Tips & Strategy

How to teach The Castles of Burgundy, first-game advice, ships and turn order, small areas, monasteries, livestock, workers and silver, player counts, solo, and where videos differ from the 2019 rulebook — advice, not rules.

Advice only: where anything here differs from the rules pages, the rulebook wins.

How to teach

• Setup, round, actions, tiles, scoring. Watch It Played and TheRulebook both teach the phases and the round first, then the four die actions with workers, then each tile colour and the eight buildings, then area scoring and the end. Teach the Game follows that order.
• Say the two steps. Both teaches stress that a taken tile goes to storage and a second action places it — the rule new players break most.
• Same duchy for everyone. Both recommend duchy 1 or 2 for every player in a first game.

First game

• Small areas early. No Pun Included and TheRulebook point at the phase bonus falling from 10 to 2: a one-space castle or mine in phase A is worth 11, the same in phase E only 3.
• Keep your workers. World Series of Board Gaming warns against spending workers in rounds 1–2 just to finish an area a phase earlier; save them for the bad rolls that come later — an early mine is the exception.
• Don’t clog storage. The same video: three stored tiles with no plan leave no room for the tile you suddenly need.
• Accept empty spaces. You will not fill your duchy in a normal game; five to eight empty spaces is usual (World Series of Board Gaming).

Ships and turn order

• Going first means first pick of the castles, mines and black-depot tiles after each refill. No Pun Included shows players who skip ships stuck in last place for a long time.
• A ship is two things at once: goods to sell and a step up the bridge. Pick the depot with the most goods of the colours you already hold.
• No Wonders (in a video with the top-ranked online player) finishes all ships on duchies where the rivers link the regions.

Mines, silver and the black depot

• A mine placed in phase A pays 5 silver: 5 points at the end, or two and a half black-depot tiles. No Wonders calls a single-space mine area almost free points.
• Spend silver: a black-depot tile every turn or two is an extra action the dice cannot block.

Monasteries and livestock

• World Series of Board Gaming (with the 2023 champion) rates monastery 12 (±1 when taking tiles), monastery 1 and the worker and silver tiles 2, 3, 4 and 8 as strong early picks; yellow tiles are often neglected.
• Livestock grow with each matching tile in the same pasture: start a big pasture with one animal type and keep feeding it (TheRulebook, No Wonders).
• Watch what others ignore: an uncontested colour pays well (World Series of Board Gaming).

Player counts

• 2 players: a tight race. Taking a tile only to deny your opponent is a real move; turn order matters most. Online top players mostly play 2 (No Wonders).
• 3–4 players: blocking one opponent is harder and tiles turn over faster: focus on your own efficiency, goods (3–4 VP per sold tile) and the colour bonuses (World Series of Board Gaming).
• 3 players: depot 6’s dark green space alternates castle and mine by phase — plan around it (Two and three players).

Solo

• The official solo game is a race to fill 37 spaces, not a score: every reset of the target marker is a free action, so points matter only as fuel (The Solo Game).
• Totally Tabled compares this 2019 solo board with the later Special Edition’s solo opponent, which plays more like a 2-player game.

Videos vs the rulebook

• Several videos use the 2011 edition or the Special Edition, whose monastery tiles differ: No Wonders values tile 15 at 3 VP per goods type sold, as on the older tile; the 2019 tile gives 2 (Monastery Tiles).
• Monastery 6 reads differently in each edition — check the 2019 wording (FAQ).
• Some later editions let an inn grow an 8-space area to 9; the 2019 rulebook does not say (FAQ).

Sources

• The Castles Of Burgundy - How To Play — Watch It Played
• The Castles of Burgundy - How to Play (Definitive Guide!) — TheRulebook
• Castles of Burgundy Review - Not Actually About Castles — No Pun Included
• How to win Castles of Burgundy | Strategy Tips for the World Series Champion WSBG — World Series of Board Gaming
• Castles of Burgundy Rank #1 Strategy For All 10 Boards — No Wonders
• The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition | My First Impressions of the New Solo Mode — Totally Tabled
• Rulings: the BGG threads linked in the FAQ.