Madeira

To set up Madeira, place the central board in the middle of the table. Construct the guild board by connecting the appropriate pieces based on your player count. Place the crown request tiles on the guild board, matching player count symbols. Set up the resource supplies, including coins, wine, sugar, wheat, wood, and bread. Place the character tiles next to the board and prepare the guild and pirate dice. Each player chooses a color, taking all corresponding wooden components, five coins, a good type, four bread, and one wood. Distribute starting crown request tokens to determine player order and place markers on the scoring and windmill tracks. Finally, place workers in the city watch and specific board fields following setup rules.

The main objective in Madeira is to accumulate the highest number of victory points by the end of five rounds. Players must efficiently manage their resources—wheat, sugar, wine, and wood—while balancing worker placement, colony expansion, market shipping, and fulfilling demands made by the crown. Success requires careful strategic planning to optimize actions, maintain your workforce, and outmaneuver opponents in various influence tracks.

A game of Madeira is played over five rounds, each consisting of five distinct phases: Round Setup, Character Actions, Building Actions, Maintenance, and Crown's Requests. During Round Setup, new dice and character tiles are prepared. In the Character Actions phase, players alternate placing dice on characters to harvest resources, move workers, or gain favors. During Building Actions, players use dice to activate buildings, paying costs and triggering bonuses. In the Maintenance phase, players honor workers, gain income, pay upkeep in wood, and feed workers with bread. Finally, the Crown's Requests phase resolves specific round events or scoring objectives.

Scoring in Madeira occurs at specific intervals and at the end of the game. Throughout the game, players score points from crown requests at the end of rounds 1, 3, and 5. At game end, players convert remaining goods into coins and score bonus points for leftover currency. Majorities in city worker placements, guild influence tiles, market route shipping, and colonial expeditions are evaluated and scored. Finally, players reveal hidden pirate tokens, and the players with the most pirates suffer significant victory point penalties, while those with few or no pirates avoid them.

The game concludes automatically at the end of the fifth round after the Crown's Requests phase and final scoring calculations. Once all end-game scoring conditions—including goods conversion, currency bonuses, and pirate penalties—are fully resolved, the player with the highest total victory points is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the victory is decided by the final player turn order, favoring the player in the higher position.