La Strada Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Components in Detail
• Setting Up
• The Play of the Game
• Playing Tiles
• The End of the Game
• Scoring
• A Detailed Example of Play
• Rules for the Two-Player Game
• Credits

Components

• 1 Board, made up of:
  • 4 Board edge pieces
  • 4 Connectors
  • 6 Land tiles
• 124 Road tiles
• 19 Settlement tiles
• 8 Workshop tiles (starting bases)
• 4 Resource markers
• 48 Merchant cubes (wooden blocks)
• Rulebook

Components in Detail

124 Road Tiles (straight on the front, curves on the back)

• 20 Hill Terrain (5 per color)
• Forest Terrain (8 per color)
• Plains Terrain (18 per color)

19 Settlement Tiles

• 4 Cities
• 5 Towns
• 5 Villages
• 5 Hamlets

8 Workshop tiles (2 of each color): Black, Grey, Yellow, Red

4 Resource Markers

48 Wooden Merchant Cubes (12 each of 4 colors)

Setting Up

Before your first game, you will need to carefully remove all the pieces from their frames.

• First, build the board frame with the 4 board edge pieces and the 4 connectors.
• Second, place the 6 land tiles into the frame randomly. Note: you must first place the longer starting tile (it has one more space at the end).
• Third, shuffle the 19 settlements facedown and place one on each of the spaces marked with a grey dot. Then, turn all the settlements face-up.
• Fourth, each player chooses a color--black, grey, yellow, or red--and sits down by the side of the board with the resource track that matches that color.
• Fifth, each player receives the pieces with his color:
  • 1 Workshop (the second workshop is only used in the 2 player game);
  • 5 Hill tiles;
  • 8 Forest tiles;
  • 18 Plains tiles; and
  • 12 Merchant cubes.
• Sixth, select a starting player. (We suggest that you mix the extra workshops and choose one at random.) The starting player takes his turn first, and then each of the other players takes his turn in clockwise order. The starting player places his workshop on any empty plains space. You may not place your workshop on a hill or forest space.
  • Special Rule: You may not place your workshop next to another player's workshop. There must be at least one empty space between all workshops.
• Finally, place your resource marker on the resource track in front of you, on the space marked "0." This track is used to record how many resources you have available to spend.

Now you are ready to begin!

The Play of the Game

• The starting player takes his turn first. The other players follow (clockwise) to the left.
• You start the game with no resources. You receive 6 resources at the beginning of each of your turns (move the marker on your resource track 6 spaces to the right). On your first turn, then, you will have 6 resources.
• You may use as many resources as you have during your turn.
• Resources are spent to build roads by placing tiles on the board, so you can reach new markets.
• You don't have to use all of your resources. You can save some of them (or all of them) for your next turn, but you can never have more than 10 resources.
• When you are done spending resources your turn is over and the next player takes his turn.

Playing Tiles

• Playing a tile costs a certain number of resources, depending on the type of terrain:
  • Plains = 2 resources
  • Forest = 3 resources
  • Hills = 4 resources

The cost is the same whether you play a straight tile or a curved one.

• You may only play a tile that matches the space you are placing it in. So, you may only place forest tiles on a forest space, and you may not place a forest tile in any other type of space.
• You may not place more than one tile on a given space (i.e. you cannot stack tiles).
• Once you have placed tiles that connect settlements, those tiles cannot be moved.
• You may only spend the resources you have on your resource track. There is no credit!
• You may build in more than one direction during your turn. You begin at your workshop (or any settlement you have already connected to), and place tiles to connect to new settlements.
  • Important: Each road you build must connect your network to a new settlement you have not yet reached. You may not place tiles if they do not connect to a new settlement.
• You must place one of your merchant cubes on each settlement you connect to. Every player may have a merchant cube on the same tile, but this will dilute the value of that market (see "Scoring" below).
• You may only place tiles if you can connect to a settlement that does not have one of your merchant cubes on it. You may not place more than one merchant cube on any settlement.
• From each settlement you have a merchant cube on, you may expand in whatever directions you choose.
• You may never connect to another player's workshop.
• If you did not spend all of your resources, then you may save them for later. However, you may never have more than 10 resources! Any excess resources are lost.

There is a detailed example of play on the back page.

The End of the Game

The game ends as soon as any one player, at the beginning of his turn, finds that he cannot connect to any more settlements. This can happen if:

• all the settlements he can reach already have one of his merchant cubes on it, or
• if he has no more merchant cubes to place, or
• if he does not have the correct type of tiles left to place.

