Hacienda 2026 Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• How to Play
  • Take a Card
    • Wild Cards
  • Action Card Anatomy
  • Play a Matching Pair
    • Matching Terrain
    • Matching Animals
    • Matching Animals AND Terrain
    • Placing an Animal Adjacent to a Visitor Center
  • Establish a Wildlife Reserve
  • Place a Water Tile
  • Place a Viewing Platform
• Scoring Rounds and Game End
  • Scoring Objectives
• Custom Maps and Variant Play
  • Custom Maps Setup
  • Special Visitor Centers

Components

• 1 Central Map tile
• 8 Map tiles
• 18 Water tiles
• 100 Action cards
• 240 Animal tokens (in 5 player colors)
• 100 Land markers (in 5 player colors)
• 10 Reserve tokens
• 9 Viewing Platform markers
• 1 VP track
• 5 Reference cards

Setup

1. Assemble the Map. The map in Hacienda is modular so that every game can feel different. For your first game, we recommend the basic setup. Refer to the end of the rules for custom maps! a. Place the central map tile in the middle of the play area, then lay out other tiles around it according to your player count. b. Place all 1-space Water tiles onto the map covering the spaces with pre-printed water icons. c. Place the VP track near the map.

   Tile layout by player count (basic setup, using the A sides of tiles 1-5): 2 players: tiles 1A, 2A, 3A, 6 and 7 around the central tile. 3 players: tiles 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 6 and 7 around the central tile. 4 players: tiles 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6 and 7 around the central tile. 5 players: tiles 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6, 7 and 8 around the central tile. Tiles 1-5 have an A and a B side. Use the A side for basic setup.

2. Choose your player color, then: a. Collect all Animal tokens and Land markers of your color. Place them in your personal play area. b. Collect an action reference card and place it in your personal play area. c. Place one of your Land markers on the "0" space on the VP track.

3. Shuffle all 120 action cards together to form the action deck. a. Randomly remove cards from the deck based on player count. Return these cards to the box without any player looking at them.

   • 2 players: remove 50 cards
   • 3 players: remove 30 cards
   • 4 players: remove 15 cards
   • 5 players: remove 5 cards b. Place this deck near the VP track. c. Deal 6 random cards to each player. d. Deal 3 face-up cards to form an action card queue.

4. Place all Water tiles, Reserve tokens, and Viewing Platform markers nearby to form a supply.

5. Choose a starting player. They take the first player marker.

Transcriber's note: the printed components list gives 100 Action cards, while setup step 3 says "all 120 action cards". Both figures are reproduced as printed.

How to Play

Play begins with the first player and proceeds clockwise in order until the game ends.

On your turn, you have 3 actions. For each action you take, choose one of the following options:

• Take a card
• Play a matching pair
• Establish a Wildlife Reserve
• Place a Water tile
• Place a Viewing Platform

Take a Card

Draw 1 face-up card from the queue or from the top of the action card deck and add it to your hand.

If you took the last card in the queue, immediately add cards to the queue from the deck until the queue has 3 cards.

Wild Cards

Wild terrain cards can be played as any terrain, and wild animal cards can be played as any animal. Note that wild terrain cards do not have an animal type, and wild animals do not have a terrain.

Action Card Anatomy

Each action card has two features:

• An animal (anteater, capybara, guanaco, or jaguar).
• A terrain (forest, marsh, hill, mountain, meadow, or pampas grass).

Collecting sets of animals or terrains in your hand will allow you to play those cards for other actions!

Play a Matching Pair

Discard a pair of cards from your hand that have a matching terrain and/or animal type.

Matching Terrain

If your cards match terrain type, place one of your land markers on a map space of that terrain color. For example, if you play a pair of green [forest] cards, you would place your marker on a green [forest] space.

If your cards both feature the pampas grass (yellow) terrain type, the marker can be placed on a yellow pampas grass space. However, it must be adjacent to one of your other land markers. You cannot play a marker on pampas grass unless you have at least one other land marker on the board.

Matching Animals

If your cards match animal type, place one animal of that type onto a pampas grass space. For example, playing a pair of anteater cards would allow you to place an anteater token.

If you have no other animals of that type on the map, the first animal you place of that type must be placed on a space adjacent to one of your land markers. If you have no land markers with open adjacent spaces, you cannot place the animal.

If you already have an animal of that type on the map, you must place the animal in a space adjacent to one or more of your animals of that type to continue expanding its pack.

If you already have an animal of that type on the map, but there are no available spaces adjacent to any of the animals in that pack, then you may place the animal adjacent to any one of your land markers.

Matching Animals AND Terrain

If the cards you play match in both animal AND terrain type, you may place a land marker AND an animal marker. However, playing a double matched pair requires you to spend 2 actions.

Note: It is not mandatory to play these two pieces into the same chain. You may place them in different parts of the map so long as they follow all other placement rules.

Placing an Animal Adjacent to a Visitor Center

When you place an animal in a space adjacent to a Visitor Center, immediately draw 2 cards from the deck.

When playing with custom maps and using the B-sides of the map tiles, visitor centers can do different things! See the Custom Maps appendix for more information.

Establish a Wildlife Reserve

Take the following steps in order:

1. Choose a chain of your Land markers on the map that does not have a Reserve token on it.
2. Place one of your Reserve tokens on any space in that chain. This is mandatory - if you do not have a Reserve token, you cannot take this action!
3. Draw 1 card from the action card deck for each of your Land markers in the chosen chain.

