Messina 1347

The game setup involves placing the central board and the surrounding modular Messina city tiles, populated with resident tokens, plague blocks, and rat tokens based on the player count. Each player receives a personal player board, lieutenant meeples, resources (wood, fire, coins), and starting markers on the tracks. Ships and boats are lined up near the city, and round and score markers are appropriately placed to track progress through six rounds.

Players take on the roles of noble families in 1347 Messina attempting to save citizens from the Black Death. The goal is to rescue people from the plague-stricken city, house them in quarantine or estates, fight the plague with fire, and eventually repopulate Messina to rebuild the city and score the most victory points.

On your turn, you place an available lieutenant on a valid city tile, which dictates your actions. You must rescue any residents present on that tile, fight plague blocks, and trigger the tile's specific action (such as building or gaining resources). Alternatively, you can use lieutenants to perform actions like moving inspectors, upgrading workers, or returning citizens from your estates back to the city.

Victory points are scored at the end of the game and throughout specific phases based on population tracks, church and city registers, building upgrades, ship deliveries, and repopulated tiles. Players lose points based on the number of rat tokens accumulated at the end of the game.

The game concludes after six rounds of play, at which point final production, quarantine cleanups, and end-of-game scoring calculations take place to determine the winner with the most points.