Village

SoloPlayRules

OriginalgamedesignbyInkaandMarkusBrand2011(TastyMinstrelGames)

Additionalrules2017SoloPlayTM (BGGUser:GameRulesforOne)

Introduction: The village is full of opportunity. There are so many pastoral things to address and customers
to satisfy you dont know how you will get them all done by the end of the 5th day. You are experienced
though and know your way around the farm. You better or the village counsel will have your skin. By
careful planning and foresight you will recognize the best ways to most efficiently accomplish your village
tasks. If you do, you will be rewarded with the golden sow award and be lauded throughout the community.
They might even make you head wagon maker! Now that is something to strive for.
Goal: To score better than your opponent after 5 rounds have been completed.
Setup:
1) Place the game board within reach
2) Retrieve the mass overview card. Place it next to the game board. This will be referred to as the
influence board. If using the players aide at the end of these rules, it will be the influence board instead.
3) Select a color to play and a neutral color to perform some in game actions
a) Retrieve a farm board for you to use. Your opponent will not need one.
4) Place a scoring marker of each color on the zero space of the score track.
a) Additionally, place a gold coin on the zero space as well. It will be referred to as the power tracker.
b) Place the markers for each player next to the travel area.
5) Place all influence cubes in the draw bag
6) Place the 4 black monks in the black draw bag
a) Add 2, #1 family members of your opponents to the bag.
i) Also, create stacks of your opponents family members as follows: (place near the game board)
(1) a #1 / a #1 + a #2 / a #2 + a #3 and finally a #4 All those remaining are set out of play.
7) Shuffle the 3 setup cards and place in a stack next to the game board or on the player aide.
8) Add components to the game board: (all excess is placed back in the box and will not be needed)
a) Retrieve 5 grain tiles and place them on the grain harvest space.
b) Retrieve 7 coins; 6 are placed on the windmill and the other 1 starts in your supply
9) Setting up the goods tiles availability
a) Retrieve 4 of each of the following: cows, horses, scrolls, wagons and plows
b) Shuffle the tiles well and place in a single stack near the crafts area. You may never look ahead.
10) Setting up the customer tiles for your game:
a) Separate the customer tiles into 3 groupings: 6+ points, 4-5 points and 3 or less
b) Shuffle each stack
c) Draw 4 from the 3 or less stack, 2 from the 4-5 point stack and 1 from the 6+ stack. Place the
remaining customers out of play (in the box)
d) Shuffle the 7 customer tiles and place them on the board as follows:
i) Place the first 3 into the rightmost market stalls (the 3 and 4 spaces are empty)
ii) Place the remaining 4 in the future customer spaces (the last future space will be empty)
11) Place the couple (start player marker) onto the game board: (they will grant a special privilege
depending on their location when the ring is taken and you choose to use it)
a) Draw a cube from the bag. The cube drawn indicates their starting position. If it is ... they start in ...
i) Green: Market / Pink: Traveling / Brown: Church / Orange: Town Square (between harvest and
family action spaces) / Black: Market
(1) Place the tile in a convenient location in the area designated and return the cube to the bag.
(2) Note: The couple will circle the board once during your game.
12) The game setup is complete

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Core elements to understand before you begin play:

