Guilds Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• Setup
• Number of Players
• Character Positioning Around the Square
• Turn Structure
• Detailed Rules
  • 1. Start of Turn
  • 2. Character Acquisition
  • 3. Treasury
  • 4. Construction
  • 5. End of Turn
• End of the Game

Components

• 1 hexagonal board representing the square
• 4 boards representing the guild's building plot
• 80 silver coins
• 25 gold coins
• 48 character cards (from 7 factions: warriors, mages, clerics, shadow, nobles, craftsmen, animals)
• 18 objective cards
• 35 small room tiles
• 18 large room tiles
• 4 entrance room tiles (which also identify the player's color)
• 1 first player token
• 1 turn marker token
• 1 Rules Guide
• 1 Almanac

Goal of the Game

Build the most prestigious guild by attracting the city's most important characters, constructing a large and functional headquarters, and satisfying the King's expectations.

Setup

1. Each player receives an entrance tile in their color, which they place on their building plot in the starting position, with the double door facing the street.
2. Randomly draw the number of objectives set for the player count (see the Number of Players table below): these are shared objectives, placed so that everyone can see them; they award bonus points at the end of the game to whoever fulfills them (see "End of the Game" below).
3. Shuffle the character deck.
4. Shuffle the room tiles and make one pile for the small ones and one for the large ones.
5. Gather the silver and gold coins into two piles within everyone's reach.
6. Place the square board in the center of the table and place the turn marker with the dove side facing up on the dove symbol.
7. Randomly choose the first player and give them the corresponding token.

Number of Players

A number of game elements change depending on the number of players, according to the following table:

Players	Characters at auction	Small rooms	Large rooms	Objectives	Weeks*
2	3	2	2	4	8
3	5-6	4	2	5	6
4	6	5	3	5	6

*Weeks are the game's turns and are tracked using the central fountain: the turn marker, initially placed on the basin with the dove, moves one basin clockwise at the end of each turn. With 3 and 4 players there are 6 turns. With 2 players there are 8 turns: when you reach the sixth turn, flip the token to the side showing the cat; the last turn will be the one in which the token is on the basin with the cat.

Character Positioning Around the Square

Character cards are dealt out in groups around the sides of the hexagonal square board, one group per sector: two opposite sides are used for 2 players, three sides for 3 players, and all sides for 4 players.

Note: For three players there are two different configurations (5 or 6 cards); the configuration to use is chosen at the start of the game and kept for its duration. Normally, the one with 5 cards leaves more gold for the rooms.

Turn Structure

Each game turn represents one week and is structured into 5 phases:

• Start of Turn (income, and drawing characters and rooms)
• Character Acquisition
• Treasury (unspent silver returns, and gold is purchased)
• Construction
• End of Turn (discard silver and tiles, assign the first player token)

Detailed Rules

1. Start of Turn

In this phase every player receives their income in silver (and sometimes gold too), determined by the base income shown on their entrance tile plus any additional silver or gold income granted by special rooms or characters.

Some members are especially fond of their Guild, and are happy to help it grow by funding it with some of their own money.

Large rooms, small rooms, and characters are then added up to the number shown in the table. Drawn room tiles are placed face up on the table in a position visible to everyone. Character cards are positioned around the square as described above.

Each game turn represents a new week, and therefore a new market day: the ideal moment to meet potential new members. Also, every week the architects show up with new plans.

2. Character Acquisition

In this phase players compete in an auction to try to win the best characters.

Starting from the first player, play proceeds clockwise until the cards around the square are gone or until everyone passes in a row. In this phase, any gold coins cannot be used or converted into silver (unless a special ability allows it).

On their turn, a player may take one (and only one) of these 3 actions:

• Make/raise a bid on 2 sectors by placing silver coins on the tent of their color in square sectors that still have at least one card. With their bid, the player must become the highest bidder; if they don't have enough silver to be the highest bidder in 2 sectors, they must choose one of the other two possible actions. Important: If only two sectors or fewer still have available cards, it is possible to bid on just one sector instead of two.

