Table Of Contents

Esteemed Master Architect, We regret to inform you that we have received multiple complaints about the working conditions in Belfort and overall dissatisfaction level of your loyal crew of elves and dwarves. In fact, the gnomes are in a tizzy and even a few trolls have offered suggestions for improvement, which is entirely unproductive. As such, the Belfort Rules Lawyers Guild has hereby decreed that you are required to read the following guide in its entirety and thereafter submit to five voluntary exams before your work on the kingdoms glorious new castle will be permitted to continue. Remember, every moment you spend off the construction site gives your rival supervisors a better chance to secure precious lumber, stone and metal and ultimately the Key to the City. So, study up and good luck, Master Architect! Yours officially,

SHEET 1 First-Play Advice Starting Hands & Game Strategies SHEET 2 Best Laid Plans Worker Types & Worker Scoring Majorities Recruiters Desk Kings Camp SHEETS 3 & 4 Guilds In Review Basic Guilds Resource Guilds Interactive Guilds SHEET 5 The Dirty Business Of Property Marker Placement Coins: The Key To The Kingdom?

Rudwig P. Horswimmons Deputy Assistant to the Assistant Deputy Dept. of OA & BND

First-Play Advice
Succeeding in Belfort is closely linked to you ability to recognize the opportunities before you. There are opportunities in your opening hand of cards and the availability of particular guilds. And most critically, there are plenty of chances to react to the choices of your opponents in ways that advantage your game and disrupt theirs. As with most rich strategy games, theres a bit of a learning curve in recognizing the value of things during your rst play. This guide will help you get up to speed and offer more experienced players some more strategies to consider. Bank/income strategy: If you have a card-based way of generating coins, youll free up your workers to perform other tasks and can more easily afford those abilityunlocking gnomes. Banks can be a cornerstone of an income-driven engine early on or even in the mid-game. As the game evolves, pay attention to Property cards that generate a gold each round. You can use those in combination with the Bank to generate a lot of income and exibility. When building a Bank, its best if you have the funds or means to place a gnome on it right away. It wont do you any good until a gnome unlocks its power!

Starting Hands & Game Strategies

When the game begins, you receive ve Property cards and get to keep three to form your starting hand. The initial card selection can set you on a strategic path right out of the gate. And when you get those properties built, its satisfying to feel like your engine is already well underway. So, which cards should you choose? The answer is a bit different depending on whether youre new to Belfort. Once youve played a full game, its best to let the cards speak to you. Dont force it. Dont decide before the slices of the game board are properly arranged which cards to build and which strategy to execute. See what opportunities your opening hand presents and try out that strategy. We promise you its possible to solidly win a game using many different card strategies. So, don't be afraid to explore a new path. If you have two Markets in your opening hand, try an income-generation/Trading Post strategy this time. But if its your rst game, focus on one of the following paths to help simplify your decision-making: Inn/Pub/Gardens strategy: Use these properties to recruit more workers and make them more powerful. Then, outwork, out-action and out-resource your opponents. If you can keep a starting hand of all or most of these types (in any combination), you're set to execute a worker engine. If you build Inns, youll also enjoy much more exibility than your opponents in the area of recruitment. Typically, you need to place a dwarf at the Recruiters Desk (and pay two hard-earned coins) to recruit a new dwarf, or place an elf to recruit and elf. Inns allow you to recruit elves with dwarves and vice versaand no one can block you from using your own Inn ability! Pubs and Gardens not only increase your workers resourcefulness, they provide a coin per turn, which gives you more options elsewhere. Library strategy: To fully execute any strategy, youll need to get the necessary cards. But paying for Property cards is a drag. Building a Library initially will ensure you can cycle through cards to nd the ones you wantwith no cost in coinage! Balanced strategy: Build a Pub or Gardens, followed next by a Bank. Build a Library third, if possible, followed by an Inn. Youll have a well-rounded engine that relies on you making smart decisions that maximize your resources. Tower Power (experienced players only): If there are two things you can count on in Belfort, its paying a small fortune for gnomes and taxes. Theres nothing you can do about the taxes, but Towers will save you money on gnomes and help you activate Property card abilities faster. That makes the Tower a powerful early-game property to build. You can also use Towers to deplete the limited gnome supply, which will put a nice pinch on your opponents and force them to change their plans. The Tower Power engine is a little trickier to execute well, so rst-time players are advised to stick with the strategies above instead. Cards to avoid in your rst game: Keeps, Gatehouses, Markets, Blacksmiths and Towers are all powerful cards that can be used to great effect. But if youre new to Belfort, its best to test out other properties rst. A nal note on starting Property cards: Dont fret if your selections dont work out as well as you hoped; there are plenty of chances to recover and thrive during the course of a game!

