My son recently purchased Caylus Magna Carta (mostly because the original Caylus was not affordable at the local game shops). That very same night, we eagerly sat down to decipher the rules and gameplay of the beginner game. Some say that it’s a card game based on the original Caylus, but I think that even if that’s accurate, the flippant description really will conjure up the wrong image of how good a game this is. Having never played the original, I can only judge this game on its’ own merits – and it DOES have lots of merits. It is a rich and conceptual strategy game that is challenging, fun, and rewarding.

Object of the game: Earn the most prestige points, which are available by building, giving offerings to the castle, and obtaining money, gold, and resources.

Components: Each player has a set of 12 building cards, four wooden workmen pawns, and a wooden passing marker disk. You also have 100 resource cubes, a deck of prestige building cards, as well as cards for a bridge, a castle, and a first player card. A ‘special’ card (the Library) is included without any explanation (more on that later) of its’ use. Castle tokens of three types and denier coins are represented by punch-out cardboard counters. All of these components are of a very good quality.
The cards are the biggest part of the game, and they are of a very good cardstock. They’re colorful and logically laid out, with the building cost in the upper left, the prestige points in the upper right, and the primary and secondary effects of the card at the bottom. In the center is a picture of the building. There is plenty of open space on the card, which could have been used in most cases to enlarge the prestige points, the picture, or the primary effects – all of which are rather small. Other than that minor nitpick, the cards are beautiful.
The game is fairly portable, featuring a reasonably sized box that’s light in weight. But because of the many small parts – cubes, tokens, deniers, and workers – you may wish to take inventory as you pack it up.

The Rule Book – the front half of the book is devoted to the rules for the beginner game, the back half is for the standard game. It is printed in a flip-over style, so that the first page of each rule set is at one end of the book and proceeds inward to the center. This eliminates the need to thumb through one set of rules to get to the other. The centerfold page shows all the cards and explains what they are, listing their primary and secondary effects. Very nicely set up.
The game suggests that you play the beginner game first to acquaint you with the basic game play before moving on to the standard rules. This is sound advice, especially if you’re not familiar with Caylus. When you are ready to move up to the standard game, the rules are printed in their entirety, with arrows pointing out the differences from the beginner game, so you don’t have to juggle from one rule set to the other.
I suggest a full read-through of the beginner game rules before playing, just to familiarize you with the overall game picture. They might only confuse you at this point, but you’ll become familiar with the terminology and procedure. Then, once you begin to play, you’ll find the rules are VERY clear for the most part. Many other games would do well lay out the rules so logically.

Game Set Up – There’s a bit of work to do here, with distributing the denier, grouping the castle tokens, and placing the initial cards for the castle, bridge, and start of the road. However, if each color’s components (including workers, passing marker, and cards) are stored in separate bags, it will really speed up the process. Even when they’re not stored like that, set up is still is not an overtaxing burden.

Gameplay (for Standard Game - the beginner game simplifies this a bit by omitting a few things here and there) - Starting with a hand of three building cards, 4 denier, 2 food and 2 wood, plus four workers, you start your quest. During the income phase, you get two deniers at first. On later turns you may get additional income from Residential properties and/or a Hotel. This phase insures that a player will always have at ;east a little money to spend during his turn.
In the next phase each person, in clockwise order starting from the holder of the 1st player card can perform one of the following actions. Each action costs 1 denier unless otherwise noted. This phase continues until all players have passed.
- Place a worker on an existing building. Cost: One denier.
- Build a new building from your hand – the new building is placed in the next spot on the road. Cost: The required number of resources pictured in the upper left hand corner of the card.
- Build a new prestige building – the new building is placed in on top of a residential building that you own on the road. Cost: The required number of resources pictured in the upper left hand corner of the card.
- Draw a new card from your deck. Cost: One denier.
- Exchange all three cards in your hand. Cost : One denier.
- Pass. Place your passing marker on the first available spot on the bridge for no cost. This signifies that you have no further actions to perform on this turn. If you are the first person to place his marker, you get one denier.
After all players have passed, each player – in the passing order of the markers on the bridge, are allowed to move the Provost forward or backward by up to three spaces along the road. A player must pay one denier for each space that he moves the Provost. The Provost can never be moved off either end of the road.
Once all players have had a chance to move the provost, the payoff phase comes. Starting at the beginning of the road and ending at the card that the Provost is on, every card that has been activated (has a worker on it) will yield a primary effect, and possibly a secondary effect. The primary effect is shown right underneath the building picture on the card and is usually a bonus (receive two wood cubes, for example) or an opportunity (i.e. you may buy one gold for 1 denier, or two gold for 3 denier). This is given to the worker that is on the card. If the card is owned by someone other than the person who owns the worker, then the card owner receives the secondary effect (usually a bit less than the worker). Any cards activated that are beyond the card that the Provost is on are ignored.
The next phase is to make a batch offering to the castle. These offering batches must consist of one wood, one food, and one stone (though a gold can be used as a ‘wild card’ for any of those). In the order of the passing tokens on the bridge, you may make as many batch offerings as you can muster, taking a castle token for each batch. The person who makes the largest offering will get one gold cube. If several players are tied, then the first player to make the offering will get the gold. Once this phase is completed, the Provost is moved ahead two spaces, and the next turn starts with the income phase. This continues until there are no castle tokens left.

Strategy – You must earn prestige points…that much is known. How you do it is up to you. There are several strategies of how to earn those points, and several sub-strategies on how to implement your strategies. You’ll need to balance giving batches to the castle, erecting buildings, gathering resources, increasing cashflow, controlling the provost, and limiting your opponents’ opportunities. (Are you bored yet?) I really love the complexity of choices in this game. In a recent 3-player game, one player used a ‘castle’ strategy, another used a ‘building’ strategy, and I kind of waffled between them (maybe a ‘money’ strategy?). The three of us all finished within 2 points of each other (the ‘castle’ was triumphant). This is rally not a difficult game to play, but it is one that requires both good long-term planning and rational impromptu decision making.
Other than the usual luck-of-the-draw cardplay, the game is pretty much all strategy. But even that small amount of luck is tempered by a few other elements. For instance, you can trade your initial 3-card hand in for free, or trade in your hand later in the game for a cost of one denier. Each player’s deck is only 12 cards, so there’s an increasing possibility that if you’re looking for a particular card, you can get to it fairly quickly and easily.

Overall – This is the first game of this type that I have played, so I can’t compare it to San Juan or any of board games (Caylus, Puerto Rico, etc.), but there is a lot to like in Caylus Magna Carta. Because there is no board, the game has a truly unplanned feel to it. You may always be building the same buildings from your hand or the Prestige Building pile, but the timing and placement really dictate how effective that card is, so the game remains fresh. As a 2-player game it works very well, and its’ even better with more players. I look forward to many sessions of this game in the future.