Clans of Caledonia
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Details
Sourced from: https://jmo.name/games
Player Aid Author: Jarrod Moore
Description
Lead a 19th-century Scottish clan to produce, trade, and export agricultural goods — and whisky — across the Highlands.
Expansions in Use
- Industria
- Assemble the map: use the 4 Map modules (A–D). For each module, randomly choose which side faces up, then assemble so the module-letter rocks sit in alphabetical order clockwise around the centre of the map:
- Waterfall spaces (new maps): the mountain space is not along the river. The two spaces below the waterfall are along the river and are adjacent to the mountain, but they are not neighbouring it (the river runs between them). Units on all three spaces still form a single Settlement
- Market Board:
- Flip to the side matching the player count
- Place transparent Price markers on each Good's circled starting price
- Lay out Goods tokens (Wool, Milk, Grain, Bread, Cheese, Whisky) and their Goods tiles below the Market
- Export Board:
- Flip to the side matching the player count; place beside the map
- Shuffle the 9 Scoring tiles, choose 5 at random, and place face-up in random order along the edge of the Export board
- Shuffle Export contracts into a face-down draw pile; deal 1 face-up into each slot on the board
- Solo or 3-player: leave one slot empty
- Place Glory tokens and Import tokens (Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar cane) next to the "1" of the Export board scoring track
- On the 1–2 player side, dice icons are used only for the solo game
- Export Contract Refill Board (Industria):
- Place next to the Export board
- Fill each slot with a face-up Export contract from the top of the draw pile
- Port Bonus Tiles:
- Randomly choose 4 from the pool (base 1–9 plus Industria 10–18)
- Place one next to the factory at each map corner. Each tile's arrows indicate its 1–2P or 3–4P adjacent space
- Return unused Port tiles to the box
- Award Tile (Industria):
- Draw 1 at random and place below the 5th Scoring tile with the player-count icons face up
- Return the remaining Award tiles to the box
- Farmers Markets (Industria):
- Place the Passing bonus overlay on the Export board (player-count side up). Passing bonuses are now £4 lower than printed for the rest of the game
- Deal 1 Farmers market tile to each player, before drafting Clans
- After Clans are drafted, in reverse turn order, each player places their Farmers market on a space that is:
- a land space
- with at least 3 neighbouring land spaces, and
- at least 2 spaces away from any other Farmers market
- With the Clan Auction variant, place Farmers markets in reverse auction order instead
- Train Map (Industria):
- Use the side showing the 3/4-player icon in the bottom left
- Shuffle each tile type and place face-down in separate piles, then draw and place:
- Delivery bonus tiles: 1 on each designated spot (1 per City, 1 per Town)
- Milestone tiles: 1 on each designated spot (1 per City, 1 per Tunnel)
- Demand tiles: 1 on each designated spot (1 per City, 1 per pair of Towns)
- Place remaining Demand tiles face-down next to the Demand refill area
- Draw and place 4 Demand tiles face-up on the refill area (3 in a 3-player game)
- Each player places all 4 Milestone markers on the first 4 spots of the Delivery track, and their Train station on the last spot
- For 2-player setup, see the 2-Player Game section
- Set up your player board:
- Take 1 Player board and all tokens in your chosen colour
- Place tokens on their matching locations: Sheep, Cows, Cheese dairies, Bakeries, Fields, Distilleries
- Place all 8 Workers on the 4 forest slots (as Woodcutters) and 4 mountain slots (as Miners)
- Set your 4 Port markers beside your board
- Fill your Merchant track with 5 Merchants; the remaining 2 go below your board as starting stock
- Place your Shipping token on the leftmost space of the Shipping track
- Place your 2 Technology tiles below your Workers, arrow to the upper left
- Take 1 Export box tile with the player-count side face up
- Turn Order:
- Randomly determine the starting player
- In round 1, turn order runs clockwise from the starting player — place each player's Turn order token on the Turn order track accordingly
- In later rounds, turn order is set by pass order during the Action Phase
- Draft Clans:
- Randomly draw 1 more Clan tile than the number of players
- Draw the same number of Starting tiles; place 1 next to each Clan
- Starting with the last player, in reverse turn order, each player chooses a Clan + Starting tile pair and places them in front of themselves. The starting player chooses last, between the two remaining Clans
- Gain the Goods and money shown on your Starting tile
- Clan MacDonald: the Clan tile covers the Woodcutter/Miner area of the player board, and this Clan has no Technology upgrades
- Players may never hide information about their Goods, money, or components
- Place your first Workers: these placements follow normal Expand rules for land cost and unit cost, but do not trigger the Neighbourhood bonus, Farmers market bonus, or Building bonus:
- Beginning with the starting player, clockwise, each player places 1 Worker from the top of their player board onto an empty space:
- Woodcutter: forest space
- Miner: mountain space
- Then, in reverse turn order, each player places their 2nd Worker (no adjacency requirement). Each space holds only one unit, unless an effect allows 2
- Cost = land cost on the space + Worker cost:
- Woodcutter: £6
- Miner: £10
- A forest-mountain hybrid lets you place either — £6+£6 for a Woodcutter or £10+£6 for a Miner
- Clan MacDonald: places 3 Workers instead of 2, and they may be Woodcutters, Miners, or Fishermen
- Clan Fergusson: places 3 Workers, all on border spaces of the active map
- Beginning with the starting player, clockwise, each player places 1 Worker from the top of their player board onto an empty space:
- Place your first Trains (Industria):
- After first Workers, in reverse turn order, each player places their Train on any Town
- No two players' Trains may share a Town during initial placement
- Do not place your Train where you plan to make your first delivery — you must move your Train before delivering
Round Structure
The game runs for 5 rounds, each with 4 phases in order:
- Phase 1: Preparation (skipped in round 1)
- Phase 2: Actions — players take one Action per turn, in turn order, until everyone passes
- Phase 3: Production
- Phase 4: Scoring — award Glory for the current round's Scoring tile
Phase 1: Preparation
Skipped in round 1. At the start of every later round:
- Flip the previous round's Scoring tile face-down — its Glory bonus is no longer available
- Refill empty slots on the Export board with new Export contracts from the top of the draw pile
- With the Export Contract Refill Board, draw from the refill board left to right, slide remaining contracts left, then top up the refill board from the draw pile
- Retrieve your Merchants from the Market to your stock
Train module:
- Discard Demand tiles used last round (those with a tilted Train next to them)
- Refill Demand tiles — Cities first, then Towns, taking the leftmost tile from the refill area, filling from lowest-numbered spot upward
- Slide remaining tiles in the refill area left; refill empty spots from the Demand pile
- Stand all Trains upright so they can be used this round
Variable Starting Market Prices variant: from round 2 onward, also run the Market Phase to shift prices — see Variants.
