How to play
It is harvest-fair time in a green valley. Up to five clans (the Herons, Hares, Badgers, Wrens and Magpies) walk tall striders of wicker and wood around it. Each clan has a herald, farmhands that make resources, four striders to raise and four structures to build. The goal: win six ribbons first. The sixth ribbon of any clan ends the fair at once, and then the clan with the most coins wins.
A turn
- Pick a column. Your mat has four columns (five once you hold a mill card). The mats are dealt apart from the clans, so each game mixes them. Pick one, but never the column you picked on your last turn.
- Do its top. Take the top action of that column, or skip it.
- Do its bottom. Then take the bottom action of the same column, if you can pay its resources, or skip it. Each bottom action also pays its coins.
Every clan starts with no resources. Resources lie on the fields where they were made. They are yours while you hold the field (a piece or a structure of yours there), and those on your home count too. When you pay, the table takes each resource from your field that holds the most of it.
The four tops
- Travel
- Walk 2 pieces one step each (3 when improved), or gather 1 coin.
- Harvest
- Each farmhand on up to 2 chosen fields (3 improved) makes one resource of its land; on a hamlet it brings a new farmhand. It costs more once many farmhands are out.
- Barter
- Pay a coin: 2 resources of any kind (3), or 1 goodwill (2).
- Rally
- Pay a coin: 2 nerve (3), or 1 nerve card (2).
The four bottoms
- Improve (grain)
- Move a peg from a top slot down to a bottom action: that top gives more, that bottom costs less.
- Raise (timber)
- Put a strider on a field with your farmhand. Its ability works from now on.
- Build (clay)
- Put a granary, a well, a watchtower or a bandstand on a field with your farmhand. Each helps one top action.
- Recruit (wool)
- Put a helper on a bottom action and take a one-time bonus. From then on, when you or a neighbour takes that action, you gain a little more.
Travel and standoffs
- A step goes to a next hex, or from one signpost to any other. Streams stop every piece unless a strider ability fords them; meres are for Herons (and one Hare strider); nobody walks onto a home. A strider carries farmhands and resources along.
- Farmhands never walk onto another clan's hex. A herald or strider that walks onto farmhands alone sends them home, and you lose a goodwill for each.
- A herald or strider that meets another clan's herald or strider starts a standoff after the travel. Both sides set a nerve dial in secret (up to 7, and never more than their nerve) and may add one nerve card per herald and strider there. The higher total wins; a tie goes to the side that started it. The loser walks home; the winner pins a Standoff ribbon (twice at most).
Fair-goers and the Old Mill
Eight fair-goers wait on the map. When your herald ends a travel on one, you meet them: pick one of their three offers you can pay (or none) and keep the card. The first time your herald ends a travel on the Old Mill, you look at a few mill cards and keep one: from your next turn it is a fifth column. Each clan also holds two secret errands; show one that holds to pin the Errand ribbon.
Ribbons
All six pegs moved, all four striders raised, all four structures built, all four helpers placed, all eight farmhands out, an errand shown, a standoff won (twice), goodwill at 18, and nerve at 16. That is ten ribbons in all; the sixth ends the fair.
The end
Your goodwill sets what everything is worth. Final coins are your coins, plus each ribbon, each hex you hold (the Old Mill counts as three) and each pair of resources in your fields, by the table below, plus the fair-prize tile, which pays for your structures that meet its condition. Equal coins share the place. The fair also ends after day 40.
| Goodwill | 0–6 | 7–12 | 13–18 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A ribbon | 3 coins | 4 coins | 5 coins |
| A hex held | 2 coins | 3 coins | 4 coins |
| Two resources | 1 coins | 2 coins | 3 coins |
At the online table
- Point at an action of your mat, a peg, a recruit spot, a track or a ribbon, or hold a finger on it, to read what it does.
- Tap a column of your mat; then the plaque above the map offers the top, and the sheet under the map the bigger choices: fields, goods, the dial, a fair-goer's offers, a bottom action.
- In a travel, tap a piece (on the map or in the list), then a ring where it may go. On a phone, a tap on the map shows that part of the valley bigger; “Whole valley” goes back.
- On a keyboard: 1 to 5 pick a column; T travel, G gather, R rally; D ends a travel; S skips; 0 to 6 set the dial and C adds a card; F switches the focus view; E shows an errand; M turns the sound off.
- Each decision has a 90-second timer (45 s for a dial, a fair-goer or a mill card). When it runs out, the table plays for you and spends nothing.
- A game takes about 75 minutes. A game lives on the server: if the server restarts, the table closes.