Troyes

Components

For 1–4 players aged 12 and up; the official rulebook lists 90 minutes. Solo play is supported through an official variant against a virtual opponent, "le Roy" (see the editions section). This guide's main text covers the 2–4 player standard game.

Setup

1. 1Choose a color and claim one of the 5 districts of the city square as yours. Place your Influence marker on space 4 of the Influence track.
2. 2Take citizens according to player count — 4 with 4 players, 5 with 3 players, 6 with 2 players. Draw 1 Character card at random (2 with 2 players) and keep it secret.
3. 3Sort the Activity cards by color and, without looking at the number on the back, place 1 of each color face down for rounds 1, 2, and 3.
4. 4Form 3 Event decks: red, white, and yellow. The size of the red deck sets the number of rounds (6 with 4 players, 5 with 3, 4 with 2).
5. 5Starting with the start player and going clockwise, then starting with the last player and going counterclockwise, place 1 citizen at a time on the Palace, Bishopric, and City Hall (this initial placement happens only once). Gray neutral citizens fill the remaining empty spaces (with 2 players, place them before the players' placement).

A round — 5 phases

1. 1Phase 0 (rounds 1–3 only) — reveal the Activity card for that round number, 1 of each color.
2. 2Phase 1 — Income and Salaries: each player gains 10 deniers, then pays 2 deniers per citizen in the Palace and 1 per citizen in the Bishopric (City Hall citizens are free). If you can't pay in full, pay what you can and lose 2 VP.
3. 3Phase 2 — Assemble Workforce: roll 1 yellow die per City Hall citizen, 1 white die per Bishopric citizen, and 1 red die per Palace citizen, placing them in your district. The start player rolls the dice for the neutral citizens and places them in the unowned gray district.
4. 4Phase 3 — Events: 2 new Event cards enter the queue each round (the red card calls for a second white or yellow card). Military events (marked with a black-die icon) must be countered starting with the start player, who must beat the highest black die with dice from their own district.
5. 5Phase 4 — Actions: starting with the start player, each player either activates an Activity card, builds the Cathedral, combats events, places a citizen on a principal building, uses Agriculture, or passes. The round ends once everyone has passed or no dice remain on the city square.
6. 6Phase 5 — End of the Round: citizens on buildings return to their owners, unused dice return to the supply, and the start player card passes to the left for the next round.

Buying dice and action costs

Every action uses a group of 1 to 3 same-colored dice. You may draw them from more than one district, but they must share one color. Dice in your own district are free, but using dice in another player's district requires paying that player (who cannot refuse the sale). Dice in the gray neutral district belong to no one, but using them still costs money, paid to the bank.

Activating Activity cards

1. 1Yellow dice activate civil Activity cards, white dice activate religious cards, and red dice activate military cards.
2. 2If you don't already have a tradesman on that card, pay the cost shown in its upper-left corner and place 1 of your citizens there as your tradesman. If you already have one, assemble your dice group with no additional cost.
3. 3Divide the total value of your dice group by the number printed at the bottom of the card (rounded down), then apply the card's effect that many times.
4. 4A card with an hourglass icon has a delayed effect — instead of an immediate benefit, place that many of your cubes on the card's illustration (one per activation). Later, during a different action, discard 1 cube to substitute for 1 die of that color (2 cubes can never substitute for the same die).

Combating events and building the Cathedral

Event cards come in two kinds: military (countered with black dice) and self-effect (countered with cubes). Self-effect cards resolve left to right in the queue; using a dice group matching the card's required color, divide its total value by the printed number (rounded down) and place that many cubes on the card's banner spaces, from left to right.

1. 1Once all the banners are filled, the card is immediately countered. Whoever placed the most cubes first gets the larger reward; whoever placed second gets the smaller one. Anyone who places cubes afterward gets nothing (ties split the reward).
2. 2When a card is countered, everyone retrieves their own cubes and the card is removed — except Marauding, which is never removed and simply empties out again each time it is countered, remaining a permanent threat.
3. 3At the end of the game, any uncountered Event card with at least one of your cubes on it still grants you 1 VP per card (Marauding included).

The Cathedral is built with a group of 1 to 3 dice (colors may be mixed). Each die lets you place 1 cube on the matching-numbered construction space, but you cannot place a cube on a higher-level space until the corresponding lower-level space has a cube. Spaces 1–3 grant 1 VP and 1 Influence point each; spaces 4–6 grant 1 VP and 2 Influence points each, immediately.

Sources of victory points

Character cards stay secret from the moment you receive them, and each sets its own condition. For example, the Chrétien de Troyes card rewards the total number of your citizens placed across the Palace, Bishopric, and City Hall: 1 VP for 4 or more, 3 VP for 5–6, and 6 VP for 7 or more. Guessing your rivals' hidden conditions while hiding your own is a central part of the game.

End of the game

The game ends after the round in which the last card of the red Event deck enters the queue (6 rounds with 4 players, 5 with 3, 4 with 2). At that point, each player settles the Cathedral's empty-level penalty and their Character card's condition; whoever has the most VP wins.

Tips

• Don't rely only on your own district's dice — buying a rival's best die to disrupt their plan is the heart of the game. Since bigger groups cost more per foreign die, decide the group size first, then calculate the price.
• Check your Character card's condition early and quietly stockpile whatever it rewards (Influence, deniers, tradesmen, Cathedral cubes, and so on).
• Spend Influence points before combating black dice — 1 point rerolls a die, 4 points flips a die to its opposite face (faces always sum to 7), which can turn a weak die into a strong one.
• Cubes stored on delayed-effect cards later substitute for a die of that color, so investing early lets you assemble a big group cheaply exactly when you need it.
• Countering an event only rewards the first and second cube-placers, so if the reward is small, it may be better to skip it and spend your dice elsewhere.

Player-count differences and editions

The 2-player game also changes the initial placement order — the gray neutral citizens fill buildings first, before the two players take turns placing their own.

The rulebook also includes an official 1-player variant designed by Shadi Torbey, The King's Challenge. The virtual opponent, "le Roy," has no money or Influence and acts purely by dice roll; even the initial placement is decided by dice. On le Roy's turn, roll 2 black dice; their sum (2–12) looks up a fixed action table (gain VP, place a worker or tradesman, place Cathedral cubes, resolve an event, and so on), and le Roy always spends his strongest die first. The player's final score is their VP total minus le Roy's.

⚠️ Unverified: the same rulebook also includes 4 Bonus cards — Baker, Banquet, Prior, and Resistance — but within the pages checked, no instructions on when or how to shuffle them into play were found, so this guide does not cover them.

No official Korean-language edition was found in searches of the Korea Boardgames and Board M storefronts, and Namuwiki's board-game article has no mention of a Korean release. That absence, however, is not confirmed by a primary source, so this guide marks the Korean rulebook status as `unverified` rather than `none`.

Frequently confused rules

History and editions

Designed by Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, and Alain Orban, Troyes was first published in 2010 by Belgium's Pearl Games, followed by localized editions from Italy's UPlay.it edizioni and America's Z-Man Games (cross-checked against the board game's mention in English Wikipedia's Troyes city article).

The English rulebook this guide checked is the 2016 edition distributed on Pearl Games' official site, translated by Nathan Morse and edited by co-designer Sébastien Dujardin. The same rulebook includes an official 1-player variant, The King's Challenge, designed by fellow game designer Shadi Torbey.

Namuwiki has an article for Troyes (board game), but it confirms only basic facts (designers, publisher, release year) with no mention of a Korean release or expansions. Searches of the Korea Boardgames and Board M storefronts likewise turned up no listing.