Phase 2: Actions
On your turn, take exactly one Action from:
- Trade
- Obtain an Export Contract
- Expand
- Upgrade Shipping
- Upgrade Technology
- Hire a Merchant
- Fulfil an Export Contract
- Train Action (Train module)
- Claim a Milestone (Train module, or the "Milestones Without the Train Module" variant)
- Pass
With the exception of Pass, every Action can be taken multiple times in a round.
You may also use the Free Action: Using a Port Bonus Tile before or after your main Action.
Each Action is described in its own sub-section below.
Phase 3: Production
Collect income and produce Goods from your deployed units. Each empty slot on your player board with a "plus" icon shows what the missing unit is currently generating. In order:
- Worker income (each later Worker slot shows the running total for convenience):
- Woodcutter: £4 (£6 with Technology upgrade)
- Miner: £6 (£8 with Technology upgrade)
- Basic goods (required):
- Sheep → 1 Wool
- Cow → 1 Milk
- Field → 2 Grain
- Processed goods (optional):
- Cheese dairy: 1 Milk → 1 Cheese
- Bakery: 1 Grain → 1 Bread
- Distillery: 1 Grain → 1 Whisky
Basic goods spent to produce Processed goods may come from anywhere — the current Production Phase, a previous one, or the Market.
Phase 4: Scoring
If you have fulfilled the requirement on the top half of the current round's Scoring tile, gain the Glory shown on the bottom half. Track Glory on the Export board with your Glory marker — take or flip it each lap. Leave the Scoring tile face-up for now; it flips face-down during the next round's Preparation Phase.
Key Terms
- Neighbouring: an adjacent space with no river between the two spaces
- Adjacent: spaces that share an edge — a river may run between them
- Within Shipping reach: a space reachable via your current Shipping level (see Upgrade Shipping)
- Settlement: a cluster of neighbouring units of your colour; a single isolated unit is also a Settlement
- Deployment: placing a unit on the map via an Expand action or equivalent effect. Deployment triggers the Neighbourhood bonus, Farmers market bonus, and Building bonus. Moving a unit is not deployment
Land restrictions — each land type supports specific units:
- Grasslands: Sheep, Cows, Cheese dairies, Bakeries, Fields, Distilleries
- Forests: Woodcutters
- Mountains: Miners
A hybrid space (grassland-mountain, for example) supports any matching unit type.
Two Units on a Space (Industria)
Several Industria effects — Clan MacPherson's Breeding, Delivery bonuses, new Port tiles, and so on — let you deploy a unit onto a space that already contains one of your units:
- Do not pay the land cost — only the unit cost
- A space can never hold more than 2 units
- Two units on the same space are neighbouring each other
- Each unit counts individually for Scoring tiles and Milestones
- If one unit is later removed (slaughtering, Delivery bonuses, etc.), the other remains on the space
- Otherwise, treat the two units as in the base game for production and Neighbourhood bonuses
Moving a Unit (Industria)
Several Industria effects let you move one of your units from one map space to another:
- The destination must match the terrain required by the unit being moved
- Workers all count as the same type — move to any forest or mountain space (Clan MacDonald Workers may also move to/from loch spaces)
- Do not pay the land cost of the new space
- A moved unit does not trigger the Neighbourhood bonus, Farmers market bonus, or Building bonus
- Crossing a river or loch still requires the matching Shipping level
- Worker income is based on your player board slots, not map position — moving Workers does not change their income
A Worker that is forced or moved has not been deployed, so it does not trigger a Deployment Bonus.
Send Merchants from your stock (not from your player board) to the Market to buy or sell a single type of Good.
- Place any number of Merchants on the buy (↑) or sell (↓) area of a single Good — the number of Merchants placed is the quantity you will trade
- Pay or receive the Good's current price × quantity traded
- Adjust the Good's Price marker one step per Good traded, in the direction of the arrow (up for buy, down for sell)
Only one type of Good may be traded per Trade action. Trading several types requires several Trade actions.
You may never have Merchants on both the buy and sell areas of the same Good during the same round — no high-speed trading in 19th-century Scotland.
Merchants stay on the Market until retrieved during the next Preparation Phase.
- Pay the current round's cost (shown next to the Scoring tiles on the Export board) to take any Export contract from the Export board and place it on your empty Export box
- Round 1 only: you receive £5 instead of paying
Notes:
- You may hold only one unfulfilled Export contract at a time — Clan Buchanan is the exception, with two Export boxes
- You must fulfil your current contract before obtaining a new one. Unfulfilled contracts cannot be discarded
- With the Export Contract Refill Board, the contracts on the main Export board are still the ones you draft — the refill board just previews what will slide in next
Place one unit (Sheep, Cow, Cheese dairy, Bakery, Field, Distillery, Woodcutter, or Miner) from the top of the matching column on your player board onto an empty space on the map that is neighbouring or within Shipping reach of any of your units.
- Pay the unit cost (shown on your player board above the unit)
- Pay the land cost (the number on the space, £1–£6)
- A hybrid space (grassland-mountain, for example) accepts any matching unit type. If you have deployed all your Woodcutters, you cannot expand onto a forest-only space; the same applies to Miners and mountains
Order of bonuses (after the Expand action has fully resolved — unit deployed, all land and unit costs paid):
- If the Expand grants a special bonus, such as Clan Sinclair's Bonus upgrade, take or forfeit it first
- Then, in any order, you may use the Neighbourhood bonus, Farmers market bonus, and Building bonus
When you expand into a space neighbouring one of another player's units (adjacent, no river between), you may immediately perform a discounted Trade action to buy the type of Good produced by that neighbouring unit:
- Maximum 3 pieces of that Good per turn (4 in a 2-player game)
- Basic goods (Wool, Milk, Grain): £2 cheaper than the current Market price
- Processed goods (Bread, Cheese, Whisky): £3 cheaper
- Use the normal Trade rules for Merchants and Price adjustment
If you neighbour several different opponent units at once, you may use the Neighbourhood bonus for each one.
