Dynasties: Heirate & Herrsche
Dynasties: Heirate & Herrsche Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components and Setup
First designate a "Banker," who will take care of replenishing components during the game.
- 1 Game board — place this in the middle of the table, as with most games. Begin setup here and then follow the boxes clockwise.
- 90 Family members (18 each in the 5 player colors Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, and Red) — each player chooses 1 color and places 1 family member as a scoring marker on space "0" of the scoring track. The remaining 17 family members are placed in front of the player as their supply.
- 1 Starting player marker — the Banker takes the rose basket. He is the starting player in the first round.
- 4 50/100 tiles — place these near space "0" of the scoring track.
- 12 Book tiles (2 each with the symbols Card, 3 Points, Ship, Sword/Rose, and 1 each with the 4 country coats of arms) — the Banker shuffles these tiles and places 2 of them face down on every city that has a book symbol. There is one book-symbol city in each country. He also places 2 tiles on the free city with the book symbol (next to the game board). The 2 remaining book tiles are returned unseen to the box.
- 4 Country valuation tablets — the Banker shuffles these tablets face down and places one on each of the 4 country coats of arms on the game board. He then reveals the tablets.
- 34 Action cards — the Banker shuffles the action cards face down and deals the following number of cards to each player, depending on the number of players: 3 players: 6 cards; 4 players: 5 cards; 5 players: 4 cards. The remaining cards are placed as a face-down deck on one of the two discard spaces in the lower area of the game board. The space next to it serves as the discard pile for played action cards.
- 3 free cities (1 each with the symbols Book, Anchor, and 2 Points) — the Banker places the 3 free cities to the upper right next to the game board.
- 4 upgraders (1 each in the 4 country colors) — the Banker also places these to the upper right next to the game board.
- 4 additional cities (1 each in the 4 country colors) — only with 5 players! If you are playing with 5 players, the Banker places each of these 4 cities in the matching-colored country. This provides a bit more room for the additional player. Otherwise you do not need these cities and return them to the box.
- 3 neutral figures (in pink) — place the 3 figures to the upper right next to the game board.
- 32 scoring cards (12 in the base color green, 20 in the base color yellow) — the Banker first shuffles the 12 green scoring cards. He then deals 2 of the green scoring cards to each player. The remaining green scoring cards are returned unseen to the box; they are no longer needed in this game. He then shuffles the 20 yellow scoring cards and places them as a face-down deck on one of the two discard spaces in the right-hand area of the game board. The space next to it serves as the discard pile for played scoring cards.
- 72 goods, in a cloth bag — for each ship (lower right of the game board), the Banker draws 5 goods from the bag and places them on the ship. He then searches out 1 good of each color from the bag for each player as "starting capital."
- 8 Personalities (18 each in Black and White, and 12 each in the colors Gold-yellow, Light blue, and Pink) — the Banker shuffles these personalities face down and places 1 personality on each of the 6 light-blue-bordered spaces in the right-hand area of the game board. The 2 remaining personalities are placed on the 2 gold-yellow-bordered spaces below that. He then reveals all the personalities so they show their front side.
- 24 country coats of arms (6 each in the 4 country colors) — the Banker places these coats of arms ready next to the game board.
- 3 dowry dice — place the 3 dice on the 3 small square storage spaces.
- 1 figure-scoring tile — the Banker places this tile on the star-shaped space on the game board, so that it shows the side with the Roman numeral 1.
The "Basic Rhythm" of the Game
The basic rhythm of Dynasties is very simple.
The active player plays one of their action cards and then carries out one of the 3 actions shown on that card.
In total there are 5 possible actions:
- Trade
- Place a Prince
- Place a Princess
- Use a Personality
- Special Actions
Example: The 3 actions on a given card might be Place a Princess, Trade (upper part, shown twice for right- and left-handed players), and a Special Action (lower part). The player must fully carry out one of the 3 actions. Then the next player takes their turn.
