Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

SLEEVING:

83 cards size 56x87mm (USA)

GAME COMPONENTS:

8 Character cards, 68 District cards, 7 Game Aid cards, 1 Crown token, 30 Gold Coin tokens.

AWARDS & HONORS:

2007 Golden Geek Best Card Game Nominee

2001 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Winner

2001 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Nominee

2001 International Gamers Awards - General Strategy; Multi-player Nominee

2000 Spiel des Jahres Nominee

2000 Meeples' Choice Award

2000 Fairplay À la carte Winner