Clockwork Prince Rules

The Clockwork Prince is an automated player that can replace the Chancellor or an Exile. We recommend it in games with one or two human players, but you can use it with more players.

Set up the game as normal, but do not deal starting cards to the Prince, and follow these steps:

1. Take the Clockwork Prince board (back of Chancellor board) and Mind sheet (back of Chronicle aid). Flip the Imperial Reliquary to its Princely Reliquary side (back of Reliquary board).
2. If the Prince is an Exile, take an unused Exile board, and the Chancellor takes a Citizen board and covers their Supply track with the Princely Reliquary board.
3. Place the 6 relationship markers on the matching suit spaces in the Unaligned box on the Prince board.
4. Place the 2 action markers on the Threat space (red circle) of the Mind sheet that shows the Oathkeeper goal.
5. Place the threat and tactics markers on the starting (starred) spaces of their tracks on the Prince board.
6. Place the Prince’s pawn at the top Cradle site.

• In any conflicts, these rules supersede the core rules.
• Any suits in the Conspirators column count as advisers for resolving powers (including the Conspiracy and the Recover restriction when other players are recovering the Darkest Secret from the Prince).
• Human players must track the order in which they have taken relics from left to right.
• In campaigns, the Prince adds attack dice as the attacker, and subtracts attack dice as the defender, as shown by their Tactics track. This cannot be modified or canceled.
• If the Prince is the Chancellor: Citizens cannot become Exiles during play. Citizens refresh their Supply as if they were the Chancellor by counting the warbands in the Prince’s personal bank. (You can check this on the Princely Reliquary board, even though the Prince does not track Supply.)
• If the Prince is an Exile: They act as if their Threat is the Usurper, regardless of which Threats exist. If they are the Usurper, they choose No Threat instead. They do not reveal Visions or accept Citizenship offers.

In all ties, the Prince chooses the leftmost choice—whether which region to play a card to (Cradle first), which card in a drawn hand to choose to play (first drawn), which player (earliest in turn order), which relic to recover (closest to site), which relic to target (first taken, placed leftmost in row), or which Friend or Conspirator suit in the same row to choose (first that entered the space).

The Clockwork Prince’s turn has four phases in this order:

1. Assess Threat
2. Search and Play One Card
3. Take Actions
4. Cleanup

(Skip this phase on your first turn.) Place your threat marker on the space on the Prince board showing your current Threat, which is the first true condition of these in order, or on “No Threat?” if none are true:

1. As Chancellor, does a Citizen meet the Successor goal?
2. As Exile, are you not the Usurper? As Chancellor, is an Exile the Usurper, or is an Exile the Oathkeeper on round eight?
3. Has an Exile revealed and completed a Vision?
4. Is an Exile the Oathkeeper?

Do not move your action markers on the Mind sheet if:

• There is no Threat, or
• A Threat exists and is the same as on your previous turn, and your action marker is in the Threat’s Mind quadrant

Move both action markers to the Threat space on the Mind sheet that corresponds to your current Threat if:

• There is a new or different Threat, or
• A Threat exists and is the same as on your last turn, but your action marker is not in the Threat’s Mind quadrant

a Threat space

(For example, if a Citizen meets their Successor goal by holding the Darkest Secret, move the markers to Threat space for the Darkest Secret.)

**Wake—**If you have the People’s Favor, place favor on it if able.

Draw three cards from the world deck. Do not stop drawing if you draw a Vision! If you draw three Visions, keep drawing until you draw a denizen.

Reveal the drawn cards except for Visions. Place them in a row in the order you drew them from left to right. For each battle plan you reveal, advance your Tactics by one.

Play one card whose suit is described by the Mind quadrant that your action marker is in. (For example, the top-left quadrant says to “Play a Friend” as its first condition. If you draw a Discard d and two Hearth h cards, and Hearth h is a higher Friend than Discord d, you play the Hearth h card you drew first—the leftmost.)

Play it to the topmost Cradle site you are able to. If you cannot, play it to the topmost Provinces site you are able to. If you cannot, play it to the topmost Hinterland site you are able to.

Gain one favor from the favor bank matching the played card.

If you cannot play this card to any site, discard it and gain what is shown in the Can’t Play Card box of your Mind quadrant. Gain favor from the bank matching the discarded card and add it to your Ambition box. The shield advances your tactics marker.

Advance the relationship marker matching the suit of card you played or discarded by one space, unless the marker is in the top Relationships space. If the new space already has markers, place the advancing marker to the right of the markers there.

Take the number of actions shown by the Relationships box you advanced the marker into this turn (five if topmost). If you skip any actions, do not count them toward the number of actions you’ve taken this turn. (Don’t track Supply.)

For each action, move your current action marker along the arrow from your action space to the new action space, and take the action there. To follow an arrow, you must meet the condition it says. (Don’t move your starting action marker yet. It will help you count the actions you’ve taken this turn.)

an action space

If you can follow multiple arrows, follow the red arrow if able, then the orange arrow if able, then the black arrow. (If there are two orange arrows, follow the orange arrow marked Higher Priority.)