The starting player begins. Then all players follow in turn, going around the table, until the round ends. The round ends when all players have passed. A round scoring then follows. Afterward the next round begins. Exactly 3 rounds are played in total. At the end of the 3rd round, a final scoring also takes place.
Note: We use the word "must" here to keep the wording clear and precise. There are only positive actions.
Overview — The Individual Areas on the Board and the Actions Possible There
- Trade
- Place a Prince / Place a Princess
- Special Action (at various places on the board)
- Use a Personality
- Sit Out and Pass
Each of these areas and its action is described in detail in the sections below.
Trade — With This Action You Receive Goods
For this action, carry out the following steps:
- Play a card that shows the Trade symbol.
- Choose one of the 3 ships in the trade area. Each of these ships shows 2 placement spaces: one large and one small.
- If no other family member is standing on your chosen ship yet, you must place one of your family members on the large placement space. That completes the action.
- If another family member is already standing on your chosen ship, the large placement space is already occupied. You must therefore place your family member on the small placement space instead. As soon as 2 family members are standing on a ship, the trade takes place. The two trading partners then split the goods on that ship between themselves.
How the goods are split is described below.
Dividing and Choosing
Note: The dividing mechanism is very important in this game. You will also encounter it again during Marriage.
- Dividing — The player on the smaller of the two placement spaces takes all the goods from that ship and divides them into 2 groups. The player is free to divide the goods however they like — for example, with 5 goods, 3-to-2 or 4-to-1, but not 5-to-0. They then offer these two groups to the other player.
- Choosing — The player on the larger placement space now chooses one of the two groups offered to them and takes the goods in that group into their supply. The dividing player then takes the goods of the other group and places them in their own supply. It therefore pays to divide "fairly."
Example: Blue takes the 5 goods from the ship and divides them into 2 groups. Red chooses the group with the 2 black goods and the pink good and places them in their supply. Blue takes the remaining group (the white and gold-yellow goods).
This completes the trade. Both players take their family members back from this ship into their supply. The Banker then draws 5 new goods from the cloth bag and places them on the now-vacant ship. Finally, place the played action card on the discard pile.
This completes the action, and the next player takes their turn.
Special case: You may also "trade with yourself." If both family members on a ship belong to you, you choose 2 of the goods lying on the ship. The rest go back into the bag.
Placing a Prince or Princess — Bringing Family Members Onto the Board
With the two actions "Place a Prince" and "Place a Princess," you can place your family members as a Prince or a Princess in the cities on the game board. This earns you points and additional advantages when a marriage occurs.
Note: Strictly speaking these are 2 different actions. Since both are carried out in exactly the same way, we describe them together.
Before we get to how you place a family member, let's first take a closer look at the cities on the game board:
- Color: Every city is colored according to the country it lies in — Britannia, France, Hispania, or Sacrum Romanum Imperium.
- City symbol: Every city has a specific symbol (2 Points, Anchor, Book, or Crown), shown above in the oval. The meaning of each symbol is described below.
- Prince placement space: If you want to place a Prince, you always place him on the left of the two rectangular spaces.
- Princess placement space: If you want to place a Princess, you always place her on the right of the two rectangular spaces.
- Star: Should a child be born in this city, you place a family member on this star.
- Name: Every city on the game board has a unique name.
More about the placement spaces for the Prince and the Princess: the goods icons shown on the placement spaces indicate how many goods you must pay to place a family member there, and also which color the goods must be. In every city, just as with trade, there is a small and a large placement space. Sometimes the left space is the larger one for the Prince, sometimes the right space is the larger one for the Princess — but the more expensive of the two placement spaces is always the larger one.
To place a Prince or a Princess, proceed as follows:
1. Play a card with the Prince or Princess symbol
To place a Prince, you first need an action card with the Prince symbol (shield and sword); to place a Princess, a card with the Princess symbol (rose). Play this card face up in front of you. Note that you then carry out only one of the possible actions on it — the other symbols have no meaning for the rest of that turn.
