BrettspielWelt

Brügge - Rules

Game Information

2 - 4 players become merchants who foster relationships with the people in power in the city. They compete for influence, power and status.

Using their hand cards, the players build houses and canals, place persons in their houses in order to use their special abilities and do it all to gain the most points.

These rules mostly show you how to operate the online game. For further questions concerning the rules, you can use the original rules, to be downloaded here. There are also introductory videos on Youtube.

Game Board

1. Draw piles
2. Player's Cards
3. Starting gate of the blue player
4. Current dice
5. Majority markers of the red player
6. Player display

Above your cards you can see which action needs to be performed next by which player.

To the right, you can see the player displays. They show the gold, points and workers the player currently has (3). By clicking the seal (1), you can switch to the detailed view of the player's persons. It also shows you the starting player and the player whose turn it is at the moment. Above the name (2) you can see the threat markers and underneath it (4) are the houses and persons living in them.

Starting the Game

There are 165 cards in 5 different colours that are also visible on the reverse side. Two face-down piles are created at the beginning from which the players draw their cards.

Each player gets 5 gold and 5 victory points as starting capital, as well as 1 worker of each of the 5 colours.

Flow of the game

Brügge runs across several rounds, in which every player has 4 turns in each of which they play one of their cards. At the beginning of the round, the 5 dice are rolled. For every die showing a 5 or 6, the players get a threat marker of that colour. If a player gets a third marker in a colour, the damage takes effect - losing money, points, buildings, persons, workers. Afterwards, the players can move up a step on the reputation scale. The costs of doing so equal the sum of all 1s and 2s rolled.

In every turn, the players HAVE TO use one of the cards in their hand and CAN use the abilities of the persons they have already played before or after. The game ends at the end of the round, in which one of the two draw piles is emptied. This is then replenished so there are always two piles to draw from.

Once everybody has played their four turns, the majorities in reputation, canal building and person placement are checked. If a player has the sole majority in one of the disciplines, they can turn over their respective marker to the coloured side. They keep it turned until the end of the game, regardless of whether they keep the majority.

Playing the Cards

In general, there are 6 different possibilities to use the card. When it's your turn, you select the card to be played. Then you select how it is to be played by selecting the action in the bar to its right (1) or clicking the cost (2) in order to place the person in a house.

In addition to its colour and the aforementioned costs for playing it, every card is worth a number of points (0 - 4) at the end of the game, displayed beneath the cost, and belongs to one of 11 groups. This is shown at the bottom of the card.

From top to bottom, the following actions are possible:

• Take workers (two workers of the colour of the card)
• Take gold (according to the die of the card's colour)
• Remove threat (Remove 1 threat of the colour of the card and earn one victory point)
• Build a canal (1 canal token on a canal space of the colour of the card. Only possible if one of the two currently possible canal spaces has the right colour and you can pay the respective cost)
• Build a house (a house in the card's colour. Cost: 1 worker of the card's colour)

Finally, the upper left allows you:

• Place the person in a house (requires a free house of any colour. The respective cost must be paid.)

Player details

In the detailed player view, you can see the abilities of the persons played. By clicking the “function symbol” (1), you can use them. If the background is green, the card can be used. If the card has a red background, it can no longer be used in this round.

There are four types of person:

The infinity symbol means that you can use the ability at no extra cost. Once again, click the symbol to do so. Unless activated at a certain point in the game (i.e. whenever you build a house), these can only be used once per round.

The worker symbol means that you have to pay a worker in the colour shown in order to activate the ability. Click the worker symbol to do so.

A laurel wreath means the card gives you points at the end of the game.

The lightning bolt shows you that the ability is used just once, when the card is played.

By switching between “Function” and “Name/Points”, you can show either the cards' ability or their names and the points they count at the end of the game. By using the selection (3), you can limit the view to just action abilities (infinity/worker), all cards or just laurel wreath cards.

Below (4), the numbers of persons of the eleven different person groups are displayed. This is important for many cards.

End of the Game

Once the last round has been played, the game ends. All the points are now added up:

• Points through the reputation track (1-12 points depending on the step)
• Points through canal building/statues (3 points for each no. 3 canal token and up to 7 points per statue for a completed canal section)
• Points through houses (one point per house)
• Points for the persons (0-4 points each, depending on value)
• Points through victory point cards (according to card text on persons with laurel wreath)
• Points for the majority markers (4 points each for reputation, canal and person majorities)

The player with the most victory points wins. If there is a tie, the amount of gold decides. If this is tied also, there are multiple winners.