Recruiters Desk Best Laid Plans

Belfort will force you to make decisions with limited resources and to change plans when opponents deny you things you covet. So, if you have a tenuous grand plan that will take multiple turns to execute, its almost sure to go awry. So, be exible, be in the moment and make the best decision you can right now. One of the quickest ways to fall behind in worker majorities is to allow a single player to dominate the Recruiter's Desk. This is especially important in a three-player game, when only one recruiting spot is available. Take advantage of recruiting when you have openings, and the moment you recognize that a player in rst position is focusing on the Recruiter's Desk, you'll have to respond by placing in the King's Camp and taking that ability away. If the Recruiters' Guild is in play, you'll have to be especially diligent. Now, if youre the one dominating the Recruiters Desk and Recruiters Guild, just be very calm and quiet about it, or distract your opponents with idle chatter!

Worker Types & Worker Scoring Majorities

Pay close attention to which worker types your opponents are recruiting. If someone has gone dwarf-happy, focus on elves instead. Be exible and react to the openings opponents give you to maximize most-worker resource bonuses. Sure, you might not need that much stone this round, but youll be thrilled you have that extra stone later. Resources are tight and you have a lot of properties to build! If you consistently get more resource bonuses, youll have a signicant advantage over the course of the game. And oftentimes, you can use the same line of thinking to win the rst-place scoring majority in two worker types. If youre struggling to achieve a dwarf or elf worker majority, theres almost certainly an opening for gnome majority, which often goes overlooked until actually resolving scoring at the end of a scoring round. Play Towers to generate gnomes, or consider using the Recruiters Guild (if in play) to obtain gnomes and gain a majority. GNOMES Speaking of gnomes, theyre going to run out! So, dont wait too long to get yours. Theres nothing sadder than a built property with a permanently vacant gnome plank. Plus, the earlier you get out your gnomes, the more benet you'll get from your properties over the course of the game and the more likely you'll be to score for gnomes in scoring rounds. As previously mentioned, Towers and the Recruiters' Guild are powerful ways to recruit gnomes in a less expensive way than the usual three-coin hiring process.

Kings Camp
In most strategy games, you want to be rst in turn order and will pay in some form for the right to hold rst position. In Belfort, going rst does offer certain advantages, but going last can be a powerful position as well. Take the following under consideration before swapping positions using the Kings Camp: The First Player can place a worker on any plank, provided that player has the needed coins or owns the guild. This is wonderful if you have your heart set on a particular power, but youre also more likely to pass rst and place rst in the resource areas. The Last Player may have limited placement options, but youll almost certainly be in a position to examine the resource areas and place your workers in ways that achieve bonuses. The Middle Player(s) have a choice to make: jump into Kings Camp to improve their position or take a passive approach. Many players nd the middle positions allow them to take a relaxed approach to turn order and focus their workers and attention elsewhere. But you may have to use the Kings Camp in the late stages to ensure you can make a crucial placement or deny an opponent a critical placement. In a four- or ve-player game, youll also have to think about when to place a worker in the Kings Camp. Go too soon or late, and the turn order crest you really wanted might be unavailable. Try to play out the sequence of events in your head prior to making your placement.