1) Knowing your opponent:
a) Your opponent will only take power/scoring actions based on the influence cube that you take from
the board during the round.
i.) The gold coin (power tracker) that you placed on the scoring track will determine the number of
points your opponent will score during the round cleanup phase.
1. How Much Will the Game Score?: The game will score 1 point for each 5 spaces the power
tracker advanced and will be reset at the end of each round back to zero.
b) Additionally, your opponent may have one of its family members pass on (die) and also compete with
you in the church for the end of round 2 point award.
i.) Note: If you have no one in the church, your opponent will automatically gain the 2 points
c) Your opponent will collect all craft items that you failed to create during your round and score any
customers left at the end of the game that its tiles can satisfy. This is why the decision on what to
put into the crafts area can be very important.
2) Managing the available influence cubes:
a) When you choose an influence cube color from an area you may have the opportunity to reduce the
power gain by the game for later actions by removing 1 or more from the game.
b) Each round there will be a different amount of cubes available for your actions and it is likely you
will be further adjusting the number of these on the board at the start of each round.
i.) The way that the cubes are positioned should have an effect on the way that you will choose to
sequence your actions for the round.
ii.) The influence board has a maximum capacity of 6 cubes each round. All additional cubes are
placed out of play. This can affect your ability to get the cubes that you need later in the game.
3) The game is played over exactly 5 rounds
Game Play Brief:
1) Perform start of round maintenance
2) Choose 1 or a group of the same color influence cubes from the board to take an action (keeping one)
3) Game advances its power tracker based on the color cube taken
4) Player resolves the action
5) Repeat steps 2 to 5 until any one area has no cubes or a color is no longer represented on the board
(including black).
6) Perform end of round cleanup
7) Game ends after 5 rounds
Action Spaces in Detail:
1) Market:
a) Craft tiles paid to satisfy customers may either be removed from the game or moved to the bottom of
the craft tile stack in any order. The ring and grain are returned to the game board, if used.
b) The 1st customer you satisfy costs 1 less green cube and time to satisfy. The reason that this is
important is that the 2 leftmost market positions (#3 and #4) always cost 1 green cube and 1 time
more to complete in addition to the goods needed.
i) In other words if you wanted to satisfy both customers in the #3 and #4 positions it would cost
you 3 green cubes and 3 time (1 cube and 1 time for the 1st and 2 cubes and 2 time for the 2nd, as
each additional customer satisfied costs 1 green and 1 time more)
(1) Green cubes used are placed on the influence board for the current round.
2) Council Chamber:
a) 1st Stage (Ring): Take the ring into your possession. At any point before an end of round condition is
reached you may activate the couple ability, returning the ring to the board. If they are ...
i) In the Market: You may switch the position of any 2 customer tiles even if the tile is in a future
position.
ii) Traveling: You can perform a traveling action for 1 less cube or 1 less time.
iii) In the Town Square (grain harvest/family): You may take 1 bag of grain and move 1 family
member from any location back to the farm. The family member went shopping.
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 iv) At the Church: May retrieve a #1 family member from any location and put into the black bag at
no cost or pay 2 brown cubes or 4 time and place any family member from any location into the
black bag. You may also move 1 cube from the church to another area with the same color there.
v) In the Craft Area: May move a family member from 1 building to another.
b) 2nd Stage (cubes): Draw 3 cubes from the bag and choose 2 to keep or take any 1 cube from the
influence board from the previous round. If you chose the former, return the 3rd cube to the bag.
i) Note: If a black cube is drawn, advance time on your board 1 space. You may place the black
cube on the influence board or return it to the bag and draw a replacement. Repeat as needed.
c) 3rd Stage (craft tile): You may take any craft tile currently in the craft section or the one from the top
of the craft tile stack
d) 4th Stage (gold exchange): You may exchange 1 gold for 3 points. If you do, place the gold coin out of
the game. Note: This is the only time that gold is placed out of play as a result of one of your actions.
i) Payment Resolution: If the scroll was paid, you may return it to the bottom of the craft tile stack
or remove it from the game. If green cubes were paid, place them on the influence board.
3) Church:
a) Payment Resolution: If brown cube is spent, it is placed on the influence board.
i) Additionally, if you placed a family member in the bag, you may choose to move 1 influence cube
from any area to another area. Limitations: You cannot deplete the area you are moving the
