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For a Crown

PLAYERS3, 4, 5DURATION30–45 minOVERALL DIFFICULTYMedium

Repos Production 2025, base game, French booklet FC-FR01; four innings maximum.

Why this rating?

Balance between expenditure, influence, attacks and unpredictable order of the common package.

01Discover the game

For a Crown brings together several families who fight the crown. Each recruits mercenaries, but all the cards recruited join the same package. When a card comes out, its coat of arms indicates who applies the effect. So you can prepare an action without knowing when it will arrive in the round.

We follow the basic game Repos Production 2025, French notice FC-FR01, for three to five players. A game lasts about 30 to 45 minutes and has at most four rounds. The overall difficulty is Medium: we must arbitrate between recruitment, influence and wealth, while accepting the unpredictable order of the common package. Coins are used to pay; rubies are above all the wealth that decides the victory.

02Equipment

The package leaflet lists 55 Mercenary cards, 7 Event cards and 32 card protectors required for the game, with additional replacement copies. It also has 7 chests, 1 tray, 6 tiles Recruitment cost, 5 pieces Portrait, 5 tiles Precious object, 60 coins Rubis, 30 coins Coin, 25 coins Raton Thickness and 1 dice magic. The chests are used for families and storage of reserves; does not give an additional family because the box contains more than five boxes.

Each family uses five protections marked with its coat of arms. The seven neutral protections welcome the Events. The coat of arms makes the property legible even without distinguishing the colours. Keep the money and rubies of your family in its closed chest; the Raccoons Thiefs and Portraits remain visible.

03The goal

To have the highest value in rubies at the end. An unsold precious object is worth ten rubies. The pieces are not directly rubies of victory, and the Thief Ratons are not useful mercenaries: they expose to losses.

The influence is a ranking on the Gallery. The more your Portrait is on the right, the more influential you are. This ranking determines the order of recruitment, certain events, a final bonus and the equality. Moving its Portrait can therefore count without giving immediately a ruby.

04Install families and Place Royale

Each person chooses a family and takes his or her safe, five protections, his or her precious object and ten rubies, placed secretly in the trunk. Place the tray in the center and insert costs 1, 3 and 5 into its gutter. Cost 0 tiles remain nearby. Coins, rubies and Ratons Thiefs are accessible to all.

Sort the mercenaries by their five levels. At level 1, separate the cards according to their effects into three visible piles. Separately mix levels 2 to 5, place each package at its location and reveal two cards under each. Only columns with a recruitment cost are accessible during the handle.

Place the seven Events in their neutral protections. The two cards bearing the start icon of the booklet form the beginning of the common pile, hidden face; mix the others in reserve. Use the printed icon to recognize these cards, without assigning them invented numbers.

Place the Portraits at random on the starting point of the Gallery and then on the free squares immediately to the left. The most influential family receives three pieces, the least influential five, the other four. Place them in the chests. Place the magic dice near the reserve and check the meaning of the classification before the first recruitment.

05Recruit, reveal and prepare the next handle

Recruit in the order of influence

From the most influential family to the least influential, each recruits an accessible mercenary. One can take a visible card or the first hidden card of the pack of its column. Pays its cost to the reserve with your coins; each ruby can replace a coin. The opposite is not possible: coins do not pay a required loss in rubies.

Insert the card into a protection of your family and put it hidden on the common pile. If you have taken the hidden face, look at it secretly before protecting it. Others do not automatically gain the right to know about this recruitment. When all the families have chosen, restock the visible cards. If a package is empty, leave the spaces impossible to complete.

The first round consists of two recruitment runs. The next three have only one each. In total, therefore, each family will have recruited five cards, corresponding to its five protections. Do not give two recruits in all rounds.

Revise Common Package

Mix the common pile and reveal its cards one by one. A family card obliges its owner to apply its effect; an Event concerns the families indicated. Finish completely the effect of a card before returning the next. The mercenaries already purchased are not permanently defeated at the end of their effect: they will return in the following rounds.

The pictograms represent a coin or ruby gain, the loss of a ruby by another family, the sending of a Racon Thief to another family, the throwing of the dice, or a Portrait move. The numbers repeat the action or indicate its quantity according to the map. A move goes up to the next free box in the chosen direction, not necessarily on the occupied neighbouring square. The level 1 mercenaries propose two effects separated by a choice: their owner decides at each revelation which apply.

The magic dice applies the pictogram of its face, in the same language as the cards. It is not a dice of displacement. A Racon is taken in the reserve and placed in front of the family concerned; it does not immediately remove a ruby until it is required to do so.