Establishing Wildlife Reserves is a great way to draw cards, but be careful - your Reserve tokens are limited, and timing is everything! You only gain Reserve tokens when you place a water tile on the map.

Place a Water Tile

Take the following steps in order:

1. Play 4 cards from hand with different animal types.
2. Choose a Water tile from the supply of any size or shape and place it on the map. The Water tile can branch across multiple spaces, but it can only be placed on empty spaces.
3. Gain 1 Reserve token from the supply. You may use this later during an "Establish a Wildlife Reserve" action.
4. Place all of the cards you played into the queue.

Every marker or token adjacent to a water tile will score victory points during scoring rounds. Placing water on the board is a good way to ensure your own scoring, to block off paths for your opponents, and to gain valuable Reserve tokens from the supply.

Place a Viewing Platform

Take the following steps in order:

1. Play 6 cards from hand with different terrain types.
2. Take a Viewing Platform marker from the supply and place it on any chain of your Land/Animal tokens. You cannot place a Viewing Platform on a chain that already has a Viewing Platform.
3. Place all of the cards you played into the queue.

Viewing Platforms will score VP at the end of the game equal to the number of your Land/Animal markers in its chain. Place them on your longest chains to score the most points!

Once you have taken your 3 actions on your turn, pass play to the next player clockwise in order.

If the action deck runs out of cards, a scoring round is triggered (see below).

Scoring Rounds and Game End

A scoring round is triggered when the action card deck is exhausted the first time, and once at the end of the game (after the action deck is exhausted a second time).

When a scoring round is triggered, take the following steps in order:

1. Reshuffle the Action Deck - Reshuffle the action card discard pile to reform the action deck.
2. Finish the round - Players continue taking turns as normal until all players have had an equal number of turns. In other words, the player seated to the right of the first player should take the last turn.
3. Score Objectives - Score all indicated VP for each of the common objectives (as printed on the scoring board).

Scoring Objectives

• Different Visitor Centers: Gain VP for the number of different Visitor Centers that your animals touch: 1 / 3 / 6 / 10 / 15 / 21 / 28 / 36 / 45... + 3 for each beyond the 9th.
• Land Chains: For each of your chains of 3+ land markers, gain 2 VP for each marker in its chain. Chains with 2 or fewer markers do not score.
• Water: Gain 1 VP for each of your pieces on the map adjacent to 1 or more water spaces.
• Viewing Platforms: For each of your chains that has a Viewing Platform, gain 1 VP for each of your animals and/or land markers in its chain. Multiple Viewing Platforms on a single chain are redundant.

If this was the first scoring round, play continues as normal. If this was the second scoring round, the game ends and the player with the most VP wins.

If two or more players tie for the most VP, the tied player with the most unplayed Reserve tokens wins. If a tie persists, the tied player with the most cards remaining in their hand wins. If a tie still persists, the victory is shared.

Note: The game also ends immediately if the supply runs out of water tiles or Viewing Platform tokens. If the game ends in this way, you still perform a final scoring round.

Custom Maps and Variant Play

The map tiles in Hacienda can be arranged to customize your play experience, and the B-sides on the tiles feature special Visitor Centers with unique effects that trigger each time you place an animal beside them.

After your first play, try making a different map with the variant rules below!

Custom Maps Setup

1. Choose Play Mode - If you would like to play in basic mode, keep all tiles on their A sides. If you would like to play in Hacienda mode, flip the center tile and tiles 1-5 to their B sides.

   The B sides feature the special Visitor Centers. Tiles 6, 7, and 8 have identical A and B sides.

2. Lay out a foundation according to the diagram shown here (basic mode and Hacienda mode layouts are shown in the printed rulebook). The center tile is always used. Choose any other tiles of the appropriate shapes at random to build out the rest.

3. Starting with the first player and proceeding in order, each player randomly chooses one of the remaining tiles and adds it to the map, obeying the following rules:

   • A large tile (1-5) must be placed so that its edge marked with the black circle is attached to another tile.
   • You cannot place a tile if a non-pampas terrain space would be adjacent to a Visitor Center.

4. Return any unused tiles to the box.

Special Visitor Centers

These Visitor Centers appear on the B-sides of the center tiles and tiles 1-5. While Visitor Centers normally allow you to draw 2 cards from the deck each time you play an animal beside them, the special Visitor Centers allow for a wider variety of effects.

Some of these Visitor Centers are more powerful than others, so make sure to race against your opponents to access the powers that are most beneficial to you!

• Gain 1 VP, then take 2 cards from the queue. If the queue runs out of cards after the first card you take, immediately refill the queue then take your second.
• Gain 2 VP and take 1 card from the queue. Note that this space also counts as water. Animals and land markers in adjacent spaces will earn you points during scoring rounds!
• Draw 1 card from the deck. If you are touching this Visitor Center, treat that chain as though it had a Hacienda during scoring rounds. Remember, each chain can only score for 1 Hacienda. Multiple Haciendas are redundant!
• Take 1 card from the queue and immediately gain 1 extra action.
• You may immediately place a 1-space water tile anywhere, then draw 1 card from the deck. Do not gain a Reserve token for placing this water tile. If no more 1-space water tiles remain in the supply, place any water instead.
• Gain 1 VP and draw 1 card from the deck. Note that these two Visitor Centers are directly adjacent to each other. You can gain the bonuses from each center by placing an animal that touches both, and each of these centers counts as a different center during scoring rounds!