Paladins of the West Kingdom

To set up the game, place the two parts of the game board in the center of the table. Shuffle the townsfolk cards and lay out five face-up, with the rest in a face-down deck. Shuffle the wall cards, debt cards, and suspect cards, placing them in face-down decks. Shuffle the outsider cards, lay out six face-up, and place the rest in a face-down deck. Shuffle the King's Orders (red seal) and King's Favors (green seal) cards, placing three King's Orders and five King's Favors face-down on the board, returning the rest to the box. Shuffle the tavern cards and place them in a face-down deck. Place the indicated amount of silver for your player count above the board, and arrange all other resources (provisions, workers, and remaining silver) within reach. Each player takes a player board, placing their eight green workshops, seven black monks, seven red outposts, and seven blue pots on their designated spots. Place your three attribute markers on space '0' of the attribute tracks. Take your paladin cards (identified by background color), shuffle them, and place them in a face-down deck. Each player takes three silver and one provision. Choose a starting player and give them the start player token. Finally, each player, starting to the right of the start player, recruits one townsfolk for free, taking any immediate rewards. Then, slide the townsfolk cards to the right and refill the empty spaces from the deck.

The objective of Paladins of the West Kingdom is to earn the most victory points over seven rounds. Players achieve this by strategically building outposts and fortifications, sending out monks to spread influence, and confronting or converting outsiders. Different paladins will assist players in increasing their faith, strength, and influence in the region, all contributing to their final score.

The game is played over seven rounds. Each round, players take turns performing one action or passing until all players have passed. The round begins by passing the start player token to the player on the current start player's left (skip this in the first round). Then, reveal the King's Order and King's Favor cards for the current round (in round three, reveal both a King's Order and a King's Favor). Next, draw a number of tavern cards equal to the number of players plus one, and lay them face-up. Each player then draws three paladin cards from their personal deck, chooses one to play face-up on their player board, places one face-down on top of their paladin deck, and places the last one face-down at the bottom of their paladin deck. Paladins provide two workers of specific colors and increase one or two of your attributes for the round, along with a special ability. Players then choose one of the face-up tavern cards, taking the workers shown on it and any additional workers from their chosen paladin. The chosen tavern card is then rotated to indicate it has been used. Starting with the start player, players take turns performing actions or passing. Actions are found on your player board and on the King's Favor cards. To perform an action, place the required workers on the action space, matching colors or using purple criminals as wildcards. Then, resolve the action's effect. Actions on the left side of the player board focus on building and resource generation, while actions on the right side require minimum attribute levels and provide attribute increases. For example, 'Send Out' requires faith and increases influence, while 'Fortify' requires influence and increases strength. 'Occupy' is similar to 'Send Out' but uses an outpost instead of a monk, requiring provisions and strength, and increasing faith. 'Absolve' requires influence, silver, and a pot, increasing faith and allowing a suspect card to be discarded. 'Attack' requires strength, allows silver to be spent for temporary strength, and rewards based on the defeated outsider. 'Convert' requires faith, silver, and places the outsider under your board for permanent strength and end-game points. Actions like 'Develop' allow you to place a workshop on an action space, reducing its worker cost and providing a worker. 'Hunt' and 'Trade' provide provisions and silver respectively. 'Recruit' allows you to use townsfolk abilities. 'Pray' allows you to pay silver to clear workers from an action space, making it available again. 'Conspire' allows you to gain a criminal. If you receive a criminal, you must take a suspect card, which may require you to pay taxes (red coins) from the tax supply. If the tax supply runs out, an inquisition occurs. If you cannot or do not wish to perform any more actions, you must pass. When passing, return all but three workers to the general supply. The round ends when all players have passed.

After the seventh round, the game ends and victory points are tallied. Points are awarded for: King's Orders (if conditions are met), your final position on the faith, strength, and influence tracks, your most right-placed workshops, your sent-out monks and outposts, your built wall sections and absolved pots, paid debts (positive points) versus outstanding debts (negative points), and your remaining silver and provisions (one point per three resources). Additionally, converted outsiders provide points based on their conditions. The player with the most victory points wins the game.

The game concludes after seven full rounds of play. Once all players have completed their actions and the final round has ended, players proceed to the scoring phase to determine the winner.