Solo: the Corrupt Magistrate
Face the AI Magistrate and use the High Courtier in a complete solo game.
Prepare the solo deck
Use one colour for yourself, a second for the High Courtier and a third for the Corrupt Magistrate. Put the Magistrate first, you second and the High Courtier third in the starting queue. Put a Magistrate disc on the first spaces of the favour, influence and score tracks. Set aside the Magistrate’s master meeple, buildings and six solo cards. The High Courtier follows the two-player rules.
Shuffle the solo cards except the Palace card. Shuffle the Palace card and two randomly selected other cards together. Put one of the remaining cards on top of this packet and the final two underneath it, so Palace is second, third or fourth. Reshuffle the solo cards from the discard pile after each scoring phase.
The Magistrate’s turn
Draw a solo card; it sets the intended building-site action. If no available action slot lets the Magistrate activate that site type, discard the card and draw another. To choose an action slot, first look for an active row or column with an empty site of the intended type. Choose the available line with most Magistrate buildings, then most High Courtier buildings, then most of your buildings, then the line furthest from the queue. Place a Magistrate building on an empty intended site in that line. If none is empty, use a line containing a Magistrate or High Courtier site of that type, preferring the greatest combined number of their buildings, then most Magistrate buildings, most of your buildings and finally the line furthest from the queue. In this fallback the Magistrate does not build. If its supply is empty, use the fallback.
The Magistrate performs the action on the solo card as many times as the total number of Magistrate and High Courtier buildings in the active line. The card reference pages in the component gallery show the six action types.
If the camel market is in the active line, the Magistrate takes all camels if it has no camels or the market has at least two. Otherwise it places a camel in the top-left available slot, then top-right, and gains that boon. It takes one library action after the camel-market step. At round end, resolve queues normally, then discard the solo card.
Magistrate priorities
| Intended action | How the Magistrate resolves it |
|---|---|
| Favour | It never takes favour as an action. It can still gain it from other effects and scores printed track points. On a full favour track, it gains influence; if both tracks are full, it scores 2 points. |
| Soldier | It never chooses this as its action, but other effects may deploy a soldier. Place it on the northernmost unprotected High Courtier building, furthest west on a tie; otherwise use the Magistrate’s own northernmost unprotected building. It gains 2 influence for a High Courtier site or 1 for its own. |
| Caravansary | For each action, take the visible card worth the most end-game points; break ties by the card closest to the front. Ignore normal access and spice-type limits. Pairs of ginger deploy a soldier, juniper gain favour, and cinnamon or pepper score 3 points. Remove this solo card if no caravan cards remain. |
| Palace | One to three actions place one courtier in the available hall that scores most; four or five place two. On a tie choose the hall that would score you more, then the leftmost. It does not spend favour. |
| Library | Each action gains one scroll. It makes a breakthrough for each two scrolls. At two scrolls it chooses the Mosque breakthrough if its mosque advances exceed its caravan cards, otherwise Caravansary; future matching actions are taken one extra time. At four it takes a random available breakthrough for no effect and scores 3. At six it takes the Marketplace tile and places an outer post if possible, otherwise an inner post, gaining a good; if unavailable, it takes one Mosque action. At eight it takes the 8-point tile if available, otherwise two favour. Remove the solo card at eight scrolls. |
| Marketplace | Place one post per turn, outer if legally available, otherwise inner. Prefer an unoccupied city and use the rulebook’s directional priority. Gain a common good per inner post and a rare good per outer post. Fulfil the most valuable contracts possible, ignoring resource and influence costs but committing goods and scrolls. Prefer common goods when a contract allows either; use the specified tie-break when contract values match. |
| Mosque | Advance one space per action, starting on the leftmost path with a camel. It takes the camel, scores 3 at each of the two point spaces, takes the highest-value available scoring tile (random on a tie), deploys a soldier, gains favour, takes a palace action, builds a wall, and receives the final mosque bonus as those rewards are reached. Remove the card after the end of the track. |
| Wall | Build one cheapest wall per action; ties use purple, tan, teal, then orange. Choose a slot by the printed priority: protect two High Courtier buildings, then mixed bot buildings, then Magistrate buildings, then player buildings, then an empty line. Ties go clockwise from the north wall’s westernmost slot. The Magistrate never puts a segment in a gate slot. |
Shared systems and scoring
The Magistrate never activates its own buildings and never activates yours. It is never destroyed in an invasion; the High Courtier is removed if unprotected. The Magistrate never spends favour but scores for courtiers and the normal yearly bonuses. It scores caravan sets at game end just like a player. You win only if your score is higher.