cube from, it also cannot be moved to an area which does not already have the color present.
Each action area can never exceed its setup cube capacity as a result of moving a cube, review the
setup board. This means that a cube cannot be moved to the market, for example.
4) Crafts:
a) Limitation: You may only gain the craft tiles that are in the market. If none are available, none can
be gained.
b) Payment Resolution: Influence cubes spent are placed on the influence board.
5) Traveling:
a) Wagons spent to travel are removed from the game and the influence cubes used are placed back
into the bag. When you gain cubes, draw 3 from the bag and keep 2. Note Council Chamber 2.b.i
above if you drew a black cube. If you gain a coin, take it from the windmill.
i) Restriction: You are not permitted to travel to a town that the game has visited first.
ii) End Game Scoring Note: The 3 point towns will only score for the disk placed for both players.
6) Family:
a) If you choose to grow your family, you must take the color cube that currently has the most on the
game board. You opponent will score 2 points and then move its power tracker according to the
color of cube chosen.
b) If you use the action to move a family member to your home, you can choose any cube and your
opponent will only move the power tracker.
7) Well:
a) Important Restriction: You may only activate an action area which has the color of cube that you
are using to pay for the use of the well.
b) Payment Resolution: The cubes spent are placed out of play.
c) The game will not gain any power or points for you using the well.
How to Play:
1) Maintenance Functions:
a) Fill the game board with influence cubes:
i) Randomly draw from the bag and place the number of cubes indicated on the top setup card in
each action space regardless of color.
(1) Fill the board clockwise starting with the market
(a) Restriction: There must be at least 1 of every color on the board including black. If a
color is not represented after random draw, retrieve one of each such cube from the bag
and replace the color cubes in the family action area (most represented on the board)
with them.
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 (2) Note: If there are not enough cubes, place as many as you can ensuring that each area has at
least 1 cube. The possibility of this happening is small and might only occur in the last
round. It is generally in your best interest to ensure that you have enough cubes.
ii) Once complete, refer to the setup card (you may need to adjust the total quantity of 1 or more
colors). Note: This is still done even if there were not enough cubes to fill the board properly.
(1) Consider in order, pink, brown, green then orange (all black, if any, will remain on the board)
(a) Return to the bag the excess as follows: (excess means greater than the value on the card)
(i) Remove 1 from the area that has the most of the color, reevaluate and continue until
you reach the maximum permitted by the setup card.
1. If there is a tie, consider the total number of cubes on the action (all colors) and
remove from the one with the most. If there is still a tie, you may choose.
(ii) Repeat for each color (other than black)
(iii) Restriction: Each area must have at least 1 influence cube on it. You may never
remove the last one.
iii) Rotate the setup card to the bottom of the stack (there are 3 of them).
b) Decide how many craft items to make available in the coming round:
i) Restriction: You must place at least 3 (and as many as 5) craft items on the game board during
this step.
ii) You will make 3 to 5 craft tile decisions: (it is important not to look ahead in the tile stack)
(1) Consider the top tile of the stack; either choose to place it on the game board or remove it
from the game. Once 3 have been placed on the board, you may stop performing this action.
(a) Therefore, once you have removed 2 tiles from play, you must place tiles on the game
board regardless of type until there are 3 made available for the round.
(b) Alternatively, you could choose to place all 5 craft tiles on the board.
2) Start Taking Actions: You will take actions until either any one area has no cubes on it or a color is no
longer represented on the game board.
a) Choose a cube in an action area and place it on your farm board or you may use the well.
i) If there are more cubes of the same color in the same area (including black), you may place the
additional cube(s) out of the game. This helps to reduce the amount of power/points that the
game will track as a result of your actions.
b) Advancing the games power tracker: (not done if the cube(s) taken will cause the end of the round)
i) After you take a cube but before you take the action; determine how far to advance the games
power tracker (gold coin on the score track). There are 2 possible ways that this happens:
Power Tracker: (1) A non-black cube was taken: The power tracker is advanced an equal number of spaces to
If you take a green the total # of cubes of the color taken + the # of plague (black) cubes still on the board.
cube (placing it on (2) A plague cube was taken: The game scores points (not power) equal to the number of cubes
your farm), then