Example: Blue plays a card that shows both the Prince symbol and the Princess symbol. He must therefore choose whether to place a Prince or a Princess with his action (unless he decides on the Special Action instead).
2. Choose a city on the game board
As the second step, you choose a city in which you want to place your family member. When choosing, you must observe the following:
- You may only place on an empty space. So there may be at most 1 Prince and 1 Princess in any city.
- You may not already have a family member in that city. So you may place either a Prince or a Princess in a city, but not both.
- You must be able to pay for the placement (see the next point).
Example: Blue chooses Carcassonne. A Red Prince is standing there on the left placement space, so that space is occupied. Blue may therefore only place a Princess in Carcassonne.
3. Pay the required goods
Every placement space shows a certain number of goods. This indicates how many goods tokens you must pay to place a family member there.
To place a Prince, you must always pay black goods. To place a Princess, you must always pay white goods. The goods you pay come from your personal supply and are thrown back into the cloth bag.
Example: Blue pays 2 white goods to place a Princess in Carcassonne.
4. Place your family member in the chosen city
Now take a family member from your supply and place it on the chosen placement space.
Note: For a clearer overview, we recommend standing family members up on the large placement spaces and laying them down on the small placement spaces. To avoid making the explanations unnecessarily complicated, however, we will generally stick with the word "place."
Every city has a specific symbol. This symbol is shown above in the oval and grants a specific benefit. Whenever you place a Prince or a Princess in a city, you immediately use that city's benefit:
- 2 Points: You get 2 points. Move your scoring marker forward 2 spaces immediately.
- Crown: You get no immediate benefit. The Crown can bring you additional points at the final scoring.
- Book: Take the top book tile from this city. If both tiles are still lying in the city, leave the bottom one in place and do not look at it. You may look at your own tile and then place it face down in front of you. Note: It can happen that no book tile is left in the city when you place there. In that case you get nothing (see Round Scoring).
- Anchor: Immediately draw 1 good from the cloth bag and place it in your supply.
Note: All city symbols can also bring you additional points during round scoring (see the supplement, "Scoring Cards").
Example: Red places a Prince in Augsburg and takes the top book tile from the city. Since no other family member yet stands in Augsburg, nothing further happens.
If no fellow player's family member was already standing in that principality, your turn ends. Place the played action card on the discard pile, and the next player takes their turn.
If you place the second family member in a principality — meaning a Prince and a Princess are now both in that principality — a marriage takes place immediately after this action.
Example: Blue places a Princess in Carcassonne and gets 2 points for the symbol. Since both spaces in this city are now occupied, a marriage follows immediately afterward.
How a marriage plays out is described in the next section.
The Marriage
If both placement spaces (Prince and Princess) in a city are occupied, a marriage takes place there, from which — similar to trade — both participating players profit.
The marriage proceeds as follows:
- Roll and divide the dowry — The player on the smaller of the two placement spaces (if you followed our recommendation, their family member is lying down) takes the 3 dowry dice from the game board and rolls them. Reminder: in some cities the Prince's space is the smaller one, in others the Princess's space is. They then divide the dice into 2 groups, just as with trade. One of the groups must consist of 1 die, the other group must consist of 2 dice. The meanings of the individual die symbols are described in the supplement, "The Dowry Dice." They offer both groups to the player whose family member is standing on the larger placement space.
- Choosing — The player on the larger placement space must now choose one of the two groups offered to them. They immediately receive the reward for the result of their chosen dice. The dividing player takes the remaining group and, in turn, receives the reward for that dice result.
Example: Blue has occupied the second space in Carcassonne by placing the Princess. A marriage therefore takes place. Red is on the smaller placement space. He takes the 3 dowry dice and rolls them. He then divides the dice into 2 groups and offers both to his fellow player Blue. Blue chooses the group with the 2 dice and immediately receives the rewards for the results of those two dice. Red takes the remaining die and receives the reward for it.
After this, the marriage — and with it your turn — is over. Place the played action card on the discard pile, and the next player takes their turn.
