Use these variants to change the game experience.

Down to the Last Castle

This variant is played using the standard rules, but with the following changes:

Do not use the epoch counter. The number of epochs is unknown at the start of the game.

All players begin the game with all of the castles of their color, regardless of the number of players.

At the end of each epoch, remove all castles from the board (including rank 1 castles) and place them in the game box.

The game ends at the end of the epoch in which at least one player has placed his last castle. The epoch continues until every space on the board is full or no player can perform actions. The board is then scored as normal, and the player with the most gold wins.

When using this variant, it is possible that every space on the board may not be filled during the last epoch. If this happens, the empty spaces have a value of "0" when scoring. If players are unable to play during this epoch, they must pass until either no other players can play or the board is full.

No Luck

To eliminate the element of luck from the game, place all of the tiles faceup at the beginning of the epoch and do not draw a starting tile. Play continues as normal, but players may choose which tile to draw and place.

Score as you ho

Instead of scoring the entire board at the end of the epoch, score each row (and column) immediately as it becomes filled.

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