Your actions are different from normal, as described below.

Trade

If your action space shows favor, gain favor from each empty card at your site whose suit matches any Friend, gaining the amount of favor in the Relationships box for that card’s suit.

If it shows secrets, gain secrets in the same way, but for Conspirators. (You do not place favor or secrets on cards to trade.)

Skip this action if you would gain no favor or secrets at all.

Muster

Place one favor on each empty card at your site, starting with the card closest to the site. Gain two warbands per favor placed.

Do not place favor from your Ambition box. Skip this action if you would gain no warbands at all.

Travel

Travel to the site that best meets the condition listed on your action space. (Leftmost such site on tie.)

Skip this action if your site already meets this condition.

Often, you’ll travel in order to gain the most favor or secrets in a later Trade action (accounting for favor in the banks, ignoring cards with favor or secrets). If no favor could be gained from Trade, gain one favor from the favor bank closest to the world deck that has favor. If no secrets could be gained from Trade, gain one secret.

If you need to travel to a site with a relic but there are no relics on the map, travel to a facedown site. If there are no facedown sites on the map, gain one favor from the favor bank closest to the world deck that has favor, and travel to the site that will let you gain the most secrets in a later Trade. If you travel to a facedown site but it has no relics, gain one favor, as described above.

Travel + Campaign

Skip this action if you are not Battle Ready—able to roll more attack dice than the defense dice added by your targets plus the warbands in the defending force. (Do not add the defender’s battle plans or defense dice added from the Oathkeeper title.)

You must declare at least one target at your site, and you must target your site if the defender rules it (as normal).

• If you’re targeting sites, travel to the site ruled by the enemy who rules the most sites (“Rival”) that will add the fewest warbands to the defending force. (Remember to add the warbands on their board if their pawn is there.) If you rule all faceup sites, move to a facedown site and target the bandits. Target as many sites as possible while staying Battle Ready, in order from the site that would add the fewest warbands to the defending force to the site that would add the most.
• If you’re targeting a banner or the Grand Scepter, travel to the pawn of the player who holds it. Only target what is listed on your action space.
• If you’re targeting relics, travel to the pawn of the player who holds the most. Target as many as possible while staying Battle Ready, in order from the relic that adds the fewest defense dice to the relic that adds the most. If multiple relics add equal defense dice, target the one they took most recently (leftmost).

You always sacrifice warbands if it will make you victorious. If you are victorious and targeted any sites, place one warband on each targeted site. Repeat this until you do not have enough warbands to do so, keeping any remaining on your board.

Search

Resolve the Search and Play One Card phase again. (This does not increase the number of actions you can take this turn.)

Recover

Skip this action if you are not able to recover a relic or banner as listed on your action space.

Pay the cost of the relic or banner listed on your action space, and take it. When recovering a banner, place as many favor or secrets on it as possible. When recovering the Darkest Secret, you ignore whether cards at the holder’s site match their advisers or not (Law 5.4.1). (Other players do not ignore this.)

When recovering, spend favor from your Ambition box first. If you’re an Exile and are recovering a relic, you will burn secrets and count as favor, but spend favor first.

Return any favor on cards to their matching favor banks.

Move your starting action marker to the space with your current action marker.

If you’re the Chancellor, do not hold the Oathkeeper title, and have a Threat but no Successor, each Exile in turn order, except an Exile who meets the Successor goal, may peek at the bottom relic of the relic deck and may take it to become a Citizen.

You ignore powers that deny actions fully with no recourse (Tome Guardians, Hall of Debate, etc.) and powers of sites that restrict travel (The Hidden Place, Coasts, and the Narrow Pass).

Otherwise, you are affected by persistent powers (Boiling Lake, etc.) and give favor to players when prompted to avoid negative persistent powers (Toll Roads, etc.). Treat your first phase as Wake, second and third as Act, and fourth as Rest. The humans choose one level of your power use and permission:

Limited

You do not use Action powers, treat When Played powers you play as blank, and do not allow anything that requires your permission. Otherwise, you use powers that cost no favor or secrets and that do not discard cards. Example: You use Keep, but not Horse Archers.

Expanded

You use powers and give permission as normal. With one human, the human judges when you would use a power or give permission to meet your interests. With multiple humans, you always use powers that harm the human who is your Threat, but otherwise the human to the right of your Threat makes decisions about power use and permission.

If you need to choose a goal reference, choose it at random. If you’re an Exile, you do not offer Citizenship.

If you’re the Chancellor, build an edifice in the leftmost site you rule where you can build one (topmost such on tie). If there are no edifices in the Archive, repair a ruined edifice at the leftmost site with one that you rule instead.

When adding six cards from the Archive, use the suit of the built or repaired edifice to determine the most common suit. If one was not built or repaired, use the highest Friend instead.