- Map Modules
- Randomly choose a side (1 or 2) for each map module (A - D).
- Construct the map by making sure the rocks showing the module letter in each module are in alphabetical order in a clockwise direction.
- Port Bonus Tiles
- Randomly choose 4 port bonus tiles.
- Place 1 tile adjacent to a factory in each corner of the map.
- If playing a 1 or 2 player game, follow the arrow with the 2 player icon. Otherwise, follow the unlabeled arrow.
- Market Board
- Flip the market board to the correct side based on the number of players.
- Place the price markers on the starting price circles.
- Place the goods tokens and tiles below the market.
- Export Board
- Flip the export board to the correct side based on the number of players.
- Shuffle the scoring tiles and choose 5 randomly. Place these in a random order in the 5 slots on the edge of the board.
- Shuffle the export contracts and place them in a face-down pile next to the board. Put 1 export contract face-up in each slot on the board. In a solo and 3 player game, one slot is empty.
- Place the player's glory tokens and import tokens (cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane) near the "1" next to the board.
- On the 1 - 2 player side, the dice icons are only for the solo game.
- Player Starting Items
Each player takes 1 player board and all tokens of their color. Then each player sets up their player board as follows.
- Place all tokens in their corresponding locations on your player board.
- Place the 8 workers on the 4 forest locations and 4 mountain locations.
- Set 4 port markers next to the board.
- Fill the merchant track with 5 cubes. The other 2 cubes are placed below your board.
- Place the shipping token on the 1st location (left) on the shipping track.
- Place the 2 tech. tiles flipped to the side with the arrow on the upper left-hand side on their locations beneath the workers.
- Take 1 export box tile and place it next to your board with the side appropriate for the number of players face-up.
- Turn Order
Determine a start player randomly and place the turn order tokens in clockwise order from the 1st player.
- Clans
- Randomly draw 1 more clan than the number of players.
- Randomly draw 1 more starting tile than the number of players and place 1 next to each clan tile.
- Starting with the last player and going in reverse turn order, each player chooses and clan/starting tile combo. Players receive both the goods and money shown on their starting tiles.
- Placing the 1st Workers
- Beginning with the starting player and continuing in turn order, each player places on worker onto an empty hex. Woodcutters must be placed on a space with a forest and miners must place on a space with a mountain.
- In reverse turn order, starting with the last player, each player places 1 more worker. The 2nd worker does not need to be adjacent to their 1st worker. Each space can only ever have one unit on it at any time.
- Each time a worker is placed, players must pay for
both the land where they placed the worker and the
for the worker itself. Land costs £1 - £6.
- Woodcutter: £6
- Miner: £10
- Phase 1: Preparation
- Flip the previous round's scoring tile face-down.
- Refill any empty slots on the export board with contracts (according to player count).
- Players retrieve their merchants from the market and place them next to their player boards.
- Phase 2: Actions
Each player takes exactly 1 action per turn, in turn order. This continues until all players have passed. Each action (aside from passing), can be taken multiple times during a round.
- Trade Action
You can send merchants in your stock, not on your player board, to the market to buy or sell goods.
- Place as many merchants on the buy or sell area
of a single good. The number of merchants placed
determines the number of goods to be bought/sold.
- Up arrow: buy
- Down arrow: sell
- Pay/receive the good's current price multiplied by the number of goods bought/sold.
- Adjust the good's price in the direction of the arrow a number of spaces equal to the number of goods bought/sold.
Players may only buy or sell 1 type of good during a trade action. To trade multiple types of goods, the trade action must be taken multiple times.
You may NOT buy and sell the same good during the same round!
- Place as many merchants on the buy or sell area
of a single good. The number of merchants placed
determines the number of goods to be bought/sold.
- Obtain an Export Contract
- Pay the current round cost (indicated next to the scoring tiles on the export board) to take 1 export contract and place it in on your empty export box.
- Note that players receive* £5 in the 1st round instead of paying a cost
Notes on export contracts:
- You can only have 1 unfulfilled export contract (exception: Clan Buchanan).
- You must fulfill your export contract before obtaining a new one. You cannot get rid of unfulfilled export contracts.
- Expand
- Place 1 unit from the top of a column on your player board onto any empty space on the map neighboring or within shipping reach of any of your units.
- Pay the cost of the unit (on the player board) and the cost of the space.
Expand terms:
- Neighboring: adjacent space with no river in between.
