Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Palaces is a deck-building bidding game in which you win cards and build towers. On a turn, the active player chooses to draw from one of three stacks of cards, then all players bid or drop out.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Auction/Bidding
Bid against other players to determine who receives an item, action, or priority.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Highest-Lowest Scoring
Final scoring depends on balancing categories because the highest or lowest value matters.
Read the full game description
Palaces is a deck-building bidding game in which you win cards and build towers. On a turn, the active player chooses to draw from one of three stacks of cards, then all players bid or drop out. There is only one round of bidding per card. Bids are valued based on the size of a suit (e.g., three-of-a-kind beats two-of-a-kind, etc.), and if the size matches, you compare suits: Gold, Silver, Crystal, Marble. If size and suit match, compare a secondary bid (3 gold and 2 marble beats 3 gold and a silver). The highest bidder activates the card's special effect and adds it to their discard pile. (Eventually it returns to their hand and activates again when in a winning bid.) The winner of the bid also gets to add a room to one of their two towers, while the other players draw cards. Play proceeds clockwise. Each player's two towers must match one another. The winner is the player with the tallest lower tower. Unlike most deck-building games, you do not void your hand after your turn. Players who win bids discard their bids to build their towers, while other players draw cards.