The King Is Dead: Second Edition

To set up the game, place the main game board in the center. Shuffle the eight region cards and place them face-up around the board in their designated spots. Distribute the starting follower cubes to each region as indicated in the rulebook. Each player receives a hand of eight action cards. Place the instability and negotiation discs, along with the remaining follower cubes, in their respective supply areas.

The objective of The King Is Dead: Second Edition is to either prevent a French invasion by maintaining stability across the regions or, if an invasion occurs, to have the most complete sets of followers. If a coronation takes place, the player with the most followers of the most powerful faction (determined by controlled regions and tie-breakers) wins the game. Players must carefully balance their influence with different factions while managing their limited action cards.

On your turn, you have two options: take an action or pass. To take an action, play one of your action cards from your hand and resolve its effect. Support cards allow you to add two followers of a specific faction to a region bordering one of their controlled regions, or their capital if no controlled regions exist. Assemble cards let you add one Scottish, Welsh, and English follower to any regions. Negotiate cards allow you to swap two face-up region cards without negotiation discs and place a negotiation disc on one of them. Manoeuvre cards let you swap any two followers on the board, while Outmanoeuvre cards allow you to swap one follower with two followers from an adjacent region. After taking an action, you must remove one follower of any color from any region and place it in front of you.

Scoring depends on how the game ends. If the game ends due to an invasion (three instability discs on the board), the player with the most complete sets of one red, one blue, and one yellow follower wins. If the game ends with a coronation (all eight power struggles resolved), the most powerful faction is determined by the highest number of controlled regions. In case of a tie, the faction that won the last power struggle is more powerful. The player with the most followers of this most powerful faction in their court wins. Further tie-breakers are detailed in the rulebook.

The game ends in one of two ways: an invasion or a coronation. An invasion occurs immediately when the third instability disc is placed on the board. A coronation occurs when all eight power struggles have been resolved, meaning all eight region cards have been flipped face-down. Once the game end condition is met, players proceed to the appropriate scoring method to determine the winner.