How to play
- Draw and place. The start tile lies face up in the middle; the other 71 tiles are a face-down stack. On your turn, draw the top tile and lay it next to the valley, turned any way you like, so that every side it shares with a tile matches: lane to lane, village to village, pasture to pasture. If the tile cannot go anywhere, take it out of the game and draw the next one.
- Set a warden. You have 7 wardens. After you lay the tile you may set one of them on a feature of that tile: on a lane as a thief, in a village as a warden of the walls, on a mill as a miller, or in a pasture as a farmer. You may do this only if nobody has a warden on that feature yet, as it now runs across the valley.
- Score what you close. When your tile closes a feature, it scores at once, and its wardens go back to their owners. Whoever has more wardens on it than anyone else takes every point of it. If two or more players have the same top number of wardens, each of them takes every point. Two held features can join into one: that is how wardens end up sharing.
- The end. After the last tile, every feature that is still open scores less (see the table). Farmers stay in their pastures all game and score only now.
- Pastures. At the end, each closed village pays 3 points for every pasture that touches it, to the holder of that pasture. A village can pay several pastures; a pasture counts each village once. Most points wins; a tie shares the place.
The points
| Feature | Closed during the game | Still open at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Lane | 1 per tile, when both ends end | 1 per tile |
| Village | 2 per tile and 2 per banner, when the wall is closed | 1 per tile and 1 per banner |
| Mill | 9, when all 8 tiles around it are laid | 1, and 1 per tile around it |
| Pasture | — | 3 for each closed village it touches |
At the online table
- Every place where your tile fits has a faint outline. Tap one to hold your tile there; tap it again (or T) to turn it to the next way that fits, then “Set down”.
- Then tap a round spot on your tile to set a warden, or “Skip”.
- Drag to move the valley, pinch or use the wheel to zoom, and “Fit” (F) to see all of it.
- On a keyboard: Tab or the arrow keys go through the places, T turns the tile, Enter or Space sets it down; S skips the warden. F fits the valley. M turns the sound off. ? lists the keys.
- Each choice has a 60-second timer. If it runs out, the table lays your tile for you and sets no warden.
- An empty seat is taken by a bot, always marked as a bot.
Why it is fair
The order of the stack is the only secret. A secret seed shuffles it. You see the seed’s fingerprint when the game starts and the seed itself when it ends, so you can check every tile that was drawn. Verify a game.
Playing online for the first time?
Our guide compares the ways to play online, with steps for each. Read the guide to playing online.