The Neighbourhood bonus can only be used immediately after expanding — never on a later turn.
Farmers Markets module.
You cannot deploy units on a space containing a Farmers market, but expanding next to one triggers a strong selling bonus.
Whenever you expand to a space neighbouring a Farmers market, you may immediately sell up to 4 Goods of a single type shown on the tile that is not already covered:
- Pay any land and unit costs for the Expand first — the Farmers market bonus triggers after the Expand resolves
- Place up to 4 Merchants on the Market board for the Good you want to sell
- Gain the current Market value of that Good +£2 per Basic good sold, or +£3 per Processed good sold; move the Price marker as normal
- Place one of the Goods sold onto the matching icon on the Farmers market tile
- When both icons on a Farmers market are covered, the tile is immediately removed and returned to the box. The Goods used to cover the icons are discarded. Players can then expand onto that space normally
Farmers markets can only be used during your turn in the Action Phase. Special unit placements that do not trigger the Neighbourhood bonus (such as Clan MacGregor's Grazing Action or starting Worker placement) also do not trigger Farmers markets.
When you deploy your 4th factory of one type onto the map (Cheese dairy, Bakery, or Distillery) and your Export box is empty, you may immediately draw Export contracts and choose one to take for free:
- Draw 3 Export contracts from the top of the draw pile (6 for Clan Buchanan)
- With the Export Contract Refill Board, take the leftmost 3 (or 6) Export contracts from the refill board instead
- You may take one of the drawn contracts and place it on your Export box, or decline and take none
- Contracts not taken go to the bottom of the Export contract draw pile
- If you take a contract, pay its cost as if you had performed the Obtain an Export Contract action
The Building bonus is still considered part of the Expand action.
Pay £4 to move your Shipping marker one space to the right on the Shipping track.
Your Shipping reach determines which water you may expand across:
- No shipping: cannot expand across any water
- River-crossing: may expand directly across a river to an adjacent land space
- 1-loch: river-crossing, plus you may expand across one loch space
- 2-loch: river-crossing, plus you may expand across two loch spaces — and so on
You may never hop across a land space, even along a river — Shipping only extends reach over water.
Pay £10 and flip the matching Technology tile on your player board to upgrade one of your Worker types. Upgraded Workers produce £2 more each Production Phase:
- Woodcutter: £4 → £6
- Miner: £6 → £8
Taken as part of a Bonus Upgrade (from a Direct Export Bonus or similar effect), the cost is reduced to £5.
Clan MacDonald cannot take this Action — their Technology area is covered by their Clan tile.
Pay £4 to take one Merchant from your player board and add it to your stock, ready for use in a future Trade action.
Take a Merchant back from the Market: whenever you gain a Bonus upgrade (Direct Export Bonus, Port bonus tile, Clan ability, and so on), you may instead take one of your Merchants back from the Market into your stock.
To fulfil the Export contract on your Export box:
- Pay the Goods listed on the left half of the contract tile
- Gain the benefits shown on the right half — any combination of Import goods, money, Direct Export Bonuses, and Glory
- Place the fulfilled contract face-up next to your Export box. Your Export box is now empty and ready to accept a new contract
- When a contract requires Cotton, Tobacco, or Sugar cane imports, move the matching Import token on the Export board scoring track one step per unit imported. If the token reaches or passes a marked step, gain £1 (easy to forget — don't miss it)
- Contracts requiring Beef or Mutton are fulfilled by slaughtering a Cow or Sheep — remove the animal from the map back to your player board. Slaughtering is only allowed to fulfil a contract and does not require a separate Action
Direct Export Bonuses — a contract may grant these in any order:
- Money: take the amount shown from the supply
- Free space: immediately take an Expand action without paying the land cost (you still pay the unit cost; all normal Expand rules apply)
- Bonus upgrade: choose one of:
- A Technology upgrade at the discounted price of £5
- A Shipping upgrade at no cost
- Hire a Merchant from your player board at no cost, or take one of your Merchants back from the Market
If you receive multiple Bonus upgrades, you may choose the same or different options for each.
Train module. Once per round. Move your Train on the Train map to deliver Goods to a Town or City and gain a bonus.
- Move your Train 1 or 2 locations (Towns and/or Cities) along the railway tracks
- You may not pass through locked railway tracks unless you have unlocked them by claiming the matching Milestone
- You may not end movement at the location where you started
- If you pass through or end on a location containing other players' Trains, pay £3 per player whose Train you passed through or stopped on. If you cannot pay, you cannot move into that location
- Using a Tunnel grants you an additional Train action after completing this one
At the end of movement, you must deliver to the destination — you cannot move to a location where you are unable to deliver:
- Pay the Goods shown on the Demand tile at that location
- Immediately gain or forfeit the Delivery bonus tile at that location. You may gain all, part, or none — if part of a bonus shows an additional cost, you must pay it to gain that part
- Take your leftmost marker from the Delivery track (either a Milestone marker or your Train station) and put it next to your player board for now
- Delivering to a City: gain 2 Glory on top of the Delivery bonus
After delivering, tilt your Train on its side to show it is exhausted and cannot be used again this round.
Placing your Train station: after your 5th delivery, you must immediately place your Train station — before or after resolving that delivery's bonus tile. The Train station must be placed on a land space that meets all of the following:
- It is within your reach
- It contains at least one unit belonging to another player
- It does not yet contain a Train station
- It is not adjacent to another space that already has a Train station
Placing a Train station costs nothing and triggers neither the Neighbourhood bonus nor Farmers market. Your Train station counts as one of your units on that space — if the other player's last unit is later removed, the Train station stays and the space is considered yours only.
