Rules to Barons! (Version 4.1, February 1, 2008)

1. DON'T shuffle the different colors of cards together. Instead, shuffle each color separately.

2. Give each player a Castle card and deal them one card of each color.

3. Each player should look at their cards, and then put them face (writing side) down around their Castle, with each card sharing a different edge of the Castle. This is the player's starting BARONY.

   When put face down in this way, cards represent lands: face down red cards are MINES, face down green cards are FORESTS, face down blue cards are RIVERS, and face down white cards are PASTURES.

   These four lands are considered to be ADJACENT to your Castle but not to each other: until you get a Stables, adjacent in Barons! means edge-adjacent.

   As will soon be indicated by the Castle card itself, place the cards in the following manner: pasture (white) on the top, river (blue) to the right, forest (green) on the bottom, and mine (red) to the left.

4. Take turns, starting with the player to the left of the person who was ready to play last, and proceeding clockwise.

5. What you do on your turn is listed on your Castle, but I'll repeat it here. In order, you should
   1. Play action cards and/or use building abilities. You won't have any of these at the beginning.
   2. Add a land or building to your barony. Again, you won't have any of these at the beginning, but if you did, you would put it in an empty spot adjacent to at least one other card in your barony. Any card may be played face down as a land.
   3. Tax. At last, something you can do! To TAX, pick a region of one to four land cards, all of the same color, and all connected by adjacency. Then, for each card in the region, draw a card of that card's color.

6. When you PLAY an action card, you first do what it says and then place it face up in its color's discard pile. If the action card has a COST, then you must also discard cards of the indicated colors. For example, to play a card with cost "R W", you must additionally discard a red card and a white card. Similarly, if a land or building has a cost, you must discard cards of the indicated colors in order to add the card to your barony. There is no cost for adding a card face down as a land.

7. Knights: There are nine knights in each color. In addition to the ability printed on the card, every knight has the following two abilities, both played as actions:
   • Attack: Remove from an opponent's barony an unprotected card that has at least one empty adjacent space.
   • Protect: Place the Knight in an empty space in your barony (as you would a building or land). That Knight then protects any card adjacent to it.

8. Miscellaneous:
   1. You may only build each building at most once in your barony.
   2. Buildings and lands only "count" if they connect back to your Castle through adjacent cards. If not, they can't be taxed, their abilities can't be played, and you can't add a card to your barony next to them (unless the added card is also adjacent to a card that does "count".)
   3. You aren't allowed to trade cards with other players unless one of you has the blue building Marketplace.
   4. It's okay to uniformly shift a Barony to prevent it from touching another player's.
   5. When a pile of cards runs out, shuffle that color's discard pile to make the new draw pile for that color. If both the draw and discard pile for a color are empty when you need to draw a card of that color, you are out of luck.

9. To WIN, you must first build a Church and then build a Cathedral. There are three Churches and three Cathedrals in each color.

10. New players should probably quickly look through the cards before playing for the first time, but to give you some idea:
    • White cards are all actions and represent the abilities of the peasantry.
    • Blue's cards represent interaction with the outside world, including commerce, religion and education.
    • Green's cards are all buildings and represent civil society and things made of wood.
    • Red cards depict technology and things made of stone or metal.

11. That's it! Have fun and send any comments, praise, money, rules questions or new Barons! card suggestions to thomasc@alum.mit.edu