Welcome to the Arkadia Game Rules!
How to Play
Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of Arkadia? If you’re new to the game, don’t worry! I’m here to guide you through the rules and get you started on your quest.
First and foremost, let’s talk about the objective of the game. In Arkadia, your main goal is to explore the mystical land of Arkadia and uncover its secrets. You’ll embark on thrilling adventures, solve challenging puzzles, and unravel the mysteries that lie within.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to play. In Arkadia, you’ll be presented with a series of quests and missions. Each quest will have its own unique requirements and objectives. It’s your job to complete these quests by solving puzzles, finding hidden treasure, and interacting with the characters you meet along the way.
As you progress through the game, you’ll earn experience points and collect valuable items that will help you on your journey. These items can be used to unlock new areas, gain special abilities, and uncover even more secrets.
But be careful, Arkadia is not without its challenges. Along your journey, you’ll encounter dangerous enemies and tricky obstacles that will put your skills to the test. You’ll need to use strategy, wit, and a little bit of luck to overcome these obstacles and emerge victorious.
Tips and Tricks
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t worry! Here are some tips and tricks to help you navigate the world of Arkadia:
- Take your time and explore every nook and cranny. You never know what treasures or secrets you might uncover.
- Interact with the characters you meet. They may have valuable information or items to help you on your quest.
- Pay attention to your surroundings. Sometimes the key to solving a puzzle or overcoming an obstacle is right in front of you.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. The Arkadia community is full of experienced players who are always willing to lend a hand.
- Most importantly, have fun! Arkadia is an immersive and exciting world waiting to be discovered. Enjoy the journey and embrace the adventure!
Conclusion
So there you have it, the basics of how to play Arkadia. I hope this guide has given you a solid foundation to start your journey. Remember, the key to success is perseverance, determination, and a sense of adventure. So what are you waiting for? Grab your gear, sharpen your wits, and get ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime!
Once upon a time, there was a distant realm with rolling hills and fruitful valleys. Adventurous settlers had already established the bustling city of Arkadia.
Amidst their endeavors, they aspired to erect a grand castle upon a majestic hill. Four prosperous clans – the textile traders, the spice mavens, the woodworking artisans, and the silver craftsmen – sought to improve their standing and wield more influence.
To achieve this, they vied for the opportunity to contribute significantly to the castle’s creation. As architects, I was fortunate enough to be commissioned by the four families to design and materialize the growth of the town and its magnificent castle.
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I want to tell you about an exciting board game called Arkadia. In this game, you’ll need different components to play. I’ll list them for you:
– A game board
– A building lot for the castle
– Screens in different colors for the players
– Architect banners
– Building cards
– Buildings
– Seals of the four families
– Workers
– Neutral workers
– Castle pieces
– Gold coins with values of 1, 5, and 10
Now, let me explain the objective of the game to you. In Arkadia, players work together to build houses and the central castle in a town. Whenever a house is completed, the construction of the castle continues. As you construct houses, you’ll earn seals from the four families. It’s a challenging and engaging game that will keep you entertained for hours. Have fun playing Arkadia!
When a family helps build a castle, the value of their seal changes. During the game, players can turn their seals into gold whenever they want. The player with the most gold at the end wins.
Getting Ready
If you’re new to the game, make sure to carefully punch out all the pieces.
Take one of the square seal tiles and stick it onto each castle piece. Look at the illustration to see where to place them.
For your first game, we suggest using the set-up on page 7 of the rulebook. This will help you understand the game better. Follow the instructions to set up the game board, and then come back here to continue.
Now, let’s get ready to play:
- I put the game board in the middle of the table.
- I placed the building lot for the castle on the grid, making sure not to cover any squares with tent camps.
- I got a screen (construction tent) and four architect banners, as well as three workers in my color. I hung the banners on the top of the screen, facing outward. I put my three workers behind the screen.
- The remaining workers, including the beige ones, were put in a pool next to the game board.
I’m going to tell you the best way to set up the castle pieces in the game board. You’ll need to put them on three pool areas on the border of the board. Here’s how you should do it:
First, take 12 castle pieces in total. You’ll have 3 red ones, 3 olive ones, 3 silver ones, and 3 black ones.
Now, for the first and second floor of the castle, you need to distribute the pieces evenly. Place 6 pieces on each floor.
Remember, the pool areas are located at the border of the game board. The first floor pool area will have 3 pieces, and the second floor pool area will also have 3 pieces.
Since there are only 8 squares on the border, you’ll have to stack up 2 pieces of the same color on each square. This means that on each square, you should put 2 pieces of the same color one on top of the other.
That’s it! Now you know how to set up the castle pieces on the game board. Enjoy playing!