The five kinds of events

  • Magi Mercenaries In the order of influence, each family can pay a coin, or ruby, to throw the dice and solve its face.
  • Winewine : in this order, everyone can pay as many coins or rubies as he wishes to return as many Raccoons Thiefs to the reserve.
  • Scandal The Portraits of the left area of the Gallery cause two rubies to be lost; those of the central zone one; those of the right none. The precise location counts, not only the rank between players.
  • Magical boost : the family currently the least influential launches the dice and implements its result.
  • Robbery All families equal for the largest number of Ratons lose two rubies, then put all their Ratons back in the reserve.

Always use the state when the event comes out. A previous card may have changed the influence or added a Racon. Do not plan the victims once and for all at the beginning of the round.

Sell the Object and finish earlier

If you have to pay or lose rubies and your safe contains more than enough, announce the sale of your precious item still present. Put it in front of you as a reminder and receive ten rubies. Then settle the missing amount. You can no longer buy this item. If you no longer have the object and cannot settle the required rubies, your family comes out of the game: remove its Portrait and Ratons.

The others finish the current round; the cards of the eliminated family are ignored. The game will stop then without starting a new round. Simply arriving at zero rubies is not enough to eliminate: you must be faced with an impossible loss to pay.

Preparing for the next passage

After rounds 1 to 3, reform the stack with all the cards revealed, add a new hidden event and insert a cost 0 into the gutter by shifting the old costs. This changes prices and access to the levels. The new recruitment will add to this kept package. After the fourth inning, go directly to the count.

06Two specific situations

A mercenary costs five coins. Alice has three coins; she can pay for these three coins and two rubies. She protects her card with her coat of arms and puts it in the common package. When it is revealed, Alice will apply the effect, even if Bob holds the package and returns the cards. The card did not change family during the mix.

Later, a Scandale demanded a ruby from Alice while her chest was empty. She sold her Object, received ten rubies and then handed one to the reserve: she continued with nine. Her Object would no longer be worth ten on the count. You must not receive ten and then forget the loss that caused the sale.

In an independent final example, Alice has eight rubies and her Object intact. If she wins a ruby of influence and does not undergo any other adjustment, her value is 8 + 1 + 10 = 19. The coin richness can still trigger her own bonus: first apply all the final adjustments, then we compare the rubies.

The protections identify the owner in the common package. Generic learning scheme: the illustrations and commercial effects of mercenaries are not reproduced.

07Designing the crowned family

At the end of the fourth round, or in the round in which a family was eliminated, apply in this order the last adjustments: a ruby to the most influential family; a ruby to each of the families to the maximum of coins; a loss of one ruby for each of those maximum of Ratons. The maxima equalitys concern all families on equal terms, not only the first of the Gallery.

Reveal the remaining rubies and add ten for an item still preserved. The richest family wins. On an equal footing, the most influential among the families concerned wins. The possessed mercenaries, the single pieces or the number of rounds dominated do not become other criteria of victory.

08Frequent errors

  • Build a personal package instead of the common stack.
  • Forget the second recruitment in the first round or repeat it to the next round.
  • Complete the Place Royale immediately after each player rather than after the passing of the families.
  • Pay a ruby loss with coins.
  • Exchange two Portraits while a move is looking for the next free box.
  • Forget the missing settlement after the sale of the Object.
  • Add the value of an item sold to the final score.

09Tips for starting

Watch for both your trunk and what others can infer. Spending a ruby to recruit can be justified if the card acts several rounds, but reduces your immediate security. The coins are therefore valuable even before their small end bonus.

Observe the Gallery before events: improving a position can protect a Scandal and give priority to recruitment. Ratons create a collective threat; a Winepot can be useful even when they have not yet cost anything. The order of the package can upset a plan, but knowing all kinds of effects helps to accept this risk.

10Express summary

  • Three to five families, ten rubies and one object each; order of influence on the Gallery.
  • First round: two recruitments; following: one. The protections give the ownership of the cards.
  • One common package; blends, reveals and applies each effect entirely.
  • A ruby replaces a coin, never the other way around.
  • Object sold: ten rubies, then payment of the loss. Without recourse, elimination and end after the handle.
  • Between the rounds, keep the package, add an Event and insert a cost 0.
  • After adjustments, higher ruby value; intact object = ten, equality divided by influence.

FOR FURTHER READING

References and variant

Official French full notice consulted on October 31, 2026. Double initial recruitment, events, conversion Rubis/Pièces, sale of the object and early end read.

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