- Within Shipping Reach: a space you can reach with your shipping level.
- Land Restrictions: You can only place specific
units on certain land types. Note that some hexes
have multiple land types.
- Grasslands: Sheep, cows, cheese dairies, bakeries, fields, distilleries
- Forests: Woodcutters
- Mountains: Miners
If you have placed all your woodcutters, you cannot expand to an "only forest" tile. This is the case for miners and mountains as well.
- Neighborhood Bonus
If you expand into a space neighboring another player's unit (adjacent and no river in between):
- You may immediately perform a trade action and buy the type of good produced by the neighboring unit from the supply.
- You cannot buy more than 3 pieces of the same type of good (4 in a 2 player game) per turn.
- The price of basic goods is reduced by £2.
- The price of processed goods is reduced by £3.
- Building Bonus
If you deploy your 4th building of one type onto the map (cheese dairy, bakery, or distillery) and** your export box is empty:
- You may immediately draw 3 export contracts from the draw pile
- Take either 1 or none of the contracts.
- The unselected contracts are put on the bottom of the draw pile.
- If you take a contract, pay the costs as if performed the Obtain an Export Contract action.
- Upgrade Shipping
Pay £4 to move your shipping marker 1 space to the right.
Shipping levels:
- No Shipping: You cannot expand across any water.
- River Crossing: You can expand directly across a river to an adjacent space.
- X-loch: In addition to river crossing, you can expand across the number of lochs show under your marker (number in the blue hex).
- Upgrade Technology
Players can upgrade their equipment (tiles below their workers on their player board) to increase income from woodcutters and miners. To upgrade a tech, pay £10 and flip over the corresponding tech tile.
If you receive a Bonus Upgrade from Direct Export Bonuses and you choose a tech upgrade action, pay £5 instead of £10.
- Hire a Merchant
Pay £4 and move a merchant from your player board and add it to your stock.
- Fulfill an Export Contract
- Pay the goods listed on the left half of the contract.
- Receive the benefits shown on the right half of the tile.
- When a player fulfills a contract with an import good
(cotton, tobacco, sugar cane), they move the
respective token on the export board track as many
steps as the amount imported.
- If the token reaches/passes a marked step, the player gains £1.
- Place the fulfilled export contract face-up next to the player's export box.
- Contracts that require beef or mutton are fulfilled by
slaughtering cows or sheep (respectively).
- Remove the animal from the map and place it back on the player's board.
- Slaughtering can only be done to fulfill a contract.
There are 3 Direct Export Bonuses players can take to gain an immediate advantage.
Money: Taken from the supply
Free Space: Allows the player to immediately take an
expand action without paying the land cost of the
space into which they expand. The player must
still pay the unit cost.
Bonus Upgrade Action: If a player obtains multiple
bonus upgrade actions, they can choose the same
or different actions.- A tech upgrade action for the discounted price of £5
- A shipping upgrade action at no cost.
- Hire a merchant from the player board at no cost. Alternatively, the player may take 1 of their merchants back from the market.
- Pass
If you cannot, or do not want to, take any more actions, you must pass and stop taking actions for the remainder of the round. After passing, move your turn order token to the leftmost available position of the next round and receive the pass bonus money indicated.
- ~Free Action: Using a Port Bonus Tile~
- If a port bonus tile is neighboring, or within shipping reach of, any of a player's units, the player may use the port bonus in addition to whatever action they are performing on their turn (can be used before or after the main action).
- The bonus can be used immediately when they it is available. It can also be used on a future turn.
- When you use the port bonus, place a port bonus marker in your player color near the board by the port.
- Each port bonus can be used once per game.
- Multiple port bonuses may be used in the same turn.
- Phase 3: Production
Players collect income and produce goods from their units deployed on the map. The amount of money and goods is indicated by the empty slots on the player board where units have been removed which show a "plus" icon.
- Each deployed worker earns money (each worker below the 1st
displays the total income):
- Each woodcutter earns £4 (£6 with the tech upgrade)
- Each miner earns £6 (£8 with the tech upgrade)
- Produce basic goods:
- Each sheep produces 1 wool
- Each cow produces 1 milk
- Each field produces 2 grain
- Produce processed goods (optional):
- Each cheese dairy may process 1 milk into 1 cheese
- Each bakery may process 1 grain into 1 bread
- Each distillery may process 1 grain into 1 whiskey
- The basic goods spent to produce the processed goods can come from anywhere, including received during the current production phase.