I’ll explain the next steps of the game:
- I place the remaining 4 castle pieces on the 4 colored pool squares for the third floor. The neutral pool squares will be used later.
- I sort the buildings by their shapes and put them next to the game board.
- The seals and gold are also placed next to the game board.
- I shuffle the building cards really well. Each player gets 4 cards face-down. I then put 3 more cards face-up next to the game board. The rest of the cards form a face-down stack on the table.
How to Play
I’ll start because I’m the youngest player. After that, we’ll take turns clockwise.
Each turn consists of two parts:
First Part
- I have to play a building card and put the corresponding building on the board.
Introducing one or more workers is an important aspect of the game. You have several possibilities to consider:
1. Must: This involves laying out a building. Choose a building card from your hand and place the building shown on the card on the game board. The building should be horizontally or vertically adjacent to any existing building or worker. The castle’s building lot is also considered a building. The squares covered by the building must be empty, meaning there should be no other buildings or workers on them. After placing the building, put a seal of your family’s color on it, indicating that the building is still being constructed and that your family has taken the order.
When it comes to introducing workers, you have a few different options to choose from. Let me break them down for you:
1. Must: This involves laying out a building. You’ll start by selecting a building card from your hand. Once you’ve chosen a card, you’ll take the building shown on that card and place it on the game board. The only requirement is that the building must be either horizontally or vertically adjacent to an existing building (including the castle) or worker. In addition, the squares covered by the building must be empty – no other buildings or workers can be present. Lastly, don’t forget to place a seal of your family’s color on the building to indicate that it’s still under construction and that your family has taken on the project.
When I play a building card, I place it on the discard pile and it’s out of the game. Then I add a new card to my hand so that I have four cards again. I can either choose one of the three cards that are face-up or draw the top card from the stack.
If I choose one of the three face-up cards, I need to turn over a new card from the stack right away to replace it.
Neutral Workers:
Hey there! Let’s talk about the cool game board. It’s got some squares that show tent camps. And guess what? You can recruit migrant workers from those camps!
Now, these tent camps aren’t like regular buildings. You can just cover them up with a building of your own. And when you do that, you get to take some neutral workers from the pool. Cool, huh?
For each tent camp square you cover, you get to take one neutral worker. Just place them behind your screen and you’re good to go!
Check out the illustrations below to see how it works:
When I play the green card, I get to put a trade center on the board. The card has a cloth merchants’ red seal on it, which is pretty cool. I take one of the trade centers from the pool and place it on the game board.
In the first illustration, you can see four different options for where to put the building. In the first option, the trade center is next to a worker that has already been placed.
In options 2 and 3, the trade center touches another building. And in option 4, it’s even next to two buildings and one worker.
In this picture, there are three different ways the building can be placed. In the fifth possibility, the trade center overlaps with part of a monastery that has already been built. In the sixth and seventh possibilities, the trade center doesn’t touch any workers or buildings (being diagonal is not enough).
Out of these options, I choose the fourth possibility and put the building on the game board accordingly (see picture 3).
Here in picture 3, the trade center covers a tent camp, so I take a neutral worker from the general pool and place it behind my screen. Then, I put a red seal (which is shown on the played building card) on the trade center. After that, I draw a new building card and end my turn.
B. Adding Workers
When playing the game, you get to pick any building on the board. You can put as many of your own workers or neutral workers as you want behind the screen. Just make sure that they are next to the building, either horizontally or vertically.
Remember: Once you place workers on the board, they have to stay on the square where you put them for the entire game. They can’t be moved or taken away.
Note: If you put a worker on a tent camp, you won’t get any neutral workers.
Take a look at the picture on the right to see an example of introducing a worker.
What happens when a building is completed:
If I perform “A: Laying out a building” or “B: Introducing workers” and fully enclose a building as a result, it will be considered complete. Once complete, the castle construction will proceed, and a payout will be triggered.
A building is considered fully enclosed when all the squares adjacent to it, both horizontally and vertically, are occupied. These squares can be occupied by workers, other buildings, or the border of the game board.
Payout: Whenever a building becomes fully enclosed, all players who have workers adjacent to that building will receive seals. The number of seals received by each player is determined by the number of their workers who are horizontally or vertically adjacent to the enclosed building. The seals awarded will match the color of the seal displayed on the building. Additionally, the player whose turn it is will receive the seal from the completed building as well, as they were the ones who triggered the payout. All players place their seals behind their screen.
Important: Keep in mind that neutral workers do not receive any seals!
Note: Multiple buildings can be completed simultaneously. In such cases, each building is evaluated individually, allowing one worker to earn multiple seals.