Attention: Please keep in mind that the player who placed their family member during this turn is the active player. So pay attention to the turn order.
Using Personalities
With this action you can use the ability of one of the personalities laid out on the game board.
At the start of the round, the personalities lie face up in the light-blue-bordered area on the right-hand part of the game board.
Using a personality proceeds as follows:
1. Play an action card with the Personality symbol
To use one of the available personalities, first play an action card with the Personality symbol (a bust) from your hand.
2. Choose one of the personalities
Now choose the personality you want to use. When choosing, you must observe the following:
- You may only choose from the 6 people in the light-blue-bordered area, not from the gold-yellow-bordered area below it.
- You may only choose a face-up personality — that is, one that has not yet been used this round (see point 4).
Example: The player chooses Francis Drake.
3. Pay the required goods
Below each personality, 0, 1, or 2 light-blue goods are shown. This indicates how many goods you must pay to use the personality shown above it. You always pay light-blue goods for this action. To use the rightmost personality, you must pay nothing. The goods you pay come from your personal supply and are thrown immediately into the cloth bag.
Example: Below Francis Drake, 1 good is shown. The player wants to use Francis Drake and pays 1 light-blue good for it.
4. Use the personality
Now carry out the function that your chosen personality allows. The individual functions of the personalities are explained in detail in the supplement, "The Functions of the Personalities."
Finally, place the action card on the discard pile and turn over the tile of the personality you used. This personality cannot be used again this round.
Example: The player uses Francis Drake's ability and turns the tile over. No other player can recruit Francis Drake again this round.
This ends your turn, and the next player takes their turn.
Special Action
Most action cards allow a Special Action.
This is shown on the lower part of the card. Most of the action cards bear the gold-yellow symbol with a coin in the upper part of the card. We deal with these first.
The basic procedure is very similar to the other actions:
1. Play an action card with a Special Action and pay the cost
All action cards (except the joker cards, see below) allow a Special Action. If the cost for this Special Action is indicated in the form of gold-yellow goods, you pay them. Take the indicated number of gold-yellow goods tokens from your supply and throw them back into the cloth bag.
Example: Green plays this action card and pays 1 gold-yellow good.
2. Carry out the Special Action shown on the card
Most Special Actions allow you to place a Prince or a Princess in a specific city. This works very much like the "Place a Prince / Place a Princess" action. However, you must observe the following differences:
- You may freely choose whether you want to place a Prince or a Princess.
- You must, however, place your family member in the city stated on the action card.
- You do not pay the goods shown on the game board, but only the gold-yellow goods stated on the card.
Example: Green wants to place a family member in Brest. He decides to place a Princess. He does not have to pay the 3 white goods shown; instead he pays 1 gold-yellow good.
If the Special Action triggers a trade or a marriage, it is carried out as previously described. Afterward, discard the card as usual and your turn ends.
Further Special Actions:
- Use a Personality (3x): This lets you use one of the two personalities in the gold-yellow-bordered area. You must always pay 1 gold-yellow good for this. Otherwise the action proceeds as described above.
- Trade (3x): You may immediately carry out the "Trade" action twice. You must pay a total of 1 gold-yellow good for this. Carry out both actions one after another, as described in the Trade section.
- Pass (3x): These action cards do not have a yellow Special Action, but a pink one. We describe this Special Action in the next section, under "Passing via the Special Action."
Sitting Out and Passing
When it is your turn and you can not or do not want to carry out any more actions, you have 2 options: you can either "Sit Out" or "Pass."
1. Sitting Out
Instead of carrying out an action, you have the option of discarding an action card from your hand and drawing 1 good from the cloth bag in exchange. You then do not carry out any of the actions shown on the card. The next player then takes their turn. You do not leave the current round by doing this.
2. Passing
To pass, you do not have to play a card. You take one of the family members from your supply and place it on a space of the passing track.
The last space of the passing track is the long space at the bottom; the first space is the space with the 3 pink goods.