count how many in the action area where the cube was taken and then the power tracker is advanced the
green and black number of spaces equal to the number of black cubes left on the game board. You will still
cubes that remain
on the game board.
advance time on your farm board 2 spaces as a result of taking the cube and return the cube
Advance the games to the bag.
power marker this (a) Causing an end of round condition: In the case that you are taking the last cube of a
number of spaces.
color from the board, the game will not gain power. If it was a plague cube, the game will
still gain points if there are cubes left on the action space.
c) Resolve the action area as noted above.
d) Influence Board Notes: (many times the cubes you used for your action will be placed on the
influence board)
i) Each round has a maximum capacity of 6 influence cubes. If you choose to be place more, they
are removed from the game instead. They are not placed back in the bag.
ii) The influence cubes will remain on the influence board until the end of the game except for a
couple of game actions.
e) Continue to take actions until an end of round condition has been reached.
i) You have taken the last cube of a color from the board or;
ii) You have emptied an action space.
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3) End of Round Cleanup Phase:
a) Clear the game board:
i) Seed the Bag: You must place 5 cubes from the game board into the bag. You must include all
plague cubes in the 5 possible. Limit: You may not choose more than 2 of each non-black color.
(1) All remaining cubes are placed out of play.
ii) Move all craft tiles on the board next to the setup board. These are considered created by your
opponent. At the end of the game your opponent will use these to satisfy the customers left, if
any.
b) Opponent Score Power Points:
i) The game scores 1 point for each 5 points of power the game tracked this round.
ii) Reset the power tracker (gold coin on the scoring track) back to zero for the next round.
c) Mass: (perform in order)
i) You may pay 2 coins per family member to retrieve 1 or more from the bag and place it/them on
the 1st level of the church. Return the coins to the windmill in the crafts area.
(1) Restriction: Only at this point are you permitted to pay grain to advance 1 or more
church members. Those drawn stay on the first church space.
ii) Draw 4 pieces from the bag and place them in the order drawn.
(1) If the first piece drawn is black or yours, the game travels and places a marker disk in the
travel area on a connected town (starts with one of the 3 point towns). Always choose a
vacant town before one that you visited. Your family member(s) are placed in the church.
(a) Note: Towns the game occupies first you are not permitted to travel to.
(2) If the first piece drawn is one of your opponents, the family member has died and is placed
in the village chronicle based on the location of the couple.
(a) If the section is full, consider the next one in the following order:
(i) [Town Center = Council Chamber] > Crafts > Travel > Church > [Market = Farmyard]
1. Example: If Crafts is full, place in travel. If it is also full, place in the church etc.
iii) If there are more opponent family member(s) drawn (the other 3 pulled), they are considered to
be in the church for your opponent (but do not place them there).
iv) Compare the games total # of family members against how many you have in the church.
(1) Whoever has more family members in the church gets 2 points.
(a) If you have no family members in church, the game gets 2 points even if none are drawn.
(2) If there is a tie, compare the value of the opponents family members against the VP value of
your family member(s) as noted on the church space. Whoever has the highest value scores 2
points. If still tied, no points are awarded.
(a) Example: You have 1 family member advanced to the 3 VP position and you draw a #3
opponent from the bag. This is a tie and no points are awarded.
(3) If you score the 2 VPs, you must move 1 family member back one church position even if this
means returning it to the bag. If you have more than 1 in church, choose which one to move.
(a) Return the opponents family member(s) and any black monks drawn back to the bag.
v) Finally, add the next stack of your opponents family members into the bag from the player aide.
d) Replace the ring back to the council chamber position if still in your possession.
e) If there are no cubes on the influence board, place a gold coin from the windmill on the influence
board. If there are no gold coins in the village, the space remains empty.
i) End Game Scoring: The game will score any coins on the influence board at the end of the game.
f) Advance the future customer tiles 1 space forward. This means that you may need to move existing
customers as well, if required. This may move tiles onto the 3/4 spaces. If you are unable to move
the tiles because there is no more space, it is a game loss.
i) Note: This means that there may be as few as 1 tile available to get in the coming round.
g) Advance the couple to their next clockwise position (market > travel > town square > church > crafts
> market)
h) You are now ready for the next round to begin.