Scoring

When the game ends, move all the merchant cubes on the board to the scoring boxes on the edges. Move the merchants from one settlement at a time and place them in the appropriate boxes.

The scoring track for each settlement shows, left to right: the number of merchants in the settlement, the scoring box for the merchants, and the value of each merchant in pieces of gold.

Hamlet:

• If there is 1 merchant in a hamlet, place that merchant in the box with 1 stone. That merchant earns 2 gold.
• If there are 2 merchants in a hamlet, place both merchants in the box with 2 stones. Each merchant is worth 1 gold to its owner.
• If there are 3 or 4 merchants in a hamlet, set them all aside. They earn no gold. So, placing a merchant in a hamlet that already has 2 merchants in it only makes sense if you want to deny the gold to the other two players.

Village:

• If there is 1 merchant in a village, place that merchant in the box with 1 stone. That merchant yields 3 gold.
• If there are 2 merchants in a village, place both merchants in the box with 2 stones. Each of these merchants is worth 2 gold to its owner.
• If there are 3 merchants in a village, place all those merchants in the box with 3 stones. Each merchant here is worth 1 gold.
• If there are 4 merchants in a village, set them aside. They earn 0 gold.

Use the same method for the towns and cities.

• Town: 1 merchant is worth 4 gold; 2 merchants are each worth 3 gold; 3 merchants are each worth 2 gold; 4 merchants are each worth 1 gold.
• City: 1 merchant is worth 5 gold; 2 merchants are each worth 4 gold; 3 merchants are each worth 3 gold; 4 merchants are each worth 2 gold.

Once you have placed all the merchants in the appropriate boxes, the players can determine how much gold they have earned. The player who has the most gold wins the game!

If there is a tie, then the tied player with the most resources remaining is the winner.

A Detailed Example of Play

First turn

The grey player wants to connect to the two most valuable settlements near his workshop: the city and the town! He builds one hill tile with a straight road and a plains tile with a bend in it.

The path over the hill space costs 4 resources, so grey pushes his marker on the resource track 4 spaces to the left--it now shows 2 resources. Then grey sets a merchant of his color on the town. Now the grey player connects to the city over the plains space. This costs his 2 remaining resources (so he moves the marker to 0). Then he places a merchant on the city.

Second turn

The grey player is looking to get into another valuable city that is farther away. The black player is already in that city. If the black player can keep it to herself then it will be worth 5 gold. Unfortunately grey only has 6 resources available - not enough to reach the city this turn.

So, grey places 3 tiles to reach the hamlet to the left of his workshop near the city. He uses 2 of his merchants, and spends all 6 of his resources. The hamlet will still earn 1 gold for each player

Third turn

Now grey can reach the city occupied by black. He could use a forest tile, which would cost 3 resources. But he wants to make it harder for black to reach the settlements near his workshop

So, he uses all of his resources, and plays 3 plains tiles. This blocks black from being able to build along the edge of the board. Now black can only cross the grey roads by connecting to the village (marked with an arrow). Now that grey has reached the city, he will earn 4 gold there. The black player has lost 1 gold, because she will also earn 4 gold there (instead of 5).

Rules for the Two-Player Game

Use all of the rules except those that are changed below:

• You will use the two colors of road tiles that match the resource tracks on opposite sides of the board. You may use these two colors interchangeably.
• Each player uses both workshops that match one of his chosen colors.
• After the settlements are placed, take turns placing your workshops: the first player places his first workshop, than the other player places his first workshop. Then the first player places his second workshop, and finally the second player places his second workshop. The second player then takes the first turn.
• Each settlement can only have one merchant cube on it. But, you may connect to a settlement that already has a merchant on it (without placing a merchant cube of your own), in order to expand your road network from there.
• The game ends when all the settlements have a merchant on them.
• Place the merchant cubes in the scoring box with the highest gold value for that type of settlement. So, a merchant in a city is worth 5 gold, a town is worth 4, a village scores 3, and a hamlet is worth 2 gold.
• If there is a tie, then the player with the most resources remaining wins.

Credits

Designed by: Martin Wallace

Martin Wallace is an Englishman who lives in Manchester and prefers complex, sophisticated games. He has already developed a number of splendid games for his own small publishing house. With "La Strada" he has created a game with sophisticated play that still has simple and easy-to-understand rules.