Gamehelpelfenland

Goal of the game

Visiting as many different cities as possible in Elfenland over 4 rounds.

Each time you visit a town for the first time, you pick up a Town Piece in your colour. At the end of the 4th round, the player who collected the most Town Pieces wins. Any players having an equal number of Town Pieces are ranked by remaining cards (the more the better).

We advise you to play with at least 3 players to best enjoy the game (4 or 5 is even better). A lot of the fun comes from using the Transportation Counters set by other players to optimise one's travels, so the more the merrier!

Round overview

A round is split into phases:

1. Each player fills their hand up to 8 cards and gets a secret Transportation Counter.
2. One after another, each player chooses a Transportation Counter from the 5 visible or draws from the facedown stack, until each player has taken 3.
3. One after another, each player must plan a travel route by laying a Transportation Counter matching the terrain of the chosen road. This phase goes on until each player has passed consecutively. Each player also owns an Obstacle that they can lay down on a Transportation Counter to increase the cost of travel by an addtional card. Each player only gets one Obstacle in the entire game, use it wisely!
4. One after another, each player travels from town to town. The current position of a player is indicated by the Elf Boot of their color, initially set on the biggest town, Elvenhold.

At the end of the round, a player can keep a maximum of 4 cards in hand, and keeps only 1 Transportation counter. All played Transportation counters are then cleared off of the board and a new round begins!

Travel rules

Players can travel :

• on the roads on which a Transportation Counter has been set
• on the rivers
• on the lakes

To travel on a road, a river or a lake, the player needs to pay with the cards in hand the cost matching the terrain of the road and the means of transport used.

For example, if the Transportation Counter 'Magic Cloud' has been set on a mountain road, one can travel with just one 'Magic Cloud' card. But if it has been set on a forest or plain road, one needs to pay 2 'Magic Cloud' cards to pass (Note: the 'Magic Cloud' Transportation Counter cannot be placed in the desert, as it's too hot for a Cloud there).

Also :

• To travel a river, you need only 1 'Raft' card to go downriver, but you need 2 to go upriver (look for the small arrow pointing downriver).
• To cross a lake, you need to pay two 'Raft' cards.
• If an Obstacle has been set on a road, you need to pay 1 more card of the appropriate type.
• If you don't have the appropriate cards to travel on a road, you can still pass using a 'Caravan', by paying 3 cards of any type (4 cards if there is an Obstacle on the road). The cards may be any combination of transportation types.

Variant

In the 'Hometown' variant, each player gets a secret town card at the beginning of the game, telling them which town they have to reach at the end of the 4th round.

If they don't manage to get there, they'll lose as many points as the remaining distance they have to travel to get there.

This variant gives more tactical depth to the game, as you have to plan each round to the best to get the most Town Pieces while making sure to be able to get to your hometown at the end of the game.

Have a good game!