Also, there might be instances where a building is constructed in a way that it becomes immediately surrounded. In such situations, a regular payout is triggered. In the event of insufficient regular seals, players have the option to exchange 5 seals for a larger seal with a value of 5.
Continuing with the construction of the castle: The current player will then place one castle piece for each newly enclosed building onto the castle building lot.
Note: The castle represents the importance of the family’s seals. There are 10 squares in the building lot, each displaying 2 seals from different families. Initially, each seal is worth 2 gold pieces.
During the game, castle pieces are placed on the building lot’s 10 squares, stacked next to and on top of each other. As a result, the value of individual seals changes depending on how many family seals are visible from a bird’s-eye view of the castle.
When you place a castle piece, you need to follow these rules:
When you first start building a castle, it’s important to focus on the first floor. This is where everything begins. You get to choose a piece from your collection of building materials and place it on any empty square of the building lot. Once all 10 squares of the first floor are occupied, you can add the remaining two pieces to the pool for the third floor. These pieces will be placed on two of the four vacant neutral squares on the edge of the game board.
Next, it’s time to move on to the second floor. Just like before, you need to use pieces from the second pool to construct this floor. Once the second floor is completed, you can add the remaining two pieces to the pool for the third floor.
But here’s a crucial detail to keep in mind: when the second floor is finished, the game is almost over. It’s the beginning of the end.
Let me give you an example to make things clearer. Imagine you introduce some workers to your castle. After their hard work, it’s time for a payout.
Hey there, let’s dive into Violet’s exciting choices in the game. Violet has decided to go with possibility 1B, which is all about introducing workers. How cool is that?
So, Violet selects the trade center as his main focus. Right next to it, he can now add any number of workers from his worker pool. How convenient! Now, he decides to bring two of his own workers, let’s call them Violet workers, to join the party. But that’s not all! He also adds a neutral worker to the mix. So now, both the trade center and the monastery are completely surrounded and ready for action.
Now comes the exciting part – the payout! Here’s how it goes:
Orange, another player in the game, receives a red seal from the general pool because one of his workers helped in constructing the trade center. As for Violet, since he has two workers next to the trade center, he gets two red seals from the general pool. Plus, he also snags the red seal sitting on the trade center itself. Double win!
But wait, there’s more. Both Yellow and Green players get two olive seals each from the general pool for successfully building the monastery. Violet, on the other hand, gets an olive seal from the general pool and grabs the seal that is sitting on the monastery. Talk about a bounty!
Now that Violet has collected his rewards, he gets to choose two castle pieces from the pool for the first floor of the castle. And guess what he picks? The two black pieces! Why black, you might wonder? Well, it turns out Violet has been hoarding black seals in previous rounds, so these pieces are perfect for his strategy.
2. Can: Use The Architect Banner
After I take my turn, I have the option to use one of my 4 architect banners. If I decide to use it, I will get two workers in my color from the general pool (and the banner will be removed from the game).
Additionally, once I use my banner, I can perform a special action only for myself:
I have the ability to exchange any number of seals I have collected (even if they are from different families). I will return these seals to the general pool and, in exchange, receive gold. The value of each seal depends on how the castle looks from a bird’s-eye view – the more castle squares of the corresponding color I can see, the higher the value of the seal.
When you play the game, you get to choose which seals you want to exchange for gold coins. You can exchange up to 4 seals during each game to earn gold. And don’t forget, there’s one more evaluation at the end of the game where you can earn even more gold.
At the end of my turn, I play one of my architect banners and get 2 green workers from the general pool. Then I evaluate my options. I decide to exchange 7 seals of the cloth merchants (red) and 5 seals of the silversmiths (silver). When I look at the castle, I see 3 red squares and 4 silver squares. So, I’ll get 7 red seals x 3 red squares for a total of 21 gold coins, and 5 silver seals x 4 silver squares for a total of 20 gold coins.
Now, let’s talk about the end of the game. It starts when a player puts the last castle piece on the second floor. The two remaining castle pieces are put in the pool for the third floor. I can still take one more action if I have an architect banner left.
Note: If I complete multiple buildings during my turn and have the ability to place multiple castle pieces, the last two pieces from the pool for the second floor are added to the pool for the third floor first.
If I can place more pieces after that, I will take them from the pool for the third floor, which now has 8 pieces, and place them on the third floor.
At this point in the game, I still have one more turn. I will be the last player to go if I started the end of the game. If any buildings are completely enclosed during this last round, I will use castle pieces from the pool for the third floor.
Once this last round is over, the game ends. I will evaluate my remaining seals at this point, following the same process as before.
The player with the most gold now wins the game.