Guilds In Review
Guilds are the cornerstone of any good engine. After seeing which guilds are in play this time, youll need to decide whether to ght to use particular guilds or to take a more reactive posture. If your heart is set on using certain guilds, utilize the Kings Camp for rst turn position. Otherwise, keep your mind open, take what the game gives you and make sure you keep coins in reserve so you can use multiple guilds when your opponents run out of money. When you place a worker on a guild plank, think ahead to what you need from the resource areas. If you need wood, dont use an elf on a guild plank! When a rst-time player buys a guild, they usually wonder if they should be using that guild for free or using the guild as a source of passive income as others use it. Ask two different players, and youll get two different answers and to some degree the answer varies from guild to guild and game to game. But as a general guideline, using a powerful guild ability for free is better than waiting for someone else to pay you coins because theres no guarantee another player will use the guild youve purchased! If you want to attempt a passive-income strategy, then aim for a late turn-order position. Other players will use the guilds you own ahead of you, and youll be more likely to get resource area bonuses. So, how do you determine which guild to purchase? Watch which guilds your opponents immediately focus on using. (Better yet, if youve played with the same group before and some of the same guilds are in play, use that intel to your advantage!) If you own a guild your opponent favors, youll either force that player to rethink or youll get a steady stream of coins as that player continues the same strategy. Be decisive and instinctual. The longer you wait to purchase a guild, the less benet youll get from that purchase. If it is your rst game, wed actually recommend that you focus on building at least one or two Property cards from your hand before worrying about purchasing guilds. Its more straightforward and just as sound strategically. Watch like a hawk for a player attempting to monopolize this guild every round. You cannot let this happen. If need be, use the Kings Camp to take rst position and end the guild domination. More to the point, if someone else uses the Recruiters Guild before you, use the Recruiters Desk plank before they can. A Recruiters Guild/Recruiters Desk combo can be devastating if youre on the receiving end. When you use this guild, take the worker type that has been least recruited (for scoring purposes later). And dont forget that you can place an elf on the guild plank and still take a dwarf or a gnome! The guild is more exible than the Recruiters Desk that way and less expensive. New players rarely consider recruiting gnomes with this guild power, but doing so will save you a lot of money and take a lead in gnome majority scoring. It's a great way to hire two gnomes in one turn! Merchants' Guild: This guild isnt immediately appealing to most new players since it requires manipulating a lot of resources and requires some property planning. But taking the Merchant's Guild in combination with loading up in the resource areas will virtually guarantee you get one Property card into play, if not two. Remember, one Trading Post visit actually allows you to buy once and sell once, so that +3 Post visits creates a ton of exibility.

Architects' Guild: This guild is wonderful for building property cards. Oftentimes you can focus there when no one else is and gain an advantage. If you can purchase it (and there's likely to be little competition there from newer players), you can work it all game long.

Basic Guilds
Recruiters' Guild: Ah, this guild is wildly popular, especially for new players. And why not? Who doesnt like cheap labor? Decide right away if youre interested in owning this guild because if you hesitate, someone else is sure to purchase it. If you do own it, using it for free workers will trump the value of receiving coins from others use.

Librarians' Guild: Getting specic cards into your hand is the key to an efcient engine, and this guild is one strong way to make that happen quickly. Say you want to focus on recruiting and mastering workers. Use this guild to get Inn, Gardens and Pub cards. You're off to a killer start, largely because of good use of this guild. Sure, it doesnt always work out as planned. But one thing is certain: Using the Librarians' Guild will quickly rell a depleted hand of cards, and for less money!

Resource Guilds
Masons'/Miners'/Sawyers' Guilds: These guilds tend to be quite popular with new players. Use the guild to load up on a particular resource, and then dont place workers in that resource area, in order to get bonuses elsewhere. For example, use the Masons Guild to get four stone, and then use all your dwarves for metal and money placement bonuses. These guilds also allow elves to obtain stone and dwarves to obtain wood, which is a nice bit of added exibility. The strength of the Miners' Guild is the ability to acquire metal with a single worker, freeing up multiple workers for use in places other than the metal resource area. Try placing your extra workers in the coins resource area. The additional money will serve you well in the long haul. Bankers' Guild: Along with the Recruiters' Guild, this guild tends to be the most immediately appealing to new players. But be warned, it's trickier than expected to use well! If the Thieves' Guild is in play, think about using that guild rst. But dont give up on this guild. When used effectively, its powerful! And if you own it, youll gain three coins for free; other player will only net two coins. If it looks like this guild will be popular from the outset, consider purchasing it right away and then staying away from using it yourself. Just collect coins from other players all game long! If purchasing the guild changes the dynamic and players seem to be staying away to deny you the income source, then you'll need to use the guild yourself or else your investment will be for naught. Wizards' Guild: In scoring rounds, the ability to swap property markers can make a huge difference. Focus (obviously) on creating majorities, but often a swap can guarantee second while simultaneously dropping an opponent into a pointsapping tie with another player. In scoring rounds, get in this guild early! But you can also use it in other rounds to manipulate the board in such ways that a single swap in a scoring round won't be enough to overcome the "redistricting map" you've created over time. Don't allow a single player to dominate this guild because you'll be in for a rude awakening come scoring rounds, especially later in the game.

