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Thurn und Taxis (Thurn and Taxis)- Online Guide
Starting The Game
With /join 2-4 players can join the game. With /start the game begins. Alternatively, you can use the Game Tool!
Object of the Game
The goal is to develop the most effective Postal Route in Southern Germany. Each player has 20 milestones to place in a possible 22 locations. The players fight for the most valuable bonus tiles, either by occupying areas first or by placing the longest routes first. They also try to increase the size of their coaches to improve their delivery capability.
Game Board
The Game Board maps Southern Germany and the adjacent countries. There are 22 cities to be serviced which are connected by a network of roads. Players pick up cards (which are then shown under the left hand side of the board) and create Routes (which are shown under the right hand side of the board).
The top left panel shows the available bonus tiles still available. To the right of this is the name of the active player.
The Right Hand panel shows the current situation of each player. The numbers show the following:
- Number of cards in hand
- Number of milestones not yet played
- Size of current carriage. Hover over for detail under your own name
- Number(Value, for you only) of bonus tiles, and the colour of the bonus tile acquired last. Hover over for detail under your own name
The player's current route is displayed to the right.
There are 6 available cards displayed under the player status panel. The other game selections/buttons are placed beneath these. In the lower right corner there is a stack of city cards.
Flow of the game
Each turn consists of 2-3 actions:
- You must take a card
- You must place a card on right side
- You may complete a route, if it has a length of at least 3
- You may take another action by selecting one of the following buttons/options/roles:
Officers of the Postal Service
Each turn you can select one of the four office holders to your advantage. They have the following characteristics:
Bailiff – Swap all 6 cards
The Bailiff can only be selected if you have at least one card in your hand. If none of the available cards suit your purpose you can choose to swap all 6 cards for new ones, instead of randomly take a card from the stack.
Postmaster – lets you take a 2nd card.
You can take 2 cards instead of just 1. The post master does not have to be selected. Just take an extra card. If you have no cards at the beginning of a round you must use the postmaster (including at the start of the game).
Coachman – permits playing a second card.
The coachman lets you play a second card on your route. The coachman does not have to be selected. Just play an extra card!
Wainwright - extends the route you are completing by two virtual cities.
Only for the purpose of acquiring your next carriage (see Carriages, below). By calling on the assistance of the Wainwright in this phase, the player may take the next available Coach Card if the player’s completed route is short by up to two cards.
Example: A player already possesses the Coach 6 Card. The player now completes a route that contains only five City Cards and uses the assistance of the Wainwright to take the Coach 7 Card.
Taking Card(s)
At the beginning of his turn the active player takes a city card. He may select these from one of the six displayed cards or he may take a card from the stack. The pool of 6 cards is filled up immediately. When the deck is exhausted, it is replenished with the shuffled discard deck.
Playing Card(s)
The active player must also play a card to his route. If he has started a route, the cards played must be attached to this route; i.e. the city must have a direct road connection to either the first or the last city of the route being developed. You cannot bypass or split a route. You may also not have doubles of the same city in the route.
In the picture the route played is shown on the right [Munich - Salzburg – Linz]. The player still has Innsbruck and Kempten in his hand. Kempten may not be played in this turn as it has neither a direct road connection to Linz or to Munich. Innsbruck may be played since it has a direct connection to Munich.
If the player selects the Innsbruck card, then a face-down card appears on the route [right side] and can be selected. In this case only one appears, because Innsbruck can only be linked to Munich and not Linz. Click on the appropriate route location to place the card there. Now Kempten can be added to the route, as this can now connect to Innsbruck.
If a player cannot or chooses not to perform one of these actions, the player must discard his or her entire Current Route [Right hand panel] and begin a new one using a card from the player’s hand [Left hand panel].
In this example the route placed, Carlsruhe - Mannheim - Wurzburg, neither Linz or Salzburg can be played . The player must therefore discard his route. Completing a Route: A player may complete his or her Current Route as along as it contains at least three City Cards. Whenever a route is finished, the player takes the following steps:
a. Place Mile stones;
b. Take Bonus Tiles, where appropriate;
c. Draw a Coach Card, where appropriate; and
d. Discard City Cards and excess hand cards into the discard pile as set forth below.
Scoring a Route
If you have a route of length at least 3 you can now score this route. You can also elect not to place the route yet and go for a bigger route next turn by clicking on the Continue button.
If you decide to place your route, then you can now place milestones in your cities. There are two possibilities:
- Place a milestone into one city of the route, in each region the route enters,
or
- place a milestone in each city of the route in any one region.
All possible/available cities are marked with a white milestone. Click to deselect the milestones that you will not place. They will turn grey. If you are happy with the selection, confirm with the finish button. If the Finish button isn't shown then the selected milestones are not valid.
