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Isle of Skye is a tile placement, auction, territory building, strategy game for two to five players. In Isle of Skye, players take on the role of clan chieftains on the Scottish Island of Skye.
They must build up the landscape around their castle with lakes, roads, mountains and farmland. They must take the best areas of land for themselves as they compete for gold, dominance and glory to see who shall be crowned King of Skye.
The Aim
The winner in Isle of Skye (designed by Andreas Pelikan and Alexander Pfister) is the player with the most victory points at the end of the game. Players score victory points by fulfilling objectives on scoring tiles, from coins, and from fulfilling objectives on scrolls.
Set-Up
- Place the game board down showing either the 2-4 or five players mark in the bottom left corner.
- Shuffle the window-shaped scoring tiles and place one on each window on the board.
- Place the black round marker on the first plate of the round track.
- Create a supply of coins on the table.
- Give each player a screen and castle tile of their colour, a discard marker (axe tile), and put the score markers on the zero space of the score track.
- Put all landscape tiles into the bag and shuffle them.
- Give one player the starting player marker.
How to Play Isle of Skye
1. INCOME
Simultaneously, players take an income of five gold for their castle and one gold for each whiskey barrel symbol connected to the castle by a continuous road.
N.B. From round three, players also take three gold for each other player ahead of them on the score track.
2. DRAW & SET PRICES
- In turn order, players take three landscape tiles and place them in front on their screen.
- Hidden behind their screen, players select a tile to discard using the Axe tile.
- Hidden behind their screen, players set prices (at least one gold) of the other two tiles by placing money behind them. TIP: This sets the price others will pay you for this tile. However, you can't spend money on the tiles. Also, if nobody buys the tile you lose the money.
- Once all players are done, remove the player screens.
3. DISCARD TILE
Place discarded tile back in the bag.
4. BUY A TILE
- In turn order, players may take one tile from another player by paying the amount of gold on it to the player.
- The receiving player also takes back the gold they originally placed on the tile.
- If you can’t, or don't want to buy, then you must pass.
- Unsold tiles are kept, but the money on them is lost to the supply
5. BUILD
Simultaneously, plays add their new tiles to their territory.
- Tiles must share an edge with an existing tile.
- The terrain on adjacent tiles must match up to create continuous areas of grassland, mountain, or lake.
- Roads do not have to be continuous.
- A completed area is one fully enclosed by a different terrain type.
6. END OF ROUND
- Each player scores victory points according to the scoring tiles of the current round.
- The first player marker is passed clockwise to the next player.
- The round marker is moved forward one space.
7. END GAME SCORING
- After the final round is complete. Score victory points for the tiles on your territory with scrolls on them. If the scroll is on a completed area, score it twice.
- Score one victory point for every five coins you have.
- The player with the most victory points wins.
Tips for Isle of Skye
And that's it. The rules are pretty straight forward in Isle of Skye. The main points that can trip up first-timers are:
- The rules about tile placement. An illegally placed tile can make a big impact on the game.
- Players need to remember that money used to set the value of tiles is no longer available to them unless someone buys one of their tiles.
- Money used to set the value of tiles that remain unsold at the end of the buying phase is lost.
- Roads do not enclose areas or need to be complete.
Learn more about the game by reading my review. Happy Playing!!