If no space meets all four conditions, discard your Train station back to the box.
Train module. Every delivery unlocks one of your Milestone markers. If you have an unlocked Milestone marker in your stock, you may use an Action to claim a Milestone.
- You may only claim a Milestone if you satisfy its condition and it has not already been claimed
- Place your Milestone marker on the highest scoring spot still available on the claimed Milestone tile — that Tunnel or City is now unlocked for you:
- Unlocking a Tunnel: you may move through it from now on
- Unlocking a City: you may move through or end your movement there from now on
When you cannot or do not want to take another Action, you must pass and stop taking Actions for the rest of the round.
After passing:
- Move your Turn order token to the leftmost available position of the next round's Turn order track
- Receive the Passing bonus money shown on that slot
- With the Farmers Markets module, the Passing bonus overlay makes these £4 lower than the printed amount
The order in which players pass sets turn order for the next round — first to pass goes first next round.
If a Port bonus tile is neighbouring, or within Shipping reach of, any of your units, you may use that Port bonus as a free action in addition to your main Action.
- Usable before or after your main Action on the turn you take it, or on any future turn while the space remains in reach
- Place a Port marker in your colour next to the tile to mark it as used
- Each Port bonus tile can only be used once per game by you, but several players can each use the same Port bonus tile
- You may use multiple Port bonuses in the same turn
- The Building bonus on Port tile 7 also counts as a Deployment Bonus — it triggers the Neighbourhood bonus and Farmers market as if it were a normal Expand
After round 5 completes, total each player's Victory Points. The highest score wins, and leftover money breaks ties.
Final score is the sum of:
- Glory: 1 VP per step on the Glory track
- Basic goods: 1 VP per Basic good (Wool, Milk, Grain) in your stock
- Processed goods: 2 VP per Processed good (Cheese, Bread, Whisky) in your stock
- Money: 1 VP per £10
- Hops: 1 VP per Hops listed on your fulfilled Export contracts
- Cotton, Tobacco, and Sugar cane — VP per unit by rarity across all players:
- The Import token that moved the furthest on the Export board track is the most common: 3 VP per unit
- The next most imported: 4 VP per unit
- The least imported: 5 VP per unit
- Tiebreak: Cotton is treated as the rarest, followed by Tobacco, then Sugar cane
- Export Scoring — most fulfilled Export contracts:
- 3–4 players: 12 VP for most, 6 VP for second most
- 2 players: 8 VP for most only
- Tied players evenly divide the VP of their tier, rounded down
- Settlement Scoring — count your Settlements within Shipping reach of each other:
- A Settlement is a cluster of neighbouring units of your colour (adjacent, no river between); a single isolated unit counts too
- If not all your Settlements are within Shipping reach of each other, only the biggest connected group counts
- 3–4 players: 18 / 12 / 6 VP for most / 2nd / 3rd
- 2 players: 12 VP for most
- Tied players evenly divide the VP of their tier, rounded down
Additional scoring with Industria:
- Award tiles (Award Tiles module): 12 VP for best, 6 VP for second (8 VP / 0 VP in a 2-player game). Ties share as in Export scoring
- Delivery track (Train module): 2 / 5 / 9 / 14 / 20 VP for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 deliveries
- Milestones (Train module): for each Milestone you claimed, 8 / 4 / 2 / 0 VP based on whether you were the 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th player to claim it
The 2-player game uses a smaller active map. The shaded land spaces at the edge (marked by mist) are not part of the active map and cannot be expanded into. The non-shaded spaces adjacent to the shaded edge are treated as the map's border spaces, which matters for Scoring tile 5 and Clan Fergusson. All loch spaces remain part of the active map.
Neighbourhood bonuses in a 2-player game allow up to 4 pieces of the same Good per turn (rather than 3).
Train module:
- Use the side of the Train map showing the 2-player icon in the bottom left. Milestones in a 2-player game award only 6 / 2 VP for 1st / 2nd place
- Each player also uses the Mini-train of their colour in addition to their normal Train
- Train placement during setup: the 2nd player places either their Train or Mini-train on a Town, then the 1st player places theirs. Then the 2nd player places their remaining Train, and finally the 1st player theirs. No two Trains (or Mini-trains) may share a Town
- Every Train action moves both your Train and your Mini-train, in either order. The Mini-train does not make deliveries — only the bigger Train is tilted to show it is exhausted
- Your Train and Mini-train may not end movement on the same location as your other Train
- You do not pay when your own Trains meet each other
- If either of your Trains moves through or ends on a location containing an opponent's Train or Mini-train, pay £3 per opponent Train met during the move, before resolving any delivery. If you cannot pay, you cannot move through or end your movement there
Alternative 2-player Export and Settlement Scoring (optional Industria variant):
- Export scoring: the most fulfilled Export contracts still gains 8 VP as normal. The second player gains 4 VP only if they fulfilled exactly one Export contract less, and 0 VP otherwise. Ties still share 4 VP
- Settlement scoring: the most connected Settlements still gains 12 VP as normal. The second player gains 6 VP only if they have 1 or 2 fewer connected Settlements, and 0 VP otherwise. Ties still share 6 VP
In the base "Beat Your Own Score" solo variant, you play on the smaller 2-player map and try to achieve the highest score possible.
- Use Workers of different player colours as neutral pieces and place them on every active map space with a £1 land cost. These spaces are blocked off for the whole game
- Draw and place 5 Export contracts face-up on the Export board before starting
- You cannot take the Neighbourhood bonus or track Imported goods on the Export board
- Each time you pass, gain a Passing bonus of £16
Market Phase (additional phase from round 2 onward):
- During Preparation, after retrieving Merchants, roll the Goods die and the Price die three times. Reroll if the Goods die shows a Good whose price was already changed this round
- Below the brackets = low prices; above = high. When the price is low or high, ignore the +/− on the Price die:
- Price is low: price increases by the absolute value
- Price is high: price decreases by the absolute value
- Price is in the middle: price changes exactly as shown on the die
- After refilling the Export board, remove the Export contract matching the last Price die roll (intersection of the Price die result and the Export board row) from the game. Each Action phase begins with 5 Export contracts available
Scoring result bands: 0–115 Newbie · 116–130 Rookie · 131–145 Average · 146–160 Expert · 161+ Genius!