In this example the yellow player would like to place milestones from his route of five cities. Kempten has already been placed, since there is already a yellow milestone there. Innsbruck - Munich - Salzburg - Linz are available. The player has now two possibilities:
He uses the first option and places a milestone in one city only per region; in this case, Innsbruck (Tyrol), Munich (Baiern) and Salzburg (Salzburg). He could choose Linz instead of Salzburg.
Or he chooses the second option and places a milestone on every city of his route in one region only. In this case he takes the two cities in Salzburg (Salzburg and Linz). Therefore he places no milestones in Innsbruck or Munich. Alternatively he could have selected only Innsbruck or only Munich, but this would score less.
Subsequently, larger Carriages and/or bonus tiles are assigned and surplus cards discarded:
Carriages
If the player’s completed route contains at least as many cards as the number of the next available Coach Card (in ascending order), the player may take that Coach Card. A player may not skip over a coach size to take a higher Coach Card.
Example: A player finishes his first route in the game with three City Cards and obtains a Coach 3 card. The player later finishes a second route containing five City Cards. This time, the player takes the next highest card, the Coach 4 Card. The player’s third route contains only four City Cards, and so the player does not get a Coach Card this time. To take the Coach 5 card, the player would have to complete a route with at least five City Cards in it.
There are coaches of the sizes 3/4/5/6/7.
Bonus Tiles
If you fulfil any of the following conditions you get a bonus tile. The tile available for the next player to fulfil the same condition is always worth 1 less point.
- First come, first served!
- The largest tile is always available first!
There are four types of bonus tiles:
For completely occupied regions
You get these bonus tiles, if one have all the milestones in that correesponding region (defined by the various colours).
Longest Distances
Umfasst die gewertete Strecke mindestens 5,6,7 oder mehr Karten, so erhält man oberste Karte des entsprechenden Stapels. Ist die genaue Länge nicht mehr vorhanden, so erhält man die oberste Karte des Stapels für die nächstkürzere Strecke. Dies gilt auch für Routen, die länger sind als 7. Ein Spieler kann im Laufe des Spiels mehrere Bonusplättchen derselben Länge erwerben.
All countries
This bonus tile can be achieved when/if you manage to locate at least one mile stone in every country other than Bairn in the Southern map or Prageussen in the Northern map).
End of the Game
The first player to achieve one of the game-ending conditions receives this bonus tile.
Discard Cards in Hand
If you have more than three cards in your hand after placing a route, then you must discard down to 3 cards.
End of the Game
The game ends at the end of the round in which any player either places all his milestones or acquires the 7 carriage. They receive the final bonus tile which counts as 1VP. The player who started the game is marked by a postal horn, and the game ends before their next turn.
Scoring
The final score is calculated as follows:
- Points for the size of carriage you acquired: carriages of size 3/4/5/6/7 count 2/3/5/7/10 Victory Points
- Points for all received bonus tiles
- Lose 1 Victory Point for every milestone not used
In case several players are tied for the most points, the one of them with the game-ending bonus tile wins, or the one of them nearest to the player with that bonus tile.
Game Options
map 1 Süd/2 Nord
With this option you can switch between the Southern and Northern maps of Germany. If you select the Southern map you can only play by the original rules, while the Northern Germany map can be played with either the standard rules (including the new rules for the bonus panels) or with the option “horses” (see below).
The northern map has the following special features:
- to score the bonus for Prussia, you must place a house on all 7 cities of the two areas of Prussia
- the free cities of Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck do not belong to any state. When scoring, the most you can score is one free city. The player who is first to claim a free city receives/scores its bonus tile.
- to receive the "All states" bonus tile, a player must have at least one house in each state. Houses in free cities do not count.
horses
The "horses" option may only be played on the northern map of Germany. The rules for the base game apply, with the following exceptions:
- the Wainwright and the coach cards from the base game are not used
- each player receives a coach card with two horses.
The city cards now have two functions: as in the base game, they can be played as normal city cards - or they can be turned face down, with the back of the card (showing the horses) beside the coach. To do this, the player chooses a card from their hand and then clicks on their coach. A player who chooses the Coachman can also combine the two actions: that is, place one city card on the route and the other on the coach.
Before players can score a route, their coach must show at least as many horses (horseshoes) as the route is long. Note that the coach is already pulled by two horses. No more than six cards may be placed on the coach.
After the route is scored the route and coach cards are all discarded. The normal rule applies, that you must discard down to 3 cards in hand at this point if you have more than 3.
In this example, the player has already built a 5-length route. There are already two cards with three horses (horseshoes) attached to the coach, so a route of up to eight cities could be scored here (3+3+2 horses).
The game ends at the end of the round when a player has built all of their houses.