Castle Combo

The base game supports two to five players. Shuffle Castle and Village separately and display three cards from each. Start the Messenger at the Village; each player receives fifteen gold and two keys. Choose a random first player and proceed clockwise.

Each turn follows this order: optionally spend a key, recruit one card, apply its ability, then move the Messenger as instructed and refill the markets. Each player takes nine turns.

At the start of your turn spend at most one key either to move the Messenger to the other location or to discard and replace all three cards at its current location. You cannot use keys for both operations in the same turn.

Normally choose one of the three cards at the Messenger’s location and pay its printed cost. Existing applicable discounts stack, with a minimum cost of zero and no gold payout. A newly bought card’s discount does not apply to its own purchase.

Alternatively recruit the chosen card face down without paying its cost and immediately gain six gold and two keys. Ignore all front-side abilities, scoring, shields, banners and Messenger icons; the card still occupies a tableau space.

Place the first card freely, then place each new card orthogonally adjacent to an existing card. Never add a fourth card to any row or column. Your final tableau is three by three, with boundaries determined as it expands.

Resolve a face-up card’s ability after placing it. Abilities normally concern your own tableau and include the new card itself, except for its discount. A neighbor means your chosen immediate left or right opponent; opponents means all other players.

If the face-up recruit’s banner has a Messenger icon, move the pawn to the indicated Castle or Village. Otherwise, including face-down recruitment, do not move it. Then refill both displays to three; reshuffle the corresponding discard when its deck runs out.

If a location still cannot display three cards after reshuffling, remove all its cards and keep the Messenger at the other location. It can no longer move, but a key may still refresh the remaining display. Gold and keys are not limited by component counts.

After everyone has nine cards, allocate leftover gold to purse cards within their capacities and score each scroll using only your tableau. Face-down cards score zero, each key scores one, and gold outside purses scores nothing. Ties compare leftover gold, then share victory.