Industria adjustments (Automa is in a separate rulebook):
- Award scoring: during setup, draw one Award card from the Automa components and place it below the 5th Scoring tile instead of a normal Award tile. The goals are identical to the Award tiles, but you compare your progress against the card's thresholds to score 4 VP, 0 VP, or −4 VP
- Train map: if you want Trains in your solo game, use the 2-player side of the Train map. Take the 4 Milestone cards from the Automa components and place them on the Train map to cover the printed Milestone VP:
- After delivering, discard the Delivery bonus tile — you can only deliver to each location once per game
- Score 10 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2 VP for claiming a Milestone in round 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5. You are rewarded for claiming early rather than competing with anyone
- Deduct 30 VP from your final score if you played with the Train map
For the full multiplayer-style Automa solo opponent, consult the separate Automa rulebook.
The following simplifications are recommended for a first game.
- Static Import Goods: regardless of how much Cotton, Tobacco, or Sugar cane was imported, each is worth 4 VP at the end of the game. With this variant, you do not need to track Imports on the Export board
- Without Scoring and/or Port Tiles: ignore the Scoring tiles and Port bonus tiles during setup and play — one less system to think about each round
For players who prefer a tighter map in a 2- or 3-player game, cover any 4 land spaces of the active map during setup using the backsides of 4 spare Port tiles. These spaces cannot be expanded into. Placing one covered tile per map module is recommended.
The map in a 4-player game is already tight enough on its own, so this variant is not needed.
For more symmetric starting conditions, ignore the Clans during setup and play. In addition to the Goods and money on their Starting tile, players also receive:
- Starting player: £0
- 2nd player: £2
- 3rd player: £4
- 4th player: £6
Recommended for experienced players. Auction the Clans rather than drafting them in reverse turn order.
- Randomly draw as many Clan tiles as the number of players, and allocate a random Starting tile to each Clan
- Randomly determine a starting bidder, who bids any amount of VP (including 0) for the first pick
- The player to their left may bid a higher amount, and so on around the table
- Continue until every other player has passed after a bid. The maximum possible bid is 30 VP
- The winning bidder records their bid as negative VP on the scoresheet, places their token on the first spot of the Turn order track, and takes a Clan/Starting tile of their choice
- The player to the left then opens the auction for the next Clan, and so on
- The last remaining player takes the last Clan/Starting tile at no cost and is last in turn order
With the Farmers Markets module, place Farmers markets in reverse auction order after the auction completes, not in reverse turn order.
Additional auction variants — including one the designer later designed — can be found at karma-games.com/clans-variants.
Industria variant. Makes starting Market prices variable instead of fixed.
During setup, after placing the Price markers on the Market board, roll the Price dice once for each type of Good:
- +1 or −1: leave the Price marker where it is
- +2 or +3: move the Price marker up one spot
- −2 or −3: move the Price marker down one spot
Industria variants. Add Milestone scoring without committing to the full Train module.
In both variants, place 4 Milestone tiles on the Train board during setup and score them at final scoring. Delivery bonus tiles, Trains, and Train stations are all removed from the game.
Milestones without the Train module:
- Each player places their 4 Milestone markers next to their player board
- During the Action Phase, players may take an Action to pay £5 to claim a Milestone
Milestones with a simplified Train module:
- Each player places 1 Milestone marker next to each of the round-1-through-4 Scoring tiles
- Use the 3/4-player side of the Train map
- During setup, place 1 Demand tile next to each Milestone, and 4 Demand tiles face-up on the Demand tiles refill track
- To claim a Milestone, you must deliver the Goods shown on the Demand tile next to it. Pay £15, then take the Milestone marker next to the current round's Scoring tile (or an earlier one) and place it on the claimed Milestone
- During the Preparation Phase (except the first round), replace all Demand tiles with tiles from the refill track and replenish the refill track as normal
Port bonus tiles 1–9 are from the base game; tiles 10–18 are from Industria. Each can be used once per game, per player (see Free Action: Using a Port Bonus Tile).
Base game:
- 1 — When fulfilling an Export contract requiring Meat, slaughter 1 fewer animal
- 2 — Discard 1 Basic good and gain any 3 Basic goods (including the discarded type)
- 3 — Discard 1 Processed good and gain any 2 Processed goods (including the discarded type)
- 4 — Gain 1 Bonus upgrade and 3 Glory
- 5 — Gain £10
- 6 — Manipulate the price of one Good by 3 steps on the Market before trading that Good
- 7 — Take any 2 units from your player board (not Fields) and exchange them with 2 of your units on the map (not Fields) at no cost. The 2 new units must be different from the 2 old units, and must match the land type. If you qualify, you may take the Building bonus. (Industria errata: this now triggers the Neighbourhood bonus and Farmers market bonus as if it were a normal Deployment)
- 8 — Gain £5. If your Export box is empty, you may perform the Building bonus, paying costs as normal if you take an Export contract
- 9 — (Kickstarter-contributed) Pay £3 and place a Port marker on this tile. Then use the effect of any one of the other three Port tiles in play (even if already used)
Industria:
- 10 — Ignore 1 required Processed good when fulfilling an Export contract
- 11 — Deploy an animal for free on the same space as another of your animals (you still pay the land cost only if the space is empty of your units; per the Two Units on a Space rules, deploying on a space with your unit waives the land cost)
- 12 — Exchange 1 of your Cheese dairies, Bakeries, or Distilleries on the map with 1 of your Fields from your player board, for free
- 13 — Pay £10 to gain 2 Technology upgrades, or gain 4 Glory
- 14 — Discard 4 Processed goods to gain £50
- 15 — If you have at least 1 Export contract fulfilled, gain 3 Merchant upgrades (each upgrade may hire from your player board or take a Merchant back from the Market)
- 16 — Without Train: Move any 1 of your units to an adjacent space, twice (same or different units). With Train: Pay 1 less Processed good or 2 less Basic goods when making a Train delivery
- 17 — Without Train: Deploy a Cheese dairy, Bakery, or Distillery for free (pay only the land cost). With Train: Take your leftmost marker from the Delivery track. If the marker is your Train station, place it immediately per the Train station rules
- 18 — Pay £25 to fulfil an Export contract without paying any Goods or Meat
Port tiles 16 and 17 are dual-purpose: use the top bonus when playing with the Train module, and the bottom bonus when playing without it. Cover the half you are not using with a Port overlay tile.
