Clans of Caledonia

Components

Setup

1. 1Assemble the 4 map modules into the map, and place the Market board and Export board on the side matching your player count.
2. 2Shuffle the Port bonus tiles and place 4 at random in the factory areas at the map's corners. Shuffle the Scoring tile deck as well.
3. 3Shuffle the clan tiles and reveal one more than the player count; starting with the last player in turn order, draft a clan and its adjacent starting tile in reverse order.
4. 4Fill your Player board with your color's units, place 2 Merchants on the merchant track, and your Shipping token at the leftmost space.
5. 5Starting with the first player and going clockwise, place your first Worker (a Woodcutter in a forest, or a Miner in a mountain); then, in reverse order, place a second Worker.
6. 6Draw tiles from the export contract deck to fill the Export board's empty contract slots (leave one slot empty for 1- or 3-player games).

Game structure — 4 phases

1. 1① Preparation — flip the previous round's Scoring tile, refill empty Export board slots, and retrieve your own Merchants (skipped in round 1).
2. 2② Action — in turn order, each player takes one Action. This repeats until everyone has passed.
3. 3③ Production — every unit on the map produces Income and Goods at once.
4. 4④ Scoring — players gain Glory according to the current round's Scoring tile.

The 8 actions

Trading — buying raises the price, selling lowers it

Merchants not stacked on your Player board (i.e., currently unused) can be placed on the Market board's buy or sell space for one Good, in whatever quantity you like. You pay or receive the current price times the number of Merchants placed, and the price track then moves by that same amount.

Production — Basic and Processed goods

During Production, every deployed unit produces automatically. Sheep produce 1 Wool, Cows produce 1 Milk, and Fields produce 2 Grain. Processing is optional: a Cheese dairy converts 1 Milk into 1 Cheese, a Bakery converts 1 Grain into 1 Bread, and a Distillery converts 1 Grain into 1 Whisky.

Expanding — neighbor bonuses and building bonuses

The Expand action deploys the top unit from the matching column of your Player board onto an empty map space (adjacent to your own units, or within shipping reach). You pay both the unit's cost and that space's land cost. Pasture spaces take Sheep, Cows, Cheese dairies, Bakeries, Fields, or Distilleries; forest spaces take only Woodcutters; mountain spaces take only Miners.

Export contracts and Imported Goods

1. 1To obtain a contract (Action 2), pay the current round's cost and take one from the Export board into your Export box. In round 1, you actually receive £5 instead of paying.
2. 2Your Export box (one by default) holds only one contract at a time (exceptions like Clan Buchanan aside). To get a new one, you must first fulfil the one you're holding.
3. 3To fulfil a contract (Action 7), pay the Basic/Processed goods it requires and receive its listed reward: money, a free Expand, a bonus upgrade, or Imported Goods (Hops, Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar cane).
4. 4Contracts requiring beef or mutton are satisfied by Slaughter — remove one of your Cows or Sheep from the map and count it as that much meat. Slaughter is not a separate action but part of fulfilling the contract; the freed space can then be expanded into by anyone.

Settlements and final scoring

A Settlement is one group of same-colored units that neighbor each other (sharing an edge, with no river between). A single isolated unit still counts as its own settlement. Only settlements within your shipping reach may be counted.

Ending the game

The game ends after 5 rounds. Once the final round's phase ④ Scoring is complete, total up Glory, held goods, money, export contracts, and settlements — the clan with the highest score wins.

Strategy tips

• Buying pushes a price up, which favors your next sale — and vice versa. If a rival has been buying up a Good, consider selling alongside them while it's expensive.
• Neighbor bonuses buy at a fixed discount independent of the market price, letting you fill your production chain quickly without spending a Trade action. Always check what's adjacent before you expand.
• Since your Export box holds only one contract at a time, favor contracts you can actually fulfil soon rather than sitting on a large one — it keeps your action economy flowing.
• Because settlement score counts the number of groups, using Slaughter to split one large settlement into two can actually raise your settlement count late in the game.

Player-count variants and expansion

Frequently confused rules

History and editions

Designed by Juma Al-JouJou with illustrations by Klemens Franz, Clans of Caledonia was published by Karma Games in 2017. Namuwiki's stub article confirms the same designer, publisher, 2017 release, 1–4 players (4 recommended), 30–120 minutes, and ages 12+ as the rulebook. BoardGameGeek classifies its average weight in the mid-3 range, a heavy economic game (confirmed via the publisher's own site, which links directly to BGG 216132).

A large expansion, "Clans of Caledonia: Industria," has its own page on the Karma Games website, adding 9 each of new clans, scoring tiles, port tiles, and starting tiles, plus double-sided map modules, substantially expanding the base game's variety. As of 2026-10-11, no dedicated English Wikipedia article for this game could be confirmed.