Gamehelpcarnac

CARNAC – Rules Summary

Overview

In the region of Carnac, France, thousands of ancient megaliths stand in mysterious formations. In this game, players build a field of stones together, first by erecting "Menhirs", then tilting them. Each menhir has 2 rune colors on it: yours and your opponents. Skillfully orienting the rune colors on the tops and sides of the menhir are the key to forming "Dolmens," groups of 3 or more orthogonally connected runes of the same color. Whoever forms the most dolmens in their color by the end of the game wins.

Turn Overview

The 1st player places a menhir in the field. After that, you may do one of 3 actions on your turn:

(i) Tilt a menhir then place a menhir

Tilt the Menhir your opponent just placed in the field, making it lie flat on 2 adjacent empty squares. The original square becomes empty again, and the tilted menhir will remain where it rests for all of eternity.

Then you must place a new Menhir upright on any empty square in the field. You may choose to have either color facing up.

(ii) Choose not to tilt a menhir

If you choose not to tilt the menhir your opponent just placed, your opponent immediately places a new upright Menhir on any empty square, and your choice repeats.

(iii) Place a menhir

If you have no way of tilting the Menhir your opponent just placed, their Menhir remains standing for the remainder of the game. Now your must place a Menhir upright in the field.

HOW TO PLACE A MENHIR ON BGA:

After placing a Menhir, click the top to select a different rune color. Click the side to select a rune color. You can rotate the board to see the menhir from different viewpoints.

HOW TO TILT A MENHIR ON BGA:

When it's possible to tilt a menhir, the places where it can fall is highlighted. Click on the highlight in the direction you would like to tilt the menhir.

End of the Game

The game ends when:

All Menhirs have been placed, or

No more empty squares remain in the field.

Winning the Game

Count all Dolmens (groups of 3+ runes of the same color facing up):

The player with the most Dolmens wins.

In a tie, the player with the largest Dolmen wins.

Further ties are decided by the next largest Dolmen.

Carnac on BGA

To avoid having to count symbols on the board, the scoring system in Carnac on BGA works as follows:

Each Dolmen is worth 100 points. Each symbol in your largest Dolmen is worth 1 point.

For instance, if I have two Dolmens, one with 3 symbols and one with 9 symbols, my score is shown as 209.

Board options

On BGA there are several Carnac boards available.

The three official ones (Small, Medium, Large) are played with the usual 28 Menhirs and each Dolmen must have at least 3 symbols.

It's possible to play also on four additional boards, whose names come from some of the most famous Carnac "alignments":

- Kermario: very elongated, narrow and with a lot of stones (56)
- Kerlescan: medium size, but you need 5 symbols (not the usual 3) to form a Dolmen
- le Ménec: large in every possible way
- Petit Menec: with just 14 stones on a small square. Very fast

Preferences

By default, the move with which you tilt a Menhir is automatically accepted. You can opt to be asked for confirmation after tilting by setting "No" to the "Autoconfirm tilting moves" option.