Scoring tiles 1–9 are from the base game; tiles 10–18 are from Industria. Five Scoring tiles are chosen randomly at setup — each round, players may gain the Glory shown on the current round's tile if they have fulfilled its condition.
Base game:
- 1 — Gain 1 Glory per Basic good in your stock
- 2 — Gain 3 Glory per 2 Processed goods in your stock
- 3 — Gain 1 Glory per deployed Sheep, Cow, Cheese dairy, Bakery, or Distillery, and 2 Glory per deployed Field
- 4 — Gain 2 Glory per deployed Worker (including Fishermen for Clan MacDonald)
- 5 — Gain 3 Glory per 2 units on border spaces of the active map (shaded spaces are not part of the 1–2 player active map)
- 6 — Gain 1 Glory per unit of Cotton, Tobacco, or Sugar cane on your fulfilled Export contracts
- 7 — Gain 2 Glory per unit of Meat on your fulfilled Export contracts
- 8 — Gain 1 Glory per Upgrade: Technology upgrades, Shipping upgrades, and hired Merchants. Count each spot left of your Shipping marker, each free Merchant slot on your player board, and each upgraded Technology tile. Upgrades your Clan started with also count
- 9 — (Kickstarter-contributed) Gain 2 Glory for each of your occupied spaces with a land cost of £5 or £6
Industria:
- 10 — Gain 4 Glory per pair of your animals on neighbouring spaces or on the same space. Animals of different types count
- 11 — Gain 2 Glory per Merchant of yours on the Market board
- 12 — Gain 3 Glory per different type of Good in your stock
- 13 — Gain 3 Glory per pair of your neighbouring units that form a production chain — Cow + Cheese dairy, Field + Bakery, Field + Distillery, or Sheep + Kilt maker. One Field produces 2 Grain, so it can be used for 2 pairs (or 3 for Clan Gordon)
- 14 — Gain 3 Glory per 2 of your units on or adjacent to the central loch. The units themselves do not have to be adjacent to each other
- 15 — Gain 2 Glory per unit of yours on a land space that is not adjacent to any loch space
- 16 — Gain 3 Glory per different type of unit you have in a single Settlement
- 17 — Gain 4 Glory per pair of your adjacent units of the same type on spaces separated by a river
- 18 — Gain 3 Glory per Settlement consisting of exactly 2 units
Industria — Award Tiles module.
One Award tile is drawn at random during setup. At the end of the game, the best and second-best performers against the Award's goal score 12/6 VP (or 8/0 VP in a 2-player game).
- 1 — Most units on the game board
- 2 — Most Import Goods of one type (for example, in a 2-player game, Blue has 9 Cotton and Red has 11 Sugar cane — Red gains 8 VP, Blue 0)
- 3 — Most Glory
- 4 — Most money in stock
- 5 — Most units in a single Settlement
- 6 — Most Basic goods in stock
- 7 — Most Processed goods in stock
- 8 — Most units along rivers
- 9 — Most units next to lochs (units on loch spaces also count)
Industria — Train Module.
All conditions below are minimum conditions. Claiming a Milestone requires meeting the condition and spending a Claim a Milestone action.
- 1 — 6 imported Goods of 1 type on fulfilled Export contracts
- 2 — 3 Port tiles claimed
- 3 — Any combination of 5 factories deployed (Cheese dairies, Bakeries, and/or Distilleries)
- 4 — 7 Basic goods in stock
- 5 — All Workers deployed
- 6 — 7 Upgrades (Technology, Shipping, and Merchant upgrades all count — 1 each)
- 7 — 2 triangles of 3 spaces with your units, in 2 different Settlements
- 8 — 2 types of non-Worker units of which 3 units each are deployed
- 9 — One of each type of unit deployed (all Workers count as one type — see Deployed Workers)
- 10 — 15 units deployed
- 11 — A Settlement with 6 units
- 12 — 8 units along rivers
- 13 — 5 spaces with your units in a straight line
- 14 — 2 fulfilled Export contracts with at least 3 hops each
- 15 — 5 types of exported Goods and/or Meats on fulfilled Export contracts
- 16 — 2 fulfilled Export contracts with no Direct export bonuses
Industria — Train Module. Each Delivery bonus tile rewards a specific delivery on the Train map. If a bonus lists multiple effects, you may take them in any order. If a bonus has a cost, pay it before gaining the benefit.
