Description

Blimey! You and your blokes have been banished and stripped of everything but a few shillings and table scraps. Undaunted, you journey to a strange land to reinvent yourself and reclaim your honor. Will you farm the earth, fight as knights or finagle your own feudums?

Feudum (latin for fiefdom) is an economic medieval game of hand and resource management for 2-5 players. With many strategies at their disposal, players optimize four actions per turn in attempt to score the most victory points over five epochs.

Each player controls several medieval characters that roam the countryside tending farms, taxing towns and taking outposts in effort to rise in power.

But that’s only the tip of the behemoth's horn! You will also compete to acquire coveted feudums, which increase your membership status in one of six guilds. But beware! Feudum owners must pay homage to the king through military service or face the charge of disloyalty.

Once a guild member, you will dutifully play your part in a progressive economic cycle, whereby the farmer ships goods to the merchant who equips the alchemist, who invents black powder, which arms the knight, and so on.

If you run your guilds wisely, maintain control of key locations and adapt best to changing events, you will be victorious. Unless, of course, you starve, get sidetracked by sea serpents or develop an unhealthy interest in fermented grapes. Long live the King!

Rules Summary

The object of Feudum is to be the most venerated in allllll the land. Less loftily put, one tries to score the most victory points over five epochs. Each epoch is made up of rounds, during which all players preselect and play four action cards one by one in clockwise order. Action cards feature a regular action…and, a special action available to players that have a particular good or character in play.

Players control up to three character pawns, which can be a farmer, merchant, alchemist, knight, noble or monk. Action cards enable players to move pawns, interact with guilds, influence locations and a slew of other things.

If you are the first player to add an Influence marker to a location, you are the ruler! Huzzah! Rulers can do things like harvest crops, collect taxes or acquire royal writs! The second person to influence is… a lowly serf. However, a serf can tend a landscape, which is actually quite rewarding! Rulers and serfs at a location may add a third and final influence marker to reinforce their rule, or demote the current ruler.

Rulers may also upgrade a location by turning in the required resource. For instance, a farm may be upgraded to a town with an iron good. Performing an upgrade earns you victory points and a valuable region tile, which can be used by serfs to tend a landscape, or discarded for any other good! The faster region tiles disappear from the board, the faster the final epoch is triggered.

At the heart of the game, players compete for guild status in six different guilds! Having a pawn in play or ruling a feudum earns you membership status in the guild bearing the same icon. The player with the most status is the guild master, who scores the most victory points in that guild at the dawn of each epoch!

All Players may visit guilds to acquire resources such as goods, vessels, influence markers, king seals and prayer beads. However, ONLY guild members may push or pull resources from one guild to the next.

Facilitating this cyclical economy will earn you victory points, but you MAY opt to stall the rotation of goods to thwart other players! But be warned, your fellow players may throw a feast and take advantage of your guild powers while you are, shall we say, incapacitated.

Players who rule feudums are known as Vassals, and can be quite powerful, however, vassals MUST pay homage to the king by conquering pawns and/or other feudums throughout the game to avoid accruing disloyalty points. Thus, players may forgo vassalage in favor of pursuing more peaceful paths to victory, such as tending landscapes and influencing regions.

These are the kinds of intriguing options you will encounter at every turn. Should you rule locations or humbly tend landscapes? Be a dutiful vassal, or avoid royal obligations? Seal your royal writs, or acquire a feudum? Horde resources, or share them? Fortify and defend your feudums, or expand your kingdom?

Rest assured, your foresight and finesse will prove fruitful. Unless that fruit is fermented, and you are unwittingly bludgeoned by a lumbering behemoth. But let’s try and remain positive.

Extra Info

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