Hamlet: By the Lake
Hamlet: By the Lake Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
New Components
- 15 Fish tokens
- 30x Fish tiles
- 1x Canvas bag (for Fish tiles)
- _x Lake tiles (triangles)
- 10 Neutral boat tokens
- 6x New Building tiles
- 9x Menu tiles
- 4x Villager's House Tiles
Setup
Set up according to the instructions in the base rulebook, with the following additional steps:
- When sorting the new building tiles, place the Store Room tiles (2) into the bag at the beginning of the game, then shuffle the other new tiles based on their unlock type into the correct pile:
- Timber: Dockyard
- Milk: Aquarium
- Brick: Cliffside
- Flour: Beach
- Mix up the fish tiles and place them in the new bag.
- Choose a season - Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter - and place its 2 Menu tiles face up on the table. The common fish have the same menu tile in all seasons.
Gameplay Concepts
Forming Lakes
Lake tiles are not manually placed like building tiles: instead, they appear to fill in empty spaces left by other building tiles. Whenever a player places a building tile that fully encloses any amount of empty space between tiles, a lake is formed in that enclosed space. Lakes form even when tiles enclose a space corner-to-corner, without touching segment to segment.
- Place as many Lake tiles as necessary to fill the space. Lakes may form around any type of edge – mountains, forests, roads, or water.
- Put a fish token on each new lake tile that is adjacent to a building tile. Lake tiles that are not adjacent to building tiles are considered "Deep Water" – see the "Fishing" section for more detail. Do not place fish tokens on Deep Water tiles.
- Score 1 victory point for every 2 lake tiles placed (rounding down – maximum of 10 points per lake).
- Optional: place a boat on the lake and place a flag of your colour in it.
Boats
Boats allow you to move workers and transport materials across Lakes. They are not on a specific tile of the lake, but "on the lake" – meaning they can be used to connect all building tiles that are adjacent to that lake.
- Unlike roads and bridges, boats can only be used by the player who placed them.
- After you place a Boat, it cannot be removed and used in another lake.
- You may not place a boat if you do not have any flags.
For the purposes of delivering resources, a Boat functions in the same way as a Donkey. For the purposes of worker movement, having a Boat in a Lake allows your workers to travel between building tiles that are adjacent to the same lake as if they were connected by a road or bridge.
Boats do not count as paths/bridges/roads for the purpose of scoring, for example to score the longest road, or to enable scoring for a landmark. You may build a road/bridge connecting two tiles that are already connected by a boat.
Fishing
To go Fishing, you must place one of your workers on a building tile adjacent to at least one Lake tile. A lake tile is adjacent to a building tile if it shares its long edge with that building tile - not if only a point of the triangle touches the building tile.
- As an action, remove the fish tokens from all lake tiles adjacent to the worker's tile.
- Randomly draw Fish tiles from the bag equal to the number of fish tokens you removed.
Fish tokens do not replenish after they are removed, and it is not possible to go Fishing on tiles that no longer contain fish tokens. After collecting your Fish tiles, there are three different ways you can use them, see below.
- You cannot have more than 3 fish tiles at the end of your turn. If you have more than 3 fish tiles, choose which 3 tiles you want to keep and discard the rest.
Deep Water Fishing
When a player forms a lake with deep water tiles and they decide to place a boat in the lake, they immediately fish 3 times without removing fish tokens from the lake, and without requiring an additional worker action. Randomly draw 3 fish tiles from the bag.
If the player cannot place a boat in this lake, or decides not to, the Deep Water tiles cannot be fished later by any player.
Selling and Eating Fish
At any time during your turn, you may choose to use your fish. Depending on the rarity of the fish, you may either sell them, or cook a delicious meal to gain the ability on the corresponding menu tile. Each ability can be activated by a player once during their turn by eating the corresponding fish. i.e. you may consume one of each fish each turn (max 3). Using fish does not require a worker action.
- Common Fish (green): Gain 2 Gold
- Uncommon Fish (blue): Gain 1 Gold and the ability on the corresponding menu card.
- Rare fish (red): Gain the ability on the corresponding menu card.
When you exchange any number of fish tiles for points, gold, or abilities, place them back into the bag.
New Buildings
The new buildings follow the rules in the base game of Hamlet. You gain the blueprints from the Town Hall, build them by providing the required resources and placing them in your hamlet, and then score points accordingly.
Building Placement: Water Edges
The rules for placing a new building are the same as in the base game when it comes to roads (yellow), forests (green), and mountains (dark blue). However, the new buildings have a new type of edge: Water (light blue). Water edges can only be placed adjacent to other water edges or adjacent to empty space. They can be used to form lakes.
The Villager's House
Hamlet: By the Lake includes a Villager's house in each of the player colours. At the end of your turn, instead of keeping your villagers on the board, take them off and put them to sleep on their beds in your Villager's house. Whenever you would hire a new worker, place them asleep in the Villager's house, ready to be used at the beginning of the next turn.
At the beginning of your turn, wake up all your Villagers by standing them up and take actions by placing them one by one on the desired locations on the board.
Game End
The game ends when a player makes the last Church delivery, or a player places their last flag on a building or boat. Complete the current round so that every player will have played the same number of turns (until the player sitting to the right of the starting player has completed their turn). Then proceed to End Game Scoring.