- Each deployed worker earns money (each worker below the 1st
displays the total income):
- Phase 4: Scoring
If they have fulfilled the requirement for the current round scoring marker (top half), players earn the glory bonus indicated on the bottom half of the marker. Glory is tracked on the export board with players' glory markers.
When scored, flip over or remove the round's scoring marker.
Final scoring happens after 5 rounds. Final scoring is the sum of the following:
Glory:
1 VP for each step on the glory track.
Basic Goods: 1 VP for each basic good in your stock.
Processed Goods: 2 VP for each processed good in your stock.-
Money: 1 VP for every £10. Leftover money breaks ties in
the final score.
Hops: 1 VP for each Hop imported, as listed on your fulfilled
export contracts.
Cotton, Tobacco, and Sugar Cane: 3, 4, 5 each according to
their rarity. The rarest imported good is the most valuable.- The import token that was moved the furthest on the track is the most common imported good and worth 3 points. The next most imported is worth 4 points, and the least imported is worth 5 points.
- If there is a tie for imported goods, cotton is the rarest followed by tobacco, then sugar cane.
- Export Scoring: Each player counts the number of fulfilled
export contracts and scores as follows:
- 3/4 players: 12 VP for the player with the most fulfilled contracts, 6 VP for the 2nd most.
- 2 players: 8 VP for the player with the most fulfilled contracts.
- In case of a tie, evenly divide the VP of the tiers, rounded down.
- Settlement Scoring: Each player counts the number of their
settlements within shipping reach of each other.
- A settlement is a cluster of neighboring units of 1 color (adjacent and no river in between).
- Single units are also considered settlements.
- If not all your settlements are within shipping reach of each other, the biggest group of settlements counts in this scoring.
- 3/4 players: The player with the most settlements gets 18 VP, 2nd most gets 12 VP, 3rd most gets 6 VP.
- 2 players: The player with the most settlements gets 12 VP.
- In case of a tie, evenly divide the VP of the tiers, rounded down.
The shaded spaces at the edge, also marked by mist, are not part of the active map and so players cannot expand into them. This is relevant for scoring tile 5 and Clan Fergusson. All loch spaces are part of the map.
- Simplifications
The following are good for a 1st game.
Static Import Goods
No matter how much cotton, tobacco, or sugar cane was imported, each is worth 4 VP at the end of the game. If you use this, you do not need to track these on the export board.
Without Scoring and/or Port Tiles
Players can ignore the scoring tiles and/or the port tiles during setup and play.
- Tighter Game Map
Use the backsides of 4 spare port tiles to cover any 4 land spaces of the active map during the setup in a 2/3 player game, preferably 1 tile per map module. These spaces cannot be expanded into.
- Without Clans
For more symmetric play, ignore the clans during setup and play. In addition to the goods and money on the starting tile, players also receive:
- 2nd player: £2
- 3rd player: £4
- 4th player: £6
- Clan Auction (recommended for experienced players)
Apply the following auction mechanism to auction clans.
- Randomly draw as many clan tiles as the number of players and allocate a random starting tile to each clan.
- Randomly determine a player who bids any number of VP (can be 0) to be able to choose a clan 1st.
- The player to their left can bid any higher amount of VP
- Continue until everyone passes after a bid. 30 VP is the highest possible bid
- The player winning the bid writes down their bid as negative VP on the score sheet and places their token on the first space of the turn order track and takes their choice of clan/starting tiles.
- The player to their left bids for 1 of the remaining clans.
- Continue until the last player is given the remaining clan/starting tiles at no cost.
Tile Description 
Use this when fulfilling a contract needing meat and slaughter 1 less animal 
Discard 1 and gain any 3 basic goods (including the discarded good) 
Discard 1 processed good and gain any 2 processed goods (including the discarded good) 
Receive 1 bonus upgrade + 3 glory 
Gain £10 
Manipulate the price of 1 good by 3 steps on the market before trading that good 
Take any 2 units from your player board (other than fields) and exchange them with any 2 of your units on the map (not fields) at no cost. The 2 new units must be different from the 2 old units. The new units must match the land type on which they are deployed. If you qualify, you can obtain the building bonus. You can obtain any neighborhood bonus during this action. 
Gain £5. If your export box is empty, you may perform the building bonus (and pay the respective costs if you decide to take an export contract, as normal).
Tile Description 
Gain 1 glory for each basic good in your stock. 