Spies' Guild: Would you rather purchase a known card for a gold to drive your engine or hurt another player while gaining a card that may or may not be immediately helpful? If youre willing to be exible and react to the cards you can take, this guild is terrically effective. Its especially powerful if you can take an opponents' last Property card, leaving the player with nothing to build that round. If you're not using this guild, make sure you have more than one card in-hand if your heart is set on building this round. Thieves' Guild: While less versatile in a three-player game, this guild is strong and popularand this guild becomes super-powered if you own it. (Spend nothing and steal two or three coins is a lot better than spend one coin and steal two.) If you're not using this guild, dont count on hiring a gnome this turn unless you have at least ve coins. If you're late in turn order, your money might be gone before you can hire your gnome! Bandits' Guild: While less versatile in a three-player game, this guild is a great way to manipulate resources and build properties efciently. What's most critical about this guild is not what you can do with it, but what others can do with it. If you're counting on having certain resources to build a particular property (or multiple properties), be careful about allowing another player access to the Bandits' Guild. That player might steal from you, putting you in a position where you don't have enough resources to execute your plan.

Interactive Guilds
Know your gaming group. Some groups thrive on interactive guilds like Thieves' and Spies'. Others (especially new players) often would prefer to be able to build an engine without interferenceeven though you can use Interactive guilds yourself to get resources back. If your group isnt looking to test the shadowy side of Belfort or needs more time to acclimate, focus on using the Wizards' Guild, which offers some really interesting strategic decision-making without being overtly cutthroat.

The Dirty Business Of Property Marker Placement

Here are some tips for effective property marker placement on the game board districts: Stay out of the fray, if possible. Place your markers where other player markers arent. Easier said than done, right? If theres a guild early on that seems like itll be the least popular for some reason, try placing in that district rst. Youre less likely to have an opponent purchase that guild and suddenly drive you into a point-depleting tie in marker majority. Aim for second place in district majorities that already contain an opponents marker. It's human nature to want to be rst everywhere, but spending your marker to take over rst often wont get you the most points! If you're tied for rst in a district, thats worth three points. Moving up to sole possession of rst in that district will net you an additional two points. Thats not as good as second place somewhere else, which is worth three points! Early in the game, Keeps dont seem very important. But theyre incredibly powerful for achieving district majoritiesand not just in the nal few rounds. Try building a Keep (or two) a few rounds earlier than what seems natural. Youll get rst pick of where to place your double Keep markers, which is a huge advantage. And that double placement has a psychological impact on your opponents, who may give up on competing with you and place their property markers elsewhere. If you wait too long to build Keeps, your marker placement options will be so limited that it will hardly be worth the cost of the property. You also wont get to take advantage of the fact that Keeps provide a coin during the Collection phase. Gatehouses are great in scoring rounds if you have the coins to hire a gnome and place that second property marker. Try to have a marker stake in adjacent game board districts when using the Gatehouse. In other words, after you place both Gatehouse markers, youll ideally have a rst-place majority in one district and at least second-place in the adjoining Gatehouse district. Don't forget about Walls! They don't require a card, which is helpful in the late game when district majorities (and resources) are tight.

Coins: The Key To The Kingdom?

By now, you should be sensing a very clear theme: Some player act. Others react and those who pay the closest attention to their rivals styles and intentions often come out on top! Perhaps the most powerful and overlooked part of Belfort is reacting to the coin count of your opponents. The instinct of most players is to use up funds hiring gnomes right away and paying for things to optimize their game. But a constant shortage of gold is not optimal at all especially if your opponents make you regret that deciency. Watch what your opponents are doing, ideally from last or close to last in turn order. If the players ahead of you spend all their gold on gnomes and planks, hold onto your gold for next round. If two other players have no gold left and another player is down to one gold, think about what you can do with ve or more gold next round: Youre going to dominate the Recruiters Desk. Youre going to get the guild(s) of your choice. Youre going to have funds for placing on your own property planks. Your opponents wont know what hit them! Lastly, hiring gnomes isnt a given! Think about the cost-benet ratio of hiring a gnome in the mid- and late-game. You might be paying three coins and not coming close to getting equal value back. Let your opponents make that mistake, while you preserve your funds and wallop them next round. INCOME AND TAXES Obviously, youll also want to ensure you have enough coins to cover your taxes every time. But if someone tells you to try to earn fewer points in a round to remain in a lower tax bracket, dont buy that bill of goods! Make money. Score points. Win the game!