If you place yourself on the long space, place your family member as far to the right as possible. So if you are the first player to place a family member there, you place it all the way to the right (at the arrow tip of the space). If fellow players' family members are already standing on this space, place your family member directly to the left of them — that is, behind them. You do not have to pay goods for this.
If you place yourself on one of the 4 spaces in the top row, you must observe 2 things: no family member may already be standing on that space, and you must pay the number of pink goods indicated on the space.
Example: Yellow has already passed earlier. Red now also passes and places behind Yellow.
Example: Green does not want to place behind Yellow and Red. He places himself on the second space. For this he must pay 2 pink goods.
Being further forward on the track grants you certain advantages. We explain exactly what these are in the next section, "End of a Round."
If, after passing, you still have more than 1 action card in hand, you must now discard all action cards but one. (Typically you will not pass until you have only 1 or no action cards left in hand.)
After you have passed, you have dropped out of the current round. The next player takes their turn. You are skipped in the turn order for the rest of the round.
Once all players have passed, the round ends.
Passing via the Special Action
You do not have to play an action card to pass. But if you have an action card with the Special Action "Pass," you may play it when you want to pass.
If you do this, you do not place yourself at the end of the row as usual, but on the frontmost free space of the passing track. That is the space with the 3 pink goods. If that is already occupied by a fellow player, you place behind it, on the space with 2 goods, and so on.
Further Uses of Pink Goods
Besides for passing, you also need pink goods for the second round scoring (see "Round Scoring," below).
In addition, you may always use 2 pink goods to substitute for any other single good. You may substitute any number of goods this way.
Example: Blue wants to place a Princess in Granada. This costs 3 white goods. Blue pays this with 1 white good and 4 pink goods.
Joker Card
The joker card differs slightly in layout from the other action cards. It shows all 4 "basic" actions (Trade, Place a Prince, Place a Princess, and Use a Personality), but no Special Action.
Joker cards therefore allow you to carry out any of the 4 shown actions. They cannot, however, be used for a Special Action. (The joker symbol in the lower half is purely decorative.)
End of a Round
After all players have passed, you handle the following points:
1. Trade
If you still have a family member on a ship in the trade area, you now take 2 goods from that ship. Then take your family member back from the ship into your supply. Throw the remaining goods on the ship back into the cloth bag. Do this for all 3 ships in the trade area. Afterward the Banker draws new goods from the cloth bag and places 5 new goods on each ship.
Example: Blue is standing alone on a ship. He takes a black good and a gold-yellow good. He throws the remaining goods from this ship back into the cloth bag. Then the Banker places 5 new goods on the ship.
2. Redistribute the Personalities
The Banker takes all 8 personalities from the game board, shuffles them face down, and lays them out face up again on the light-blue- and gold-yellow-bordered spaces. So in the next round, all personalities are available again. In this way, the cost and availability of the different personalities changes every round.
3. Change of Starting Player
The player who is furthest forward on the passing track takes the starting player marker (the rose basket). They go first in the next round. Note: The frontmost player does not necessarily have to be standing on the very first space of the track.
4. Bonus Action
Now all players may move their family member from the passing track to one of the bonus spaces to the left of the track.
The player who is furthest forward (i.e., the new starting player) begins. They choose one of the bonus spaces, take their family member, place it on the chosen space, and carry out the bonus action that space allows. The individual bonus actions are described in the supplement, "The Bonus Actions."
The remaining players then follow, in the order in which they stand on the passing track, and carry out their bonus action in the same way. Only the 3 Points space (at the tip) may be used more than once per round. All other bonus spaces may only be used by one player per round.
Finally, the player on the Leonardo space (see the supplement, "The Functions of the Personalities") may move their family member to one of the remaining bonus spaces. This player therefore gets a further bonus action. After this, all players take their family members from the bonus spaces back into their supply.
5. New Action Cards
The Banker deals 4 new action cards to each player. If a player still has an action card left from the previous round, and perhaps even another from the bonus action, they begin the new round with 5 or even 6 action cards.
