards from your hand, the score pile, or both?
- Does Jack of Flowers use the current ruler's suit when rulers swap?
- Can you play Jack of Flowers when only cards of the ruler's suit remain, discard them all and end the dialogue?
- What does Queen of Flowers do to your score and to the next dialogue?
- What does King of Flowers discard, and what if no pair works?
- How does Prince of Flowers reduce your hand?
- What does Lady of Flowers discard?
- What does Baron of Flowers discard, and can you choose the value?
Ally Abilities: Eyes and Leaves
- How many times does Prince of Eyes repeat when two other allies are exhausted?
- What does Queen of Eyes let you do with the top three cards of the deck?
- Was the Queen of Eyes ability changed, and what does it do now?
- With Jack of Eyes, can the discarded cards be the ones you drew?
- Can King of Eyes name a suit you do not hold, and does it discard cards you just drew?
- What does Baron of Eyes do depending on your next response?
- When do you play Baron of Eyes relative to drawing the ruler's statement?
- What happens when Lady of Eyes cannot discard cards that sum to the two cards you just drew?
- Can Lady of Eyes discard a single card that matches the sum of the two drawn cards, or drawn plus hand cards?
- How far can Jack of Leaves swap rulers, and does the swap wrap around the fief row?
- Can Jack of Leaves skip a friendly ruler to reach a neutral ruler further away?
- What does Prince of Leaves let you do with the visiting card?
- Does the Prince of Leaves ability change the trump suit during a visit?
- Is King of Leaves' exchange with the deck optional, and which card becomes the statement?
- What does Queen of Leaves do?
- Can Lady of Leaves un-exhaust herself or any ally when no other ally is exhausted?
- Can you use an ally's ability right after Lady of Leaves un-exhausts it?
- What does Baron of Leaves allow you to swap?
- Does Baron of Leaves' two exchanges each count as optional, and can you do both?
Ending the Visit
- Can you stop a visit early once you have clearly lost or already won?
- What happens if the draw pile runs out while you still have cards in hand?
- Do you shuffle the dialogue cards and draw eight new ones each time you visit a new ruler?
- How many tricks must you win to befriend the fief 0 ruler?
- Does a visit count the cards in the score pile or the tricks won when deciding win or loss?
- Can you use an ally or ruler ability when you have no cards left in hand?
Ending the Game
- If you lose a fief and a win is out of reach, must you keep playing?
- Can the ruler of the last fief I visit be brought in as an ally for that same visit?
- What do the difficulty levels (standard, advanced, idealist) change about how the game is played?
- How many points is each fief worth at the end of the game?
General Rules
Campaign Missions
- In the Summer 1 scenario, are there only three starting allies in the whole game?
- In missions, can you substitute friendly rulers for allies, and how many allies can you have?
- In Summer-2, can Tiger (the modified Lady of Claws) be activated with only one card in hand?
- In Summer-3, does the visitor card flipped 180 degrees stay flipped for the rest of the visit?
- In Summer-4, what does Sheep copy?
- When Sheep copies Prince of Eyes, does the copying ally count as an exhausted ally for repetitions?
- In the Spring-1 campaign, can the four Baron allies still use their printed abilities?
- How do you exchange a card in hand with a stall card in the campaign?
- In Spring-2, must you take one photo per visit, and how does the challenge version differ?
- What happens if you play an ally as your last card in Spring-4?
- In Fall-1, can you activate Queen of Flowers when it has no valid effect, just to use up the ability?
- In Fall-2, is fief 0 counted as an 8?
- In Fall-2, does the final dialogue have to be a winning trick?
- Is it valid to finish Fall-3 with zero allies?
- In Fall-3, do you still need 16 points, and can you intentionally fail the last visit?
- To win Fall-4, do you need only 16 points or are there extra conditions?
- How do you resolve the Fall-4 'A Wild Critter Appeared!' scenario's stars and friendly rulers?
- In Winter-1, can your score on a fief go below zero?
- In Winter-1, do blue eye cards in your score pile count against you when deciding a visit?
- In Winter-3, what happens if a visit ends with no cards left in the storage pile?