Tower of London Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • Prepare
  • Playing Cards
  • Card Abilities
  • Terms To Know
  • Reduce Player Decks
  • Scoring
    • How To Score
  • Winning The Game

Goal

In Tower of London, players fight for control of the Tower, using their influence in the various buildings to earn ravens. The first player to collect seven or more ravens wins! But remember, if no one has seven or more ravens at the end of the game, everyone loses!

Components

• 31 ravens
• 65 player cards (13 player cards × 5 colors)
• 1 board (representing the Tower of London)
• 100 cubes (representing Beefeaters; 20 of each of the 5 colors)
• 13 event cards
• 3 scoring cards

The effects printed on the event cards and the values printed on the scoring cards are part of those components and are not reproduced in the manual text.

Setup

1. Place the board between the players. The board has three scoring areas (orange, green, and blue) and four quadrants (I, II, III, and IV).
2. Give each player their matching color Beefeaters and player cards.
3. Based on the number of players, place the appropriate scoring card on the board where indicated.
4. Shuffle the event cards. Draw three event cards face down and place them on the board in a pile where indicated.
5. Place the ravens in a pile accessible to all players.
6. Randomly select a start player. At the beginning of Round 1, the turn order starts with that player and proceeds clockwise. However, as the game proceeds, the turn order changes as indicated on the board.

Gameplay

The game ends after three rounds or instantly, when a player has collected seven or more ravens. At the beginning of each round, flip over a new event card. At the end of each round, there is a scoring phase.

Each round consists of the following phases:

1. Prepare
2. Playing Cards
3. Reduce Player Decks
4. Scoring

Prepare

Flip over a new event card. Each player shuffles their deck and draws a hand of six cards. Players should keep their hands hidden from their opponents.

Playing Cards

This phase has three steps. This sequence of steps is performed three times in each round.

Step 1: Simultaneously, all players look at their hand of six cards and select two cards, placing them face down in front of themselves. Pay attention to the cards chosen and how you want them revealed: the order of the cards is important (you may look at your own selected cards at any time).

The first card revealed gives you the building numbers in which you can place a Beefeater. The second card revealed gives you an ability to activate. Ignore the ability on the first card and the numbers on the second card.

Step 2: Once all players have selected their two cards, the start player reveals their cards one at a time. When done, the next player in turn order does the same and so on. At the beginning of Round 1, the turn order starts with the start player and proceeds clockwise. After that, the turn order is based on the cards played and is indicated on the board.

Step 2A: Reveal your first card and place a Beefeater in the tower, on one of the three matching numbered buildings shown on your card (each card has an orange, green, and blue number).

Step 2B: Reveal your second card and activate the ability on the card.

Example: If Heather placed a Beefeater in building 12 and played "BACKSTAB: Remove one Beefeater from a building +/- 1 away from where you placed." then Heather may remove one Beefeater from building 11 or 13.

Important: The ability of your card is always relative to the Beefeater you just played.

Step 3: After all players have played their two cards, remove any Beefeaters on the Turn Order Track. Then, look at the orange number on the first card played for each player and place a Beefeater on the Turn Order Track matching that number (it does not matter if you placed a Beefeater into that building or not). If two or more players played the same card, look at the orange number of the second card played and place the Beefeaters there. If still tied, then those players reverse their turn order position.

The Turn Order Track now displays the new turn order. From highest (start player) to lowest, players act in the order of their positions on the track.

Example: In order, Ross, Nate, Stephanie, and Tom have played "SWITCH", "POISON", "FOCUS" and "POISON", respectively, as their first cards. Ross places a Beefeater on the "7" of the Turn Order Track. Stephanie places a Beefeater on the "12". Since Nate and Tom have both played "Poison", we look to their second card played, which happens also to be the same: "Promote"! Both players place a Beefeater on the number "11". The new turn order immediately takes effect and would be: Stephanie, Tom, Nate, Ross. Note that Tom and Nate are tied, but Tom acts before Nate because Nate acted before Tom in the previous turn order.

Players repeat steps 1-3 two more times. At the end of this phase, all players have played their hand of 6 cards.

Remember: The turn order can be different when repeating steps 1-3.

Card Abilities

The ability text shown on the player cards in the manual is as follows:

• "FOCUS": Use the power from the card you chose for your location.
• "BACKSTAB": Remove one Beefeater from a building +/- 1 away from where you placed.
• "SWITCH": Switch any two Beefeaters in the same quadrant you placed.
• "PROMOTE": The Beefeater you just placed cannot be moved (but it can be removed). Place another Beefeater on top of this one to indicate its promoted status.
• "POISON": The manual does not print the text of this ability; it appears only on the card itself, which is not legible in the manual's illustrations.

Terms To Know

Adjacent: any building connected by a line to the building you placed in (doesn't matter if it crosses a color or quadrant).

+/- 1: a building one number higher or lower than the one you placed in (doesn't matter if it crosses a color or quadrant).

Quadrant: the tower is divided into 4 quadrants, marked I-IV.

Reduce Player Decks

From the six cards they played this turn, each player selects three and returns them to the game box. They then shuffle the remaining three cards back into their deck.

(In round 2, players will have a deck of 10 cards. In round 3, players will have a deck of seven cards.)

Scoring

At the end of each round, all players score for control of a colored area. For Round 1, players only score the inner (orange) area. In Round 2, the middle (green) area is scored first, then the inner (orange) area is scored. In Round 3, the outer (blue) area is scored first, followed by the green, then orange, areas.

How To Score

1. Count the number of buildings each player controls in the area being scored. A player controls a building if they have the most Beefeaters in that building. In case of a tie, no one controls that building.
2. If more than one player is tied for number of controlled buildings in an area, the tie breaker is the tied player who controls the highest numbered building in that area.
3. Important: DO NOT count total number of Beefeaters in an area: it is about who controls the most buildings in an area.

The scoring card indicates how many ravens to award. When awarding ravens, always given them to the first place player first, then second place, and finally, if required, to third place.

Example: Red, Yellow, and Blue each control one building. No one controls building 11 because there is an equal number of Beefeaters in the building.

Since there is a tie in control of buildings, we look to the highest numbered building among them to break the tie: building 6, controlled by Red, who now scores 1st place in the area. Second place would be yellow, controlling building 3.

Winning The Game

If a player has seven or more ravens during a scoring phase, that player wins instantly – no more scoring takes place.

If no one has seven or more ravens, and it is not the end of Round 3, proceed to the next round. If no one has seven or more ravens after Round 3 is scored, everyone loses.