How to play
The Milehollow is a valley of hill towns joined by old post roads. You lead a carrier guild with 45 waystones. You start with 4 cart cards and 3 sealed letters, and keep at least 2 of the letters. A letter names two towns: join them with your own roads before the end. The most points at the end wins.
Your turn: do one of three things
- Draw cart cards. Take two cards, one at a time, each from the face-up row or the top of the deck. A face-up Ox may only be your first card, and then it is your whole draw.
- Pave a road. Discard as many cards as the road has slabs, all of its colour (a grey road takes any one colour). An Ox stands for any colour. Put a waystone on each slab and score at once.
- Draw letters. Draw 3 letters and keep at least 1. The others go to the bottom of the letter deck.
When the face-up row shows 3 Oxen, all five cards are discarded and five new ones are turned up. Some towns are joined by a double road. You may pave only one road of a double, and with 2 or 3 players the other road closes.
Points for a road
| Slabs | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 7 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 15 |
The end
When a player ends a turn with 2 or fewer waystones, every player has one more turn. Then each letter whose towns your roads join adds its value, and each other letter takes its value away. The longest unbroken line of your own roads earns the Long Road: 10 points. A tie goes to the most letters delivered, then to the Long Road.
At the online table
- Play with 2 to 5 at a table.
- Each decision has a 60-second timer. If it runs out, the table draws from the deck for you. It paves a road only when nothing can be drawn.
- An empty seat is taken by a bot, always marked as a bot.
Why it is fair
A secret seed decides who starts and the order of both decks. You see its fingerprint when the game starts and the seed itself when it ends, so you can check it. Verify a game.