Legacy of Yu FAQ
98 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
The Campaign
- Does winning or losing a game change which path the campaign takes next?
- When can you exchange Card 52, a Fortuity card, for one of each worker?
- Does a Fortuity card's stop-the-wave ability work only once per game?
- What does Card 35 do: an extra Cowrie Shell per hut use, or a second use of the same hut space?
- Can you use all the boons you received from losses at the same time?
- On Story Card 20, is the icon on the side card a fish or wheat?
- Are the Townsfolk locked on a Food Shortage card returned to the discard pile when you complete the card?
- If you finish a round without completing a Food Shortage card, do you lose the game?
- Must you fulfil a Food Shortage objective in the turn it appears?
- How many games does a campaign last?
- If a Story effect says to discard the leftmost Barbarian if possible, what happens when no Barbarian is in the row?
Game Setup
Round Structure
- Is taking 1 damage the same as destroying 1 Townsfolk card?
- What happens when a Townsfolk or Barbarian draw pile runs out during a draw?
- If you must draw or destroy a Townsfolk card but both your Ready and Exhausted piles are empty, do you lose?
- If you must draw or destroy a Townsfolk card but your Ready Pile is empty, what happens?
- If defeating a Barbarian gives you a draw but your Ready Pile is empty, do you shuffle and advance the Flood?
- Do unused Workers and Resources carry over between Rounds?
- Can you recruit a Townsfolk before shuffling your Exhausted Pile when your Ready Pile is empty?
- Can a card you just played this turn be reshuffled and drawn again on the same turn?
Worker Colours and Outposts
- Can Workers of different unlocked colours stand in for each other, such as a White Worker in place of a Red one?
- If a Harvest or trade grants a Worker of a colour that has run out, can you take an unlocked other colour instead?
- Can a red Outpost let you pay a Provision to turn a red Worker into a blue one through a river trade?
1. Harvest
- If your Harvest needs more Townsfolk than your Ready and Exhausted piles can supply, do you lose?
- Can you look through the discard pile, and in what order do you take the Harvest?
- During Harvest, can you look at your drawn cards before choosing your rewards and Worker colours?
- Must you draw the full number of Townsfolk cards during Harvest, or can you stop early?
- Do Workers placed on the board come back after use, and to where?
- In the Harvest example on page 7, where do the three Cowrie Shells come from?
- Why does the Harvest example draw five Townsfolk instead of four?
2. Take Actions: Townsfolk Cards
- On Card 39, does the Clay-and-Wood option replace the top resource of the Townsfolk card, or come on top of it?
- When a Townsfolk card with a +1 draw is played on an empty draw pile, is it shuffled in before or after its draw?
- When the Card 62 skill is used as part of a loss, does it replace the resources in the Townsfolk card's top-left, or add to them?
- When Card 68 allows an extra tuck, can you tuck two cards each time you tuck one?
- Can you defeat Barbarians and recruit Townsfolk in any order?
- Which rewards do you get when you dismiss, discard or play a Townsfolk card?
- When you exhaust a card to use a Skill card, do you also collect that card's normal resource or Worker?
- Can you keep Townsfolk cards in your hand after the Take Actions phase to use later?
- Are a Townsfolk card's benefits optional, or must you take its card draw?
2. Take Actions: Trading and Order
- Can you take actions in any order during Take Actions, and keep acting with resources you gain before Suffer Attacks?
- Can you gain resources mid-turn and spend them to defeat more Barbarians?
- What do you do if you must gain a Cowrie Shell but none are left in the supply?
- What does the river trade that exhausts a Townsfolk card from hand for 2 Cowrie Shells do?
2. Take Actions: Attacking Barbarians
- Are a defeated Barbarian's rewards mandatory, even a card draw you would rather skip?
- If defeating a Barbarian gives a card you can use right away, can you use it in the same Take Actions phase?
- When a Story effect says to discard the leftmost Barbarian, do you still gain that Barbarian's attack rewards?