Gain 3 glory for each 2 processed goods in your stock. 
Gain 1 glory for each of your deployed sheep, cows, cheese dairies, bakeries, and distilleries and gain 2 glory for each field. 
Gain 2 glory for each of your deployed workers (including fisherman if you are Clan MacDonald) 
Gain 3 glory for every 2 units on border spaces of the active map. In a 1-2 player game, the shaded spaces are not part of the active map. 
Gain 1 glory for each unit of cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane on your fulfilled export contracts. 
Gain 2 glory for each unit of meat on your fulfilled export contracts. 
Gain 1 glory for each of your upgrades (tech upgrades, shipping upgrades, and hired merchants). Just count each spot left of your shipping marker, each free merchant spot, and each upgraded (flipped) tech tile. You also gain glory for upgrades your clan started with.
- Clan Buchanan
- You have an additional export box, and can obtain 1 or 2 export contracts in 1 turn. If you obtain 2 export contracts in 1 turn, you pay the cost only once, instead of twice. If you are given the building bonus, you draw 6 instead of 3 export contracts and you can select 0-2 contracts (this also applies to port bonus tile 8).
- You can fulfill up to 2 export contracts per turn.
- In the 1st round: If you obtain 2 export contracts in a single turn, you receive the +£5 bonus only once. However, during each turn in which you obtain an export contract, you gain the £5. So, you can obtain an export contract in 1 turn and gain £5, then obtain an additional export contract in another turn and again gain £5, even if the 1st contract has not been fulfilled.
- Clan Campbell
- The 1st factory of each type is £3 cheaper, the 2nd and 3rd factory of each type is £4 cheaper, and the 4th factory of 1 kind is £5 cheaper.
- Clan Cunningham
- You produce butter out of milk. At the end of the production phase, you may discard any number of milk in your stock (no merchants needed). For each milk you discard, gain £8. Do not adjust the milk price.
- Clan Fergusson
- Placing initial workers: You start with 3 starting workers (for which you still must fully pay). In addition, you start with 2-loch shipping level for free in a 3-4 player game (1-loch shipping in a 1-2 player game).
- You place your 3rd worker after all other players have placed theirs. You must place all 3 starting workers on border spaces of the active map. You must still pay for all 3 workers and the land costs.
- Clan MacDonald
- Your clan tile is put on top of the miner/woodcutter area of your player board. Your tech area remains empty because you cannot perform the tech upgrade action.
- You have 3 abilities:
- You can use all your workers as either woodcutters, miners, or fisherman (even when placing the 1st workers). All your workers cost £6 and provide £4 income. Fisherman can be placed on, or moved to, all empty loch spaces and port bonus tiles, even in a 1-2 player game. There are no land costs on loch placements. 2 fisherman may never be adjacent to each other.
- Once per turn, you can move a fisherman to an adjacent loch space by rowing, but only before your main action.
- In 1-2 player games, you start with river-crossing shipping for free.
- You still need the appropriate shipping reach to expand across loch spaces. Land spaces adjacent to fisherman are considered to be neighboring and thus accessible in the expand action, even without the shipping reach. The neighborhood bonus can be taken advantage of when deploying a fisherman as well, but not when rowing.
- Clan MacKenzie
- In the production phase, you gain £3 for each unit of whisky you produce. You do not have to discard any whisky to get this money.
- Furthermore, you have a cellar. At the beginning of each production phase, whisky barrels already in the cellar age and are moved one spot to the right. The whisky barrel starting a production phase in the rightmost space of the cellar is placed into your stock. You can move any whisky barrel from the cellar into your stock at any time. When you move aged whisky out of the cellar into your stock, you gain £7 or £15 respectively.
- At the end of each production phase, you may put one freshly-produced whisky barrel in the cellar on the left spot so it can age in later production phases.
- For the purposes of scoring tile #2, whisky in the cellar does score.
- Clan Robertson
- Each time you place a unit in a river delta (a space that is adjacent to a river flowing into a loch), you pay £3 less (£2 less in 1-2 player games) off the total cost. This applies to placing your initial 2 workers as well.
- Clan Stewart
- You start with 3 additional merchants (5 total) and river-crossing shipping level for free. You also gain £1 each time you trade at the market (in the case of making a purchase, you receive the money before paying), no matter how many units you trade. If you use the neighborhood bonus and trade multiple types of goods in 1 turn, you gain £1 for each type of good traded.