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Caylus box art
2005 Ranked #102

Caylus

A worker-placement strategy game where master builders develop a growing town and help construct the King’s castle for prestige. Player-built buildings reshape the available actions, while control of the Provost determines which plans will actually work.

Strategy Games City Building Economic Action Queue Ownership

Players

2-5

Play time

60-150 min

Age

12+

Complexity

3.8/5

Rating

7.72

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.7/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

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How it plays

How does it play?

Once upon a time ... 1289.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Once upon a time ... 1289. To strengthen the borders of the Kingdom of France, King Philip the Fair decided to have a new castle built. For the time being, Caylus is but a humble village, but soon, workers and craftsmen will be flocking by the cartload, attracted by the great prospects. Around the building site, a city is slowly rising up. The players embody master builders. By building the King's castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King's favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins the game. The expansion Caylus Expansion: The Jeweller was included in the 2nd Edition. Each turn, players pay to place their workers in various buildings in the village. These buildings allow players to gather resources or money, or to build or upgrade buildings with those resources. Players can also use their resources to help build the castle itself, earning points and favors from the king, which provide larger bonuses. Building a building provides some immediate points, and potentially income throughout the game, since players receive bonuses when others use their buildings. The buildings chosen by the players have a heavy impact on the course of the game, since they determine the actions that will be available to all the players. As new buildings are built, they stretch along a road stretching away from the castle, and not all buildings can be used every turn. Players have some control over which buildings are active by paying to influence the movement of the Provost marker. The final position of the marker is the newest building that can be used that turn. The Provost marker also helps determine the movement of the Bailiff marker, which determines the end of the game. Generally, if players are building many buildings and the Provost is generous in allowing them to be used, the game ends more quickly.

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Videos (13)

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
2–5
Play time
60–150 min
Age
12+
Complexity
3.8/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
William Attia

Artists

3
Cyril Demaegd Arnaud Demaegd Mike Doyle (I)

Publishers

1
Ystari Games