  The silver coins placed this way represent how much a Guild is willing to spend on gifts (wine, clothes, food, or other) to convince the potential member to join that part of the square. When the card represents an animal instead, the silver coins represent the offer made to the seller to buy that animal and take it away.

• Pass without doing anything; this does not prevent taking further actions later, even bidding, when it becomes the turn of the player who passed again, but if everyone passes in a row, the Acquisition phase ends.

• Take a card, provided the player is currently the highest bidder in the sector where the card is located. If the sector contains more than one card, the player may choose which one to take. After taking the card, the player discards all the silver on their own tent for that sector, while other players' silver stays on their respective tents.

  The moment you're offering the most valuable gifts to a potential member is the ideal time to get them to sign on to your Guild before someone offers more.

Important: Once a bid has been made, if no one raises it, the player is required to take that character. If the phase ends because everyone passes, characters with at least one bid go to the highest bidder in that sector. Any special effects granted by acquired characters and animals are valid only starting from phase 3 of the turn, unless stated otherwise on the card (for example, "When it enters a Guild...").

3. Treasury

In this phase, any silver still on the square's tents (and therefore not spent because the auction for that sector was lost) returns to its respective owners. At this point it is possible to convert silver coins into gold coins, at a cost of 5 silver coins each.

Important: Converting silver into gold is necessary to expand the headquarters with new rooms (whose tiles all have a cost in gold), and it is also the only way to keep money from one turn to the next, since unspent silver is discarded at the end of the turn. This conversion is, however, one-way, and — barring special abilities (such as the Transmuter's) — it is impossible to convert gold into silver.

Gold represents a larger currency and is used to pay for more expensive works, such as expanding the headquarters.

4. Construction

Starting from the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player may purchase a single room, paying in gold the amount shown on the tile; if they have enough gold and wish to, a player may make further purchases, but only when it is their turn again. When everyone passes or the rooms run out, the turn ends.

Purchased rooms must be placed immediately in a valid position within the available spaces on the building plot.

Rooms may be rotated during placement, but must respect the connections between them (wall against wall and/or door against door) and must be in contact on at least one side with another room. Doors may be in contact with the outer wall (in which case they are considered windows). It is possible to place them without there being a "path" of connected rooms leading from the entrance, but until they are accessible from the entrance they are considered inactive (they grant no effects or PP and do not count as built area).

Nobody likes getting their feet dirty or walking in the rain to reach the living room... the members of your Guild are no exception.

To keep the Architect from selling that plan to someone else in the city, you can offer them a small extra so it stays available "with no obligation" for the following week.

At this point all room tiles without coins on them are removed, as are any characters that nobody acquired, and the first player token passes to the player with the most silver remaining. In case of a tie in silver held, gold held is compared. If there is still a tie, the first player becomes the one seated to the left of the current one.

Finally, everyone discards their remaining silver (gold coins are kept).

In a Guild's budget, silver represents the currency for minor expenses, while gold is the important currency, kept in the bank or otherwise safe... human nature being what it is, any silver left over in the budget tends to get spent anyway on small things (accessories, new tents, food, etc.), while gold is set aside for important expenses.

5. End of Turn

In this phase, players, again starting from the first player, may place a silver coin on top of a room to keep it from being removed from the "market." This coin is spent in every respect, so it will be discarded when rooms are changed.

End of the Game

The game ends after the end of the last turn (see the Number of Players table above), or at the end of the turn during which any player completes all of their building plot's spaces. At this point, prestige points (PP) are counted as follows:

Total PP = PP from characters + PP from rooms + PP from objectives achieved

Prestige points from rooms and characters are rounded down (e.g., 3.5 PP = 3 PP). If multiple players tie for an objective, they all receive that objective's points. In the event of a tie on total PP instead, the player with the lowest income wins (for tie-breaking purposes only, gold income counts as if it were 3-silver income). In case of a further tie, the player with the larger building wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most characters in their guild wins. If the tie persists, victory is shared.