Viscounts of the West Kingdom

The base game supports 1–4. In multiplayer, assemble the player-count map and give each player eight starting townsfolk. Choose a paired player/hero card in reverse order, take its starting supplies and location, shuffle the hero into your deck and draw three. Stack player-count debts and deeds above Poverty and Prosperity.

Each turn has Card Management, Movement, Primary Action, Recruit, Resolve Collision and Draw Cards. Shift the tableau right, discard its departing card and resolve any drop-off effect, then play one hand card to the left and resolve its immediate effect.

Playing a Criminal gains corruption for all Criminal icons currently on your board. Criminal icons are wild only when funding primary actions, not when scoring other icon types on manuscripts. Use tableau icons, not icons in discards, for primary actions.

Move the Viscount along arrows by at least the new card’s silver value. Pay one silver per additional step; never move backward. Landing on an opponent lets that opponent rearrange their tableau immediately.

Take one primary action: outer-route trade or construction, or inner-route workers or a manuscript. Matching resources can supplement icons. You may pay to dismiss one matching local townsfolk, removing it and gaining its icons for this action plus its top-right immediate reward. Transcribe at most one manuscript, collecting its ribbon and printed benefits.

Use 1,3,5 or 8 Noble icons to place 1–4 workers in the adjacent first tier. Three of your workers in one first-tier section move one inward and one each sideways; three in a second-tier section move one to the third tier. Resolve advancement and rewards before reducing first/second-tier sections to three total workers. Displaced workers return home with compensation.

After the primary action, optionally hire one local townsfolk for silver, put it in your discards and resolve its top-right reward. Hiring retains the card for future draws, unlike dismissal. Refill to your hand limit, initially three; at or above it, draw nothing without discarding down.

Virtue and corruption stay together after meeting, but resolve and reset only in your fifth phase. Collision effects may also affect rivals. Whenever you reshuffle discards to draw, gain one corruption if your tableau has Criminal icons, otherwise one virtue. A collision during refill waits until your next fifth phase.

Revealing Poverty or Prosperity finishes the current round and triggers one complete final round. Score buildings, workers by castle tier, manuscripts, bonus cards and deeds; unpaid debts cost two, acquired deeds score one and approved deeds three. Poverty rewards approved-deed standings, while Prosperity rewards paid-debt standings. Highest score wins; ties compare combined silver/resources, then share victory.

Official solo gives you first player against one of four AI focuses. The AI shifts Scheme cards rather than using townsfolk, resolves each new card top to bottom and moves only on the outer route, but may place workers or transcribe from there. Standard ending timing gives the AI the final turn. It also scores one per leftover resource; you must strictly outscore it to win.