- 1 — Gain £10 and up to 2 adjacent free spaces
- 2 — Expand by placing 1 Field without paying the unit cost (pay only the land cost)
- 3 — Gain £15, a bonus action, and place a city tile on an empty land space in your reach (blocked for the game). Use the backside of an unused Port tile as the city tile
- 4 — Skip any 2 spaces to expand by placing a non-Field unit without paying the unit cost (pay only the land cost). Gain an Upgrade. Cannot be combined with any Shipping reach
- 5 — Return 3 Upgrades to gain 2 Processed goods and 2 Basic goods (you cannot return a Merchant from the Market). Flipping a Tech upgrade counts as 1 return but gives no money
- 6 — Move 2 different Price markers one step each and gain £15
- 7 — Return a Distillery to your player board and pay £5 to gain one of each Good
- 8 — Discard the top Export contract from your Export box to take one from the Export board without paying or gaining money. Gain 1 Processed and 1 Basic good
- 9 — Return a Cheese dairy, Bakery, or Distillery to your player board to gain 2 of each Basic good
- 10 — Immediately process up to 4 Basic goods (no factories needed). Clan Fraser may process Wool into Kilts if there's space on its tile
- 11 — Gain 1 Processed good and a bonus action. During it, you may place one of your unused Port markers next to any Port tile you haven't claimed yet (even out of reach) and gain its bonus
- 12 — Return 1 animal to your player board and gain £25
- 13 — Discard 2 Whiskies to gain £40
- 14 — Gain £10 and move 1 unit to an adjacent space twice (same or different units — see Moving a Unit)
- 15 — Gain 1 Processed good, 1 free space, and a bonus action
- 16 — Gain £15 and you may take an Export contract (paying the normal cost). If you already have one, place the new contract on top and fulfil the top contract first. Clan Buchanan can place one Export contract on each of their two Export boxes
- 17 — Gain £15 and a Building bonus
- 18 — Gain £5 and 2 Upgrades
- 19 — Gain £15 and place an available Merchant on any empty space (even out of reach), paying the land cost to reserve it. The Merchant is not a unit — it doesn't count for Round scoring, Milestones, or Expanding. When you later deploy a unit there (which must be in reach), the land cost is free and the Merchant returns to your stock
- 20 — Take a Trade action to sell up to 4 units of 1 Good type and gain £6 extra per unit sold. Counts as a regular Trade action — Clan Stewart and Clan Douglas gain their usual benefit, and Port tile 6 applies
- 21 — Place 3 Merchants in a single buy or sell area on the Market board without buying or selling Goods, gaining £20. Adjust Price markers accordingly. Counts as a regular Trade action
- 22 — "Buy" up to 2 Goods (same or different) for free and immediately use them to fulfil your Export contract. Adjust Price markers accordingly. Clan Stewart gains £1 per type of Good traded. Counts as a regular Trade action
- 23 — Fulfil an Export contract (paying the Goods as normal) and gain £6 per Cotton, Tobacco, or Sugar cane on it. Counts as a Fulfil an Export Contract action
- 24 — Return a Field to your player board to fulfil an Export contract in your Export box without paying any required Goods or Meat. Counts as a Fulfil an Export Contract action. Clan Buchanan may fulfil 2 Export contracts as usual but may apply this bonus to only 1
Bonuses 20–22 count as regular Trade actions; bonuses 22–24 count as Fulfil an Export Contract actions — which matters for Clan abilities that trigger on those actions.
- You have an additional Export box, letting you hold up to 2 Export contracts at once
- You can obtain 1 or 2 Export contracts in a single turn, paying the round cost only once (not twice)
- You can fulfil up to 2 Export contracts per turn
- If you trigger the Building bonus, draw 6 Export contracts instead of 3, and you may take 0, 1, or 2 of them. This also applies to Port bonus tile 8
- First-round money: you only receive the first-round +£5 bonus once when obtaining 2 contracts on the same turn. However, you still gain £5 on each separate turn in which you obtain a contract — even if your first contract has not been fulfilled
You get better at building factories the more often you build them. Each factory type (Cheese dairy, Bakery, Distillery) has its own cheapening curve:
- 1st factory of each type: £3 cheaper
- 2nd and 3rd of each type: £4 cheaper each
- 4th of one kind: £5 cheaper
Example: building 3 Bakeries and 1 Distillery — the first Bakery costs £8 − £3 = £5, the 2nd and 3rd Bakeries cost £8 − £4 = £4 each, and the Distillery is £10 − £3 = £7.
You produce butter out of Milk. At the end of every Production Phase, you may discard any number of Milk from your stock (no Merchants needed). For each Milk discarded, gain £8.
Discarding Milk this way does not adjust the Milk price on the Market.
Industria.
At the start of the game, return 1 of your starting Merchants to the box.
Bulk Trading: each of your Merchants can trade up to 2 Goods of the same type in a single transaction. When placing Merchants to trade:
- Adjust the Price marker based on the number of Merchants placed, not the number of Goods traded
- Whenever you buy or sell a type of Good, gain £2 per pair of Goods traded (when buying, you receive the money after paying for the Goods)
Example: you buy 3 units of Whisky at £10. You place 2 Merchants on the Market board, pay £30 as normal for the 3 units, then increase the Price marker only 2 steps (one per Merchant). You gain £2 for the 1 pair of Whisky you bought.
Neighbourhood bonus: you can buy up to 4 Goods through the Neighbourhood bonus regardless of player count.
Placing the first Workers:
- You start with 3 Workers (for which you still pay the full unit and land costs)
- You place your 3rd Worker after all other players have placed theirs
- All 3 starting Workers must be placed on border spaces of the active map
You also start with 2-loch Shipping for free in a 3–4 player game (1-loch Shipping in a 1–2 player game).
Industria.
Kiltmakers: treat up to 2 of your Workers (each neighbouring a different Sheep) as Kiltmakers.
Production Phase: each Kiltmaker may process 1 Wool into 1 Kilt in addition to generating money as normal. Represent the Kilt by placing a Wool token from your stock onto your Clan tile — that token now counts as a Kilt, not as Wool. You may hold a maximum of 2 Kilts at any time.
Versatile Processed Goods: during the Action Phase, you may use a Kilt as if it were any Processed good (Cheese, Whisky, or Bread) to fulfil contracts or trade. When discarding a Kilt, return the Wool token on your Clan tile to the common stock, not your personal stock.
Scoring: Kilts count as a unique Processed good for all scoring (Scoring tiles, Milestones, Awards, etc.). A Kiltmaker and its neighbouring Sheep form a production chain, making them eligible for Scoring tile 13. Kiltmakers still count as Workers, not factories, for all game effects.
Cotton Imports Bonus: whenever your total imported Cotton reaches or passes a multiple of 4, gain 2 Wool.
Industria.
Your Fields cost £15 instead of £18 and each produces 1 extra Grain during the Production Phase.
Silos: your Clan board has 3 Silos, each of which can hold up to 1 Grain. During the Production Phase, you may place Grain you just produced on any of your empty Silos. As an Action, you may discard 1 Grain from one of your Silos to gain the following bonus:
- Silo 1: gain a free space
- Silo 2: gain a Bonus upgrade
- Silo 3: gain 1 Wool or 1 Milk
Grain in your Silos counts as being in your stock. You may freely move Grain from a Silo back to your regular stock as a free action.
Your Clan tile covers the Miner/Woodcutter area of your player board, so your Technology area remains empty — you cannot take the Technology Upgrade action.
