Coimbra

Scope and structure: These rules cover the 2018 eggertspiele / Plan B Games base game for 2–4 players, without expansions. Play four rounds, each with six phases: roll dice, draft and place dice, retrieve dice and take actions, establish a new player order, collect influence income, and invest in a voyage. Reaching the end of an influence track does not end the game early.

Shared setup: Randomly place eight level-I, four level-II and two level-III monasteries on their matching spaces. Reveal six random voyage cards. Randomly assign the four influence scoring tiles to the tracks, using the face for the player count. Separate character decks I, II and III; place shuffled II on top of shuffled III. Reveal four characters beside each of the upper, central and lower city locations, and display the four favor tiles beside the castle.

Player-count adjustments: Four players use all 13 dice and no neutral die tokens. Three players remove one purple and one green die, leaving 11 dice, and place fixed tokens of value 3 in the upper city, 4 in the central city and 3 in the lower city. Two players remove one gray, one orange, two purple and two green dice, leaving seven; place tokens 3 and 2 in the upper city, 4 and 3 in the central city, and 5 in the lower city. Tokens are not draftable dice.

Personal setup: Each player has three die holders, a pilgrim and matching markers. Start with seven coins, seven guards, zero points and zero on each influence track. Randomize player order and display one pair of start characters per player. In reverse order, each player either takes one available pair or occupies an empty starting corner of Coimbra. In forward order, everyone performs the other action. Apply both starting cards' influence and immediate rewards.

Character display and crowns: To distribute crown tokens each round, examine the fourth column from top to bottom, then the third, second and first columns as necessary. Place each class's token on the first encountered character of that class; leave it unused if the class is absent. A character's cost icon specifies coins or guards, its influence value specifies advancement on its class track, and its bonus symbol identifies when its ability operates.

Drafting and placement: The first player rolls the entire applicable dice pool once. In player order, take one die at a time, preserve its rolled value in an empty holder, and place it at one location. Continue until everyone has placed three dice. The castle queue runs from low to high; each city queue runs from high to low. Insert a new die to the right of existing equal values. Neutral tokens participate in sorting. There is no location capacity limit, and one player may place multiple dice in a location.

Retrieval and actions: Resolve the castle first, then the upper, central and lower city. Within each location, resolve dice from left to right rather than in player order. A castle die takes an available favor tile for free and applies its immediate reward. A city die acquires one character from that location's row, paying the die's value in the resource shown on the chosen card. Die color does not restrict character class. After the action, return the die in its holder to a shutter space on your board.

Acquiring characters and distress: Pay before receiving the acquired card's rewards. Gain its influence, resolve or position its own ability, apply any triggered phase-C starting-card bonus, and collect its crown token if present. If unable or unwilling to take the location's action, take the distress action instead: gain up to two coins and up to two guards. You cannot borrow resources or select a character from another row. Discard any characters left in a city row when that location finishes resolving.

Neutral tokens: When a neutral token becomes the leftmost unresolved item, discard the remaining character in that row with the highest printed influence value; break a tie by taking the leftmost tied card. Flip the token face down and continue. Flip it face up again when the location is finished. It neither belongs to a player nor collects income, and its value is not rerolled between rounds.

New order: Add crowns on tokens collected this round, favor tiles held this round, and the flag currently occupied by your lion. Rank players by this total, highest first. For equal totals, reverse the tied players' previous relative order. The new order immediately governs income and investment. Favor tiles and crown tokens are redistributed during preparation for the next round; they are not a permanently accumulating crown reserve.

Income: In the new order, each player activates their three returned dice once each, in a sequence of their choice. Gray uses the council track for guards, orange the merchant track for coins, purple the cleric track for pilgrim movement, and green the scholar track for points. Read the income box beside your marker; some higher boxes include additional rewards. White selects any one track. Multiple dice of one color each produce income, and die values have no effect in this phase. Apply phase-E character abilities at their specified times, then empty the holders.

Pilgrims and limits: Each movement step follows a road to the next stopover or monastery. Stopovers have no reward. Your first step leaves your starting corner along a one-way road; those roads cannot be used to return to Coimbra. On first reaching a monastery without your disk, place one and apply its reward at the indicated time. Later visits do not repeat that reward. Other pilgrims do not block movement; unused steps may be forfeited. Coins and guards are each capped at 20, influence at 15, and excess is lost.

Voyage investment: In phase F, each player may invest in one voyage, paying its printed coin or guard cost and marking it with a disk. Each player can invest in any particular voyage only once, but different players may invest in the same voyage. Other abilities can grant additional investment actions. A voyage normally scores its task at game end rather than immediately. An applicable favor discount operates while that favor remains in front of its owner.

Round end and influence scoring: After round four's investment phase, perform final scoring; in earlier rounds, reset favors and deal twelve new characters with newly allocated crown tokens. Score invested voyage tasks, then each influence track's printed ranking awards. A lower disk in a shared space ranks ahead. Disks at zero score nothing. Four players award the first three places; three players award the first two. In two-player games, second place scores only if at most three spaces behind the leader.

Other final points and victory: Form diploma sets with distinct symbols. Sets of one, two, three, four or five different diplomas score 1, 2, 4, 8 or 12 points. Wild diplomas substitute for a type, but no icon can belong to multiple sets. Resolve end-game character bonuses. Finally add remaining guards, coins and current crowns counted as in phase D, divide the combined total by two and round down for points. Add all final points to the running score. Most points wins; ties go to the tied player earlier in the current player order.