The Palace of Mad King Ludwig

King Ludwig II of Bavaria has called all great architects to design his crowning achievement: a world-renowned Palace.

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Add the game The Palace of Mad King Ludwig to your collection!

Goal

Contribute the most to the palace

Number of Players

2 - 4 Players

Time to Play

70 minutes

Rapid Rules

Setup

Important: A large space is required to play this game.

  1. Each player takes a blueprints board
  2. Place the Garden board on one end of the table near the players, with the lake and bridge facing toward the edge of the table
  3. Shuffle and place all pieces in their spots on the Garden board
    • Match up pieces with their area
    • All colorful swans and moat tiles go in the lake
    • Black and grey swans go on the bridge
    • Only hallway and stairs, top 6 room tiles of the leftmost stack in designated spots, and top 4 favor cards in designated spots are placed faced up
  4. Place three hallway tiles in a line extending straight out from the bridge into the palace
  5. Each player a blueprints board, corresponding player markers placed white side up, and three Favor tiles placed face down (though the owning player may and should look at their Favor tiles).

General Play

  1. Players take turns choosing one of the following actions
    • Place a Room tile
    • Place a Hallway or Stair tile for free, with the light end matching a light room and dark end matching dark room
    • Place a Room tile on the player's Blueprints board
    • Place a Favor tile on the player's Blueprints board
  2. When placing a tile in the palace a player must:
    1. Place it matching swan color entrances (except grey which are wild)
    2. Make sure the level of room (light/dark) is the same
    3. Pay the amount of swans back to the lake listed below the tile on the Garden board
    4. Place a player marker (white side up) on the room placed and on the corresponding spot for that room type on the player's Blueprints board
  3. When placing a tile (Favor or Room) face down on the Blueprints board pay three swans of any color back to the lake and place it diagnonally (Room) or square (Favor) with the Blueprints board and that spot is now activated
  4. After placing any tiles, collect the color swan of the entrance completed
  5. If a room is completed such that all entrances are matched up:
    1. The owning player receives the indicated reward in the corner and flips their marker on the room over to the colored side
      • Living Room gets additional set of all swans that match connected rooms
      • Food rooms have the player select three Favor tiles and choose up to one of them to place on their Blueprints board
      • Sleeping rooms allow for the option of buying a room and adding it to the Blueprints board
      • Hallways give the player two swans of the color shown on the tile
      • Downstairs yield a secret swan which can be used like regular swans, but their identity is kept secret from other players until using them
    2. The player who completed the room places moat tiles based on the number of depleted room stacks flowing from the lake in a straight line and filling in gaps in the palace
      • Important: Unless joining each side of the moat together, at least one entrance to an upstairs room must be available
  6. If a room tile was taken, on the Garden board all rooms are shifted to the right and a new room is picked from the leftmost stack and placed in the leftmost room tile spot
  7. Players continue until one of the following:
    • Two ends of the moat connect
    • All Moat tiles are used
    • All Room tiles are used

Scoring

Winning and Losing