Your abilities:
- You can use any of your Workers as Woodcutters, Miners, or Fishermen (even when placing the first Workers). All your Workers cost £6 and produce £4 income
- Fishermen can be placed on (or moved to) any empty loch space or Port bonus tile, even in a 1–2 player game. There is no land cost on loch placements. Two Fishermen may never be adjacent to each other
- Once per turn, you can move a Fisherman to an adjacent loch space by rowing, but only before your main Action
You start with 3 Workers instead of 2. In a 1–2 player game, you also start with river-crossing Shipping for free.
Rules clarifications:
- You still need the appropriate Shipping level to expand across loch spaces
- Land spaces adjacent to Fishermen are considered neighbouring, so they can be expanded into without Shipping reach
- The Neighbourhood bonus may be used when deploying a Fisherman, but not when rowing
Industria.
You start with river-crossing Shipping and 2 Merchant upgrades.
Canals (a special type of reach): all spaces along a river that one of your units is adjacent to are considered within your reach (for expanding and connecting Settlements).
- When you deploy a unit along a river, you may trigger the Neighbourhood bonus and/or Farmers market for each player unit or tile along the same river
- Canal reach does not extend to waterfall spaces (where the river originates in a mountain)
- Canal abilities require your Shipping to be at least river-crossing or higher (Delivery bonus tile 5 can reduce your number of Upgrades — be aware)
- Canal reach does not combine with your Shipping reach across lochs
Industria.
You start with river-crossing Shipping.
Herds: a herd consists of 2 or more of your Sheep on adjacent spaces. Two Sheep on the same space do not form a herd.
Grazing Action (a special type of Expand action):
- Deploy a unit: deploy any non-Field unit onto the same space as a Sheep that is part of a herd. You do not pay the land cost. You may not deploy a unit onto a Sheep space that already holds two units
- Move the Sheep: move that Sheep to any unoccupied grassland space adjacent to another Sheep in the same herd. You do not pay the land cost for this movement. You may cross rivers if your Shipping is river-crossing or higher
If you cannot legally move the Sheep, you cannot perform the Grazing action.
The Neighbourhood bonus and Farmers market trigger only from the deployed unit, not from the Sheep being moved.
Sheep Selling Bonus: at the end of each Production Phase (after producing Wool), you may return 1 Sheep to your player board to gain £15.
Industria.
Every time you or another player deploys a Worker or a factory (Cheese dairy, Bakery, or Distillery), you gain £3 if at least one of your Workers is adjacent to that unit. This applies to your starting Workers as well. You receive this bonus after the deployed unit and space have been paid for.
During the Production Phase, gain £3 for each unit of Whisky you produce. You do not have to discard any Whisky to get this money.
You also have a cellar for ageing Whisky:
- At the start of each Production Phase, every Whisky barrel in the cellar ages one spot to the right
- A barrel that starts a Production Phase in the rightmost cellar space is placed into your stock
- At any time, you may move an aged Whisky from the cellar into your stock. Doing so gains you £7 or £15 (depending on how far it has aged)
- At the end of each Production Phase, you may place one freshly-produced Whisky barrel in the leftmost cellar space so it can begin ageing
For the purposes of Scoring tile 2, Whisky in the cellar does count as being in your stock.
Industria.
You start with river-crossing Shipping.
Private Shipyards: during setup, in addition to your Starting tile, you receive 4 random, unused Port tiles placed face up next to your player board. These are your Private Shipyards — not Port bonus tiles on the map.
On your turn, you may activate a Private Shipyard as a free action:
- Gain the Private Shipyard's Port bonus
- Flip the tile face down to show that Shipyard has been used
- Gain a Building bonus. The Export box condition still applies
Usage Limit: the number of used Private Shipyards cannot exceed the number of used Port bonus tiles (i.e., Port markers you have placed on the map's Port tiles).
Your Private Shipyards are not Port bonus tiles for any game effects — they do not count toward Milestone 2 ("3 Port tiles claimed"), for example.
Port Tile 9 interaction: if you activate Port tile 9 (the Kickstarter wildcard) as one of your Private Shipyards, you may gain the bonus of any other Private Shipyard you own even if you have already used it.
Industria.
Breeding: after producing Goods at the end of the Production Phase, your animals may breed.
For each animal type (Cows and Sheep), if you have 2 or more of that type on neighbouring spaces, you may take 1 additional animal of that type (if available on your player board) and deploy it for free on the space of one of the parent animals. The new animal counts as a calf or lamb — it does not produce Goods this round, but will produce normally in later rounds.
This deployment uses the Two Units on a Space rules: no land cost, and a space can never hold more than 2 units.
Each time you place a unit in a river delta — a space adjacent to a river that flows directly into a loch — you pay £3 less off the total cost (£2 less in a 1–2 player game).
This discount also applies when placing your 2 initial Workers.
Industria.
You start with river-crossing Shipping but cannot upgrade (or reduce) your Shipping for the rest of the game.
Railroad Reach: when expanding, you may skip over spaces that are empty or occupied by other players' units:
- Skipping Land Spaces:
- Pay £2 to skip exactly 1 land space (it does not have to be in a straight line). You may cross a river while doing so
- After skipping, gain a Bonus upgrade
- You cannot use this to expand into a space already within your normal reach
- Skipping Loch Spaces:
- Skip any number of loch spaces, paying £2 per loch space skipped
- You may also use this ability to claim a Port as a free action, as normal
Restrictions: you cannot combine skipping land and lochs in a single expansion.
Settlement Scoring: all of your units within 2 spaces of each other (not necessarily in a straight line) count as connected for final scoring.
Bonus Upgrade Reminder: the Bonus upgrade from Railroad Reach is part of the Expand action — you must take or forfeit it before using the Neighbourhood bonus, Farmers market, or Building bonus.
You start with 3 additional Merchants (5 total) and river-crossing Shipping for free.
Every time you trade at the Market, you also gain £1, regardless of how many units you trade. When purchasing, you receive this £1 before paying for the Goods.
If you use the Neighbourhood bonus to trade multiple types of Goods in a single turn, you gain £1 per type of Good traded.
Thumbnail courtesy of BoardGameGeek and the respective publisher.