Example: Yellow still has 1 action card left over from the last round. Together with the 4 new ones, they have 5 action cards available in the next round.
Round Scoring
During round scoring you can get points for the following:
1. Unmarried Princes and Princesses on the Game Board
You get points for all your unmarried Princes and Princesses on the game board. "Unmarried" means those family members standing in a city where the other placement space is still empty — that is, no marriage has yet taken place there.
The star-shaped figure-scoring tile shows the points you get for your unmarried family members. These points depend on the current round, and on whether your family member is standing on the smaller or the larger placement space.
Example: The current round's points for the large and the small placement space.
After the first round, every player gets 4 points for each of their unmarried family members on a large placement space, and 2 points for each on a small placement space.
After round 1, all Princes and Princesses remain standing on the game board.
Once all players have received their points for round 1, turn over the figure-scoring tile so it shows the point values for round 2.
After round 2, each player again gets points for their unmarried family members. This time it is 6 points for those on a large space and 3 points for those on a small space.
After this scoring, however, all unmarried family members go into the monastery (married ones remain standing).
You can prevent this, however, by paying 1 pink good for each of these family members. You decide separately for each family member whether you pay or not. Those you paid for remain standing where they are. The rest you take back from the game board into your supply. The vacated space can be occupied again in round 3.
Example: After round 2, Red has 2 unmarried family members on a large placement space (Vienna and Barcelona) and 1 unmarried family member on a small space (Lübeck). Red gets (6 + 6 + 3 =) 15 points, which they advance on the scoring track. They must then pay 1 pink good for each unmarried family member or take it back from the board. Red pays 2 pink goods and takes the Prince from Barcelona back.
After the round 2 scoring, take the figure-scoring tile from the board and return it to the box. After round 3, there is no more scoring of unmarried family members.
2. Scoring Cards
Now you may also play scoring cards (which you receive at the start of the game and through certain actions) from your hand. You get points as indicated on the card.
The individual conditions on the scoring cards are explained in the supplement, "The Scoring Cards."
You may play and score as many scoring cards as you like. However, you may carry at most 2 scoring cards over into the next round. So if you have more than 2 cards, you must score the excess ones, even if they bring few or no points. After round 3, you must score all your scoring cards.
After the 1st and 2nd round scoring, a new round begins. After the 3rd scoring, the final scoring follows (see below), and then the game ends.
Final Scoring
After the 3rd round scoring, the final scoring follows.
Here the family members on the game board are scored once more. For this we consider the majorities in the 4 countries and the occupation of the crown cities.
All 4 countries are scored in turn, as follows:
1. Majorities
You count up all your Princes, Princesses, and children in each country. It does not matter whether they are married or unmarried. You then also add the number of country coats of arms you have collected (from marriages and book tiles) for that country.
Example: Blue has 5 family members in Britannia and additionally 2 country coats of arms. That gives him a total of 7. Red and Yellow each reach a total of 5, Green only 3.
The player who reaches the highest total here gets the points for 1st place. The player with the second-most gets the points for 2nd place.
Example: Blue therefore gets 10 points, Red and Yellow each get 6 points. Green gets nothing.
If several players tie for 1st place, all of those players get the full points for 1st place, and 2nd place is not awarded. If several players tie for 2nd place, all of those players get the full points for that place as well.
2. Crown Spaces
Finally, you check whether a player is represented in every crown city of a country with a Prince or a Princess.
Example: Red and Yellow each have a family member in Paris. Paris is the only crown city in France.
The player, or the two players, who have a Prince or Princess in every city with the crown symbol in the current country get the points shown at the bottom of the country valuation tablet.
Example: Red and Yellow therefore each get 8 points, as shown by the valuation tablet for France.
If you have scored a country in this way, the next country follows in the same manner.
The player who has the most points after this scoring wins the game. In case of a tie, the player who has more goods remaining in their supply wins.