For Whom The Web Rocks
The Castles of Burgundy - Options
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Options
There are a variety of options available when playing The Castles of Burgundy. A variety of boards, extra tiles, extra rules. These are summarised below.
Why all these different options, you may ask? Well, partly because they are there, and partly because it is difficult to predict which options people are going to want to play with. We could end up playing most games on the original boards with no extras at all - and that is fine.
1st Expansion - Spielbox Boards and Rules
| Eight additional boards were published in issue 2011/#5 of Spielbox
magazine. These add more variety. There is also the option to play on these boards using the Spielbox Rules. These rules add more restrictions on where you can place tiles in your estate. Now you have to be able to trace a path through previously placed tiles of the same type (e.g. Buildings, Knowledge) to one of your Castles, rather than simply being adjacent to any tile. This restriction does not apply when placing new Castles. In addition to this, at the cost of 5 victory points and both dice actions, you may purchase a Castle tile that was not taken from the depots in a previous round. If the Spielbox Rules are in play, the Spielbox logo will be shown to the top-left of the players boards, as shown on the right. The Castle-coloured box below the logo will show the number of Castles available for purchase. |
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2nd Expansion - Four Extra Tiles
Four extra tiles were published in 2012 and were initially available at Essen, and later through the BoardGameGeek store. If used, these are mixed in with the other tiles at the start of the game. The Park and Goats are black-backed tiles intended for the Black Depot. The two Knowledge tiles are yellow-backed tiles and will appear in the numbered depots - or not, depending on how the tile draw works out.
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| Park | Goats | Sequential Order | Worker Tiles |
| Can function as any building type | Can function as any animal type | Always be on top of your current playing order column | Buy 2 Workers for 1 Silverling at any time |
3rd Expansion - 2013 German Board Game Championship Board
A special board was produced for the 2013 German Board Game Championship. This is available if you want to try it. As this is a single-sided board, if you play in a game where you get to choose which side of the board to play and this one is picked, you will be offered the 2016 German Board Game Championship board as your alternative.
4th Expansion - Monastery Boards and Rules
| Eight additional boards were published in 2013 and were available through
the BoardGameGeek store. These add more variety and also add the Monastery rules. As there
seems to be no reason why you must play with the Monastery rules when using these
boards, I do not insist on it. Conversely, you could use the Monastery rules on any board. If you are using the Monastery rules, you gain 5 points when you complete each of three rows of hexes on the board. Using the first Monastery board as an example, show on the right, the first is the horizontal row of knowledge hexes, the others are the diagonal rows of ship and animal hexes. In addition, the first player to complete all three rows gains a bonus of 5/6/7 points for 2/3/4 players, while the second to complete them gains 2/3/4 points. If the Monastery Rules are in play, the Monastery logo will be shown to the bottom-left of the players boards, together with the number of Monastery points scored, as shown on the right. |
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5th Expansion - Pleasure Garden
The Pleasure Garden tiles were published in 2014 and initially available at the "Stadt Land Spielt" event that took place all over Germany. They were later available through the BoardGameGeek store. If used, these are mixed in with the other tiles at the start of the game. There are seven Pleasure Garden building tiles with beige backs and two with black backs. The single Knowledge tile is yellow-backed.
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| Pleasure Garden | |
| Take a second action using the white die |
At game end, score 4 points for each Pleasure Garden |
6th Expansion - Cloisters
The Cloisters were published in 2015 as day 20 of the 2015 Board Game Advent Calendar. If used, one of these is dealt into the Black Depot at the start of each phase and then the rest of the Black Depot is filled as usual.
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| Cloister | Cloisters in Play | ||||||
| Can go into any hex on your estate and helps to complete the region | When played into your estate,
Cloisters will be shown with the background of the hex type occupied to make it clear
which region it is in Each Cloister in a region increases the size of the region by 1 for scoring purposes, up to a maximum size of 8 |
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7th Expansion - 2016 German Board Game Championship Board
A special board has produced for the 2016 German Board Game Championship. This is available if you want to try it. As this is a single-sided board, if you play in a game where you get to choose which side of the board to play and this one is picked, you will be offered the 2013 German Board Game Championship board as your alternative.
Other Options
Without meaning to complicate things, when you sign up for a game of The Castles of Burgundy you can also choose the following options:
Actually, it is more likely that when a game is due to start I will ask the players what options they would like, and go with a majority unless a player has vetoed something.
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© Keith Thomasson March 1st 2016 |