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 End Game Conditions:

1) At the end of the 5th round, the game ends.
2) If the customer tiles cannot be advanced, the game ends in a loss for you.
Score Your Game:
a) Score your game normally except no one scores the 3 pt towns (the disk still counts for # of towns)
b) Compare all customer tiles not satisfied with the craft tiles that the game has gained (grain and ring
costs are automatically covered). The game scores all customers that it can satisfy.
c) If 10-14 of a color cube was placed out of play, the game scores 1 point for each, if 15+, 2 points each.
d) The game scores 1 point for each gold coin on the influence board.
Determining Your Victory Rating:
Scoring Cubes Out of Play Example:
1) Less than the game score: Game loss If there are 10 brown, 8 green and 15 pink
2) +1-3: Game is a draw cubes placed out of play, the game scores
1+0+2: 3 points. The cubes on the influence
3) +4-6: Game Victory board do not count towards the total.
4) +7-9: Major Victory
5) +10-12: Complete Victory
6) +13-15: Master Level Victory
7) >+15: Perfect Game
Strategy Session:
1) Assessing the state of the cubes on the board is important to better sequence your actions and reduce the
amount of power that the game gains during the round as well as the number that are placed out of play
at the end of each round. Consider ending a round early if it is to your advantage.
2) The ring action from the council chamber can be a good release valve to get more effective action
possibilities. It also does not remove a cube from the location of the couple or score the game power.
3) Setting up your ability to perform effective well actions (Reminder: non-market actions) should help you
to be more efficient but remember that the well cubes must match one in the action area to use it.
4) The drafting of the craft items is an important consideration and somewhat of a deck building/culling
opportunity to tailor your later game actions, especially the 5th round.
5) Take note of the enhanced church action. It can be very important to being able to use another area an
additional time.
6) There are very few random elements in this variant. As a result, you have a great deal of control over
the outcome of the game. If you invest a little bit of time, you should be able to find a solution to your
problem.
Gameplay Example (setup + a full round played out): (FM = family member)
Setup: (3 player board is on top of the stack of 3), Draw cubes from the bag and place in the board areas: Market [Pink] / Travel [Brown/Green] / Harvest [Orange/Brown/Pink] /
Council Chamber [Brown/Pink] / Family [Black / Brown / Pink / Orange] / Church [Pink/Green/Brown] / Crafts [2 Brown/2 Pink/Orange/Green] Referring to the setup card: There can
only be 4, pink, brown and orange and 5, green. Starting with pink, there are 7. Therefore, 3 need to be removed, remove 2 from Crafts and then 1 from Family section. Start with area
with the most cubes, removing 1 cube at a time until reaching the card limit. The cubes are returned to the bag. There are 7 brown and the crafts area has the most cubes, remove 1.
Then there are 3 areas tied with 3 cubes including brown. You choose to remove one from the church and one from the harvest. Green can have 5 and there are only 3 which is fine.
Orange can have 4 and there is 3 so no action is needed. The cubes are set.
Customer Tiles: Draw 4 tiles (3 points or less), 2 tiles (4-5 points) and 1 tile (6+ points) Fill the market spaces. The 3, 4 and bottom future space will be empty.
Craft Tiles: After shuffling 4 of each tile together, you consider the tiles that you want to have on the board. The plow is first (on top of the stack) [you remove it from the game],
wagon [you place it on board], plow [you remove it from the game], horse [you place it on the board] and a wagon [you place it on the board]
Couple placement: Draw a cube from the bag. It is green. Place the couple in the market.
Round Starts: Take brown from the craft area, game advances 4 power (3 brown cubes + 1 plague cube on the board), train FM for stables (3 time) + (3 time) to take the horse [the 4
point customer is available in the market area] / Take pink from harvest, game scores 4 power (3 pink cubes + 1 plague on board), you take 2 grain / Take orange cube from family area,
game score 3 power (2 orange cubes + 1 plague on board), you retrieve a #2 FM, the game scores 2 points / take orange from craft area, game scores 2 power (1 orange cube + 1 plague
cube on board), you train a FM for wagon building (2 time) + (2 time) for a wagon, this requires a FM to pass on, you move the stable FM to the chronicle / take the brown cube in the
travel area, game scores 3 power (2 brown cubes and 1 plague cube on board), you pay 2 brown, a wagon and 2 time to place the #2 FM on the left [3] town (place a disk on the town),
remove the wagon from the game and place the 2 brown cubes in the bag / take brown cube from family area, game scores 2 power (1 brown cube + 1 plague cube on board), retrieve #2
FM, game scores 2 points / take pink cube from the church, game scores 3 power (2 pink cubes + 1 plague cube on board), pay 1 brown cube (place on the influence board), place #1 FM
in the black bag / take the pink cube from the market, game score no power (by taking the cube, the area has no cubes left on it triggering the end of the round after the action has
been completed), spend the horse to take the available 4 point customer tile, you choose to place the horse out of the game instead of returning it to the bottom of the craft tile stack.
The round ends.
Clean Up Actions:
Clear the game board: You must move 5 cubes to the bag, 1 black, 2 green, 1 pink and 1 orange is chosen. The remaining brown, pink and green cubes are placed out of play. Move the
horse not taken next to the influence board, the game has gained it.
Game Scores Power: The power token has been moved to 21 which scores the game 4 points (1 points for every 5 power tracked). Return the marker back to the zero position.
Perform Mass (draw 4 pieces and place in order drawn): You draw, opponent, yours and 2 black. Since an opponent was drawn 1st, it is placed into the village chronicle. Since the
couple is in the market, the FM is placed in the farm section. Place your FM on the 1st church position (no grain advance). Since no other opponents were drawn you gain 2 points.
Misc Cleanup Actions: Advance future customers 1 position and move the couple to the travel area. The round has been completed.

