El Grande
In El Grande, each player is the Grande in one region. He is allied with 30 Caballeros. Each Grande attempts, to the benefit of Spain and for his own benefit, to extend his influence across the whole of Spain. To accomplish this, he must control the majority of Caballeros in as many regions as possible. The Grande who succeeds in this is on the path to success and winning the game.
Number of players: 2 - 5
Game duration: 51 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
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Play El Grande and 839 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Note about the Veto card: this card was specifically challenging to implement. On Board Game Arena, Veto can be used to cancel any Action card before it is activated. Some Actions can also be cancelled partially, but this is not possible for all Actions. Please note that you can also exclude Veto through an option when starting a game.
Goal
Score the most points by having more caballeros in the regions than other players, but beware - the castillo holds a surprise!
Gameplay
Action cards are revealed at the start of each round.
Going clockwise, each player bids a power card to determine: turn order AND the number of caballeros that can add from the provinces into the court. Only the caballeros in your court can be added to regions on the map during your turn.
Turn order changes each round, with play going in order of highest card value to lowest: Highest valued card goes first, 2nd highest card goes 2nd, etc.
On your turn
1. Add caballeros from your provinces into your court.
- The number of caballeros you may add is equal to the number of cubes shown in the center of the power card you played. You can add up to that many caballeros to your court.
- If there are not enough caballeros in your province to add into the court, you can take caballeros from any region on the map except the King's region and castillo.
2. Select an action card.
- You do not have to take the action, but you do have to take a card.
- The action card shows how many caballeros you can place on the map from your court. The number of cubes shown at the bottom of the card is the most you can place. You can place fewer, if you like.
(You can take the action, then place caballeros or place caballeros, then take the action.)
Placement
- You can only place caballeros in regions adjacent to the King's region - but never in the King's region.
- You can distribute the caballeros among multiple regions.
- You can place caballeros into the castillo.
Movement
Some cards allow you to move caballeros that are already placed on the map. You may move these caballeros to any other region on the map, except the King's region. You can move even them into the castillo.
After everyone has taken a turn, new action cards are revealed and bidding for start player occurs. The player who played the lowest card last round starts the bid.
Scoring rounds
1. Before the regions are scored, each player secretly chooses where they want to place all of their caballeros that are in the castillo. They can go into any region on the map except for the King's region. Players reveal their chosen region at the same time.
2. The castillo is scored.
3. Caballeros that were in the castillo are now moved to the chosen region.
4. Each region is scored.
Scoring
The purpose of the Grande is to show who owns the region. Only the caballeros are counted when determining majority.
The scoreboard in each region shows the points awarded to the players having the most caballeros, 2nd most and 3rd most caballeros in the region. The player with the most caballeros in a region receives the highest point value for the region shown in the region's scoreboard.
(In a 2 player game, only the first place points are awarded. In a 3-player game, only the 1st and 2nd place are scored.)
If tied, all tied players receive the points in the next lowest position.
End of game
The game ends after round 9.
Bonus points
If you are the majority player in your home region (where your Grande is located), not tied with any other players, you earn 2 extra points
If you are the majority player in the King's region, not tied with any other players, you score 2 extra points.
Notes
You can only use a power card once during the game.
When a card triggers special scoring during the game, all regions of the specified point-value must be scored, i.e. all 5-point regions, all 4-point regions, etc.
The King's Card is always one of the 5 cards revealed at the start of each round.