- How is the Fortress removed from the last spot on the Barbarian row?
- What does a Barbarian showing four Workers of any colour, each with two white lines through it, mean?
- Do the Workers you spend to defeat a Barbarian return to your supply?
2. Take Actions: Buildings and the Canal
- Must Huts be built from left to right, and where can you place a built Hut?
- Can the Flood move onto the canal space you are building and lose you the game?
- What do the smaller icons at the bottom of a canal card mean, and what does a white-framed shell icon on a build site mean?
- Where do you place a building, and can you build when no build site is free?
- Can you build any canal card, or only the one the Barge is on?
- Does a building's reward repeat each time you place a Worker on it?
- What do Huts cost to build?
2. Take Actions: Huts
- The second Hut action lets you place a Worker to gain a Worker of any colour. Can the new Worker be the same colour as the one you placed?
- After a Townsfolk card removes a Worker from a hut, can you place a Worker in that empty space again for its reward?
- When you place a Worker on a hut space, do you get the reward immediately or only at the next Harvest?
- Do you have to place Workers on hut spaces from left to right?
- Does Card 62 let you recover Workers from huts during the current Round?
- How many Workers can occupy one hut space?
4. Suffer Attacks
- Can you bribe the Barbarian sitting in the Fortress and take damage from the Fortress, or the reverse?
- Does Card 45 ignore the Fortress as well as the Barbarian in it during Suffer Attacks?
- Does Card 22 resolve during Suffer Attacks, during Refresh Card Row, or both?
- When you bribe a Barbarian, is it discarded from the row?
- At the end of Suffer Attacks, are the Barbarian cards removed from the row?
- If a Barbarian's attack draws or places a new Barbarian, does the new one attack immediately?
- If a card prevents 1 damage, does it block one destroy icon, or a whole Barbarian attack or Fortress?
- If your Ready Pile runs out again during a Harvest or an attack, does the Flood move again?
- Can Workers already placed on hut spaces be used to bribe Barbarians or pay costs?
5. Refresh Card Row
- When a Barbarian's attack adds new Barbarians, how do you resolve the bribes, and how many are added at refresh?
- Do you add one new Barbarian every Round, even if an earlier one is still on the board?
- If three Barbarians are still alive after you build the sixth canal, and refresh adds four, do you lose?
- When does the +1 Barbarian icon behind the last canal card apply?
- Do Barbarians and Townsfolk refill the Card Row from left to right or from right to left?
- Do the red +1 Barbarian icons on the canal add to how many Barbarians are revealed at refresh?
- When a +1 Barbarian effect is drawn, is the extra Barbarian added right away or at the next refresh?
- What happens when you need to add or draw Barbarians and the Barbarian draw pile is empty?
- After you defeat Barbarians from the middle of the row, do the gaps close during refresh?
End of the Game
- Does completing the final canal immediately win the game, or can you keep playing?
- After the final canal is built and the Barge is off the board, can the Flood moving onto that space lose you the game?
- To win in the final Round, must you survive Suffer Attacks and then complete Refresh Card Row?
- What does the trade on the last canal space do, and does it matter if the game ends right after?
- After a defeat, which Story Book entry do you read: the top one or the bottom one on the Defeat card?
Between Games
- Do cards a campaign adds to the game stay in their deck between games, or are they reset?
- When are extra Other Set-Up cards from the Story brought into play?
- Is setup for later games in a campaign the same as for the first game?
- Where do Story cards that are filed for future games go, and are they shuffled into the decks?
- After a game, what happens to cards in History and Other Set-Up, and what resets?
- Can a campaign be reset and replayed, and what must be restored?
- Can you run out of Hut cards during a campaign, after several huts are moved to History?
Icon Reference
- On a Food Shortage card with gold icons, when do you resolve each gold icon?
- Can a Townsfolk card that counts as all four food icons be used for Card 47, which needs a milk icon?
- Are new icons on bonus cards, such as a trade for fish or meat, usable as soon as you get the card?
- Is there a reference card for the game's icons?