Gotlandia is a boardgame about sheep, pirates, and overly embellished churches. You can find rules and instructions for how to create your own print-and-play edition of Gotlandia elsewhere. On this page you can find an example of how the game plays. Gotlandia is currently under development.
Setup
The sample game is a three player game. Green plays Hoburg, White plays Hejde, and Blue plays Rute.
Players have placed farmsteads in their settings, a ship in the direction next to their setting, and neutral farmsteads in the three settings Bro, Kräklinge, and Burs that are not played in this game. Players have placed two workers on the bench and one Wood, one Grain, one Sheep, and one Stone in their storage. Players have been dealt two reputation cards and are about to choose one.
One of the players has created a generation deck. Another player has shuffled the unique craft cards and the unique trading cards into two piles each next to piles with Stud, Tar pit, Lübeck, and Linköping.
Reputations and starting player
Reputation cards gives each player's family a unique ability and thematic flavour.
Green chooses Beautiful daughters which allows settling in regions with other players without paying gifts. Green thinks this will come in handy for the otherwise squeezed position in the south. White chooses Shepherds clearly eying those two juicy pastures next to Hejde. Blue chooses Hoarders, nice with extra Grain when Rute doesn't have any fields.
Players then matches the values on the reputation cards. Beautiful daughters has the highest value so Green takes the starting player token. White and Blue take two Silver each while Green takes one Silver.
1100s: First generation
One player reveals the top generation card. Sheep are in high demand and pirates appear in the east and west. So far the pirates are very peaceful, just a little annoying to White who may lose a ship next generation if unlucky, and for Blue who can't settle the nice juicy field in Kräklinge without removing the pirate first.
Every player shuffles their action deck and draws five cards.
Green's first action
Green draws Forest, Pasture, Baltic Sea, Roma, and Hoburg. Green will play two cards this generation and have three left on hand. Green decides to settle the forest region in Hoburg and then produce in Hoburg.
White's first action
White plays Pasture to produce three Sheep. One for free, one for the settled Pasture in Hejde, and one from the Shepherd card.
Blue's first action
Blue plays Forest to settle in the adjacent Forest in Bro and pays one Grain and one Wood.
Green's second action
Green plays Hoburg to produce in the three settled regions in Hoburg and takes one Wood from the Forest, one Sheep from the Pasture, and one Grain from the Field.
White's second action
White takes all four sheep to Wisby and sells them for 12 Silver. Sheep are in high demand this generation so sell for 3 Silver each. White immediately celebrates a good trade with a drink and meets a traveller from Linköping who happens to be a good friend of the bishop. White places a worker in the Sheep space in Wisby, takes 9 Silver (12 for the Sheep minus 3 for the trading partner), and places a Linköping trading card in the discard pile.
Blue's second action
Blue plays Pasture and produces two Sheep, hoping to make a good trade in Wisby next generation.
End of generation
Now when all players have played all of their workers, the generation ends and the players check to see if they gain an extra worker and bury silver and cards.
Green has Pasture, Baltic Sea, and Roma left, which provide one Food each. As Green has three settlements, this is enough for Green to take a third worker for three actions next generation. Green does not have any bury symbols.
White has two buries and two Food. White decides to bury two Silver and as White did not settle and still have two settlements, White also takes a third worker.
Blue has Home, Wisby and Rute left on hand which only provides two Food which is not enough to grow a worker. So Blue decides to pay one Grain from Storage to have four Food and takes a third worker.
The situation at the end of the first generation is then:
1100s: Second generation
Start of generation
One player reveals the next generation card and places two more pirates. White is relieved that a second pirate didn't show up in the west as it would have removed the ship.
Green and White each draws five cards. Blue who now has settlements in two settings, draw six cards, shuffling the discard pile to form a new action deck to draw the sixth card.
Green's first action
Green is still starting player so goes first. White will play three cards this generation so could keep Gotland and Field and still grow a worker. Or keep one of them and spend a Grain. However, Green knows that the Hoburg card will come again soon so decides to settle the Hill region.
White's first action
White decides to settle and produce in that juicy Forest in the middle of Gotland.
Blue's first action
Blue now has an annoying pirate next to that lovely Forest in Bro. The pirate blocks settle, produce and food. If a second pirate appears from northwest next generation, the pirate will raid the farmstead.
Blue looks at the cards in hand.
Both Baltic Sea and Roma can sink the pirate.
Blue decides to play Roma now before another player does. Baltic Sea can give Silver or Wood which is handy for getting a fourth settlement. Blue takes the starting player token and places the annoying pirate in Sunk pirates. Blue does not have two Silver to learn a craft.
White's third action
Skipping forward to White's third action, White uses the Raid action on Baltic Sea to sink the pirate near Hejde.
Blue's third action
Blue settles a Hill using Baltic Sea to get one Wood. As Blue has Grain, Blue could also have raided to get two Silver and paid for the farmstead with one Grain and two Silver.
End of generation
White provides enough food to grow a fourth worker while both Green and Blue stay at three workers.
Blue decides to use the bury on the Hill card to bury the Field card. With pirates sailing in the coast off Kräklinge, settling that nice Field is now a project for the far future. Instead, having settled both Forest and Field, Blue can learn to produce tar by buying the Tar pit card next time Blue plays Roma.
Both White and Blue will draw six cards next generation, both having settlements in two settings. Green is at three workers and five cards but has a strong position in Hoburg.
No players have yet built a church or even a tower! Those early towers and churches will be worth a lot of victory points. Who will build them first? With two generations left before first scoring, the race is on!
Thanks for reading! I hope this helped you learn how to play Gotlandia!