How to play Splendor, a precious little gem-collecting, card-development game.
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Read the Rules
The aim of the game
To win, accumulate the most prestige points, by purchasing cards and swaying nobles.
To set up
- Shuffle the development card decks and place them face down in a column in the table with the 1 circle deck on the bottom, 2 circle in the middle and 3 circle deck on the top.
- Reveal 4 cards from each pile, placing them in a row to their right
- For a 2 player game reveal 3 noble tiles, for 3 players reveal 4 and for 4 players use 5 noble tiles, put the rest away.
- Sort the gem and the gold piece chips into individual stacks. For a 3 player game remove 2 of each gem and for a 2 player game remove 3 of each. Don’t remove gold pieces.
- The youngest person takes the first player marker and play proceeds in a clockwise order.
To play the game
On your turn, you may perform 1 of any 4 actions:
Option 1 is to take 3 different coloured gems (not gold) from the supply. If there’s not enough to take 3, take what you can.
Option 2 is to take 2 gems (not gold) of the same colour. You may only do this if there are at least 4 gems of that colour in the supply.
Option 3 is to take 1 gold piece and reserve a development card, by choosing either a face up card, or one from the top of any deck, without showing it to your opponents, and placing it in your hand.
- You cannot have more than 3 cards in your hand
- The only way to remove cards from your hand is to purchase them
- If you hand is full, you can’t take this action
- But if if there are no gold pieces, you can still reserve a card
- You may only ever have up to 10 gem and/or gold pieces, if ever you have more at the end of your turn, return any excess to the supply.
Option 4 is to purchase a development card, choosing either one from your hand, or faceup on the table, paying the relevant gem cost (depicted on the bottom left corner) and placing it in front of you. Gold pieces can be used as any gem colour.
Purchased cards have a prestige value in the top left corner and a gem bonus in the top right corner. On future turns, when purchasing, you may deduct any gem bonuses depicted on your purchased cards from the total you need to pay.
For example: If I have these 2 red and this 1 black card Infront of me, on a future turn, if I were to purchase this card, it would only cost me 3 blue gems and 2 black gems.
When a card is taken from the middle, replace it immediately with one from the top of the relevant deck if available.
Finally, after taking your action, if you wish, you may also take a noble title, if you meet its requirements, by having the number of that colour gem bonuses (or more) played in front of you.
A Noble’s prestige points are shown in the top left corner. You may only take 1 noble per turn. If you do, place it in front of you.
Game end and scoring
Take it in turns, collecting gems, reserving and purchasing development cards and gaining nobles until 1 player has a total; of 15 prestige points across their nobles and purchased cards.
Continue playing until everyone has had an equal number of turns.
Whoever has the most prestige points wins!
In case of a tie, the player with the least development cards wins. If it’s still a tie, share the victory.
That’s Splendor, where you’ll collect precious gems, sway nobles and develop your trade empire.
Enjoy!