Intellectual Properties of SoloPlay (BGG User GameRulesforOne) 6

 Rd1 Rd2 Rd3 Rd4
Round1 Round2 Round3 Round4 Round5
1 2
Influence Board 1 4
Influence Influence Influence Influence Influence 2 3
Capacity Capacity Capacity Capacity Capacity
6 Cubes 6 Cubes 6 Cubes 6 Cubes 6 Cubes

Opponents Family Members

Attheendofeachroundastackisplacedintotheblackbag

Round Sequence
1. Fillgameboardwithinfluencecubes
Shufflethe3SetupCards
2. Take35crafttiledecisions(placeonboardoroutofplay)
StackThemHere 3. Takeactionsbyremovingacube(s)fromanactionarea,excess
cubesareplacedoutofplay.
Eachroundthegameboardareaswillbefilledrandomlyaccording 4. Scorepowerandpointsforthegame.
tothetopcard. 5. Executetheactionthattheareaprovides.
a. Ringactioncanbetakenatanytime.
Thenyoumayberequiredtoreducethenumberofeachcolorcube b. Influencecubesspentforcrafttilesandactionsareplaced
(otherthanblack)asnotedatthetopofthesetupcardintheorder oninfluenceroundspaces[max6cubes](excepttravel
whichisplacedbackinthebag)
shown:pink,brown,greenandorange. 6. Takeactionsuntilacolorisnolongerpresentonthegameboard
oranactionareaisnowempty.
Oncethisisdonethecardisrotatedtothebottomofthisstack. 7. Performendofroundcleanupphase:cleargameboardofcubes
(youmustplace5,allblackandnomorethan2ofanyothercolor
backinthebag),moveallcrafttilesontheboardtothegames
supply,scorethegamespowergain(5to1)andperformthemass
actions.
8. Play5completegamerounds,scoreandrateyourgameresult.

SoloPlayPlayersAideforVillage

Action Area Reminders

Market: Travel: Council Chamber: Church: Crafts: Family: Well:
Tiles on Cubes spent Ring actions / 2 Cube: If you place a family Only the To grow your family The 3 cubes are
#3/4 will are returned to Draw 3 from bag and member in the tiles on you must take the placed out of play,
cost 1 the draw bag. keep 2 or take 1 from black bag, you may the color cube with the you may now take
current round influence most on the game
additional You may not move 1 cube from game an action that still
area / Craft tile can be board. Game scores 2
green travel to a from top of the stack / any area to another board points and advances has a cube of the
cube and town with an gold coin spent is placed area with the same can be the power tracker same color as those
time opposing disk. out of play. color. gained. based on the color. spent on it.

Council Chamber Ring Actions (when couple is in location)

Market:Mayswitch2customerpositionsevenwiththefuture Church:Mayretrievea#1FMfromanywhereandplaceintheblackbagatno
Travel:Mayperformatravelactionfor1cubeor1timeless costoranyFMfromanylocationfor2browncubesor4time
TownSquare:Mayretrieve1bagofgrainandreturn1FMtothefarm Crafts:Maychangethepositionsof2FMsamongthecraftbuildings

Intellectual Properties of SoloPlay (BGG User GameRulesforOne) 7