Solo: the Rival Clan
Playing The White Castle alone against the Tokugawa clan's visit: setup and difficulty, how the rival takes dice and acts, its end-of-round scoring and icons — plus the community Gingkogawa Clan bot.
You play against a rival clan run by the Solitaire deck. The setup changes are in the setup checklist (choose 1 player).
The Tokugawa clan’s visit
Setup
- Set up a 2-player game, but draw your Starting cards at random (1 of each deck).
- Choose the rival’s colour and place its Heron, Influence and Fan by difficulty:
| Easy | Medium | Hard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clan Points | 0 | 3 | 8 |
| Heron (turn order) | 2nd | 1st | 1st |
| Passage of Time | 0 | 1 | 3 |
- The rival needs no Domain board: keep its coins and clan members beside you. Shuffle the Solitaire deck and put it Bridge side up.
Golden rules
- The rival never pays for anything.
- It never takes actions to place dice or clan members other than its cards’ icons.
- It gains no Resources — only coins.
- It may place a die of a colour that doesn’t match the room.
The rival’s turn
- Find a die. Turn over the top card: the card now on top of the deck shows a die colour and a position on its Bridge (left, centre or right). If such a die is there, use it. If not, draw another card and compare again, laying the drawn cards in a row, until the deck’s top card shows a die that can be taken.
- Place the die on the space shown by that top card. If the value earns coins, the rival takes them; it never pays. With 2 players nothing stacks: if the space is taken, the die goes to the Well (coins as usual, no tile rewards).
- Act. From top to bottom and left to right, do all the actions on the last 2 cards drawn (or the only one, if the first card worked). Each action it can’t do gives it Clan Points equal to the round number. Then put the drawn cards at the bottom of the deck.
End of each round
- Right after the turn order: the rival hands in its coins for Clan Points. First in turn order: the round number in points per 3 coins. Second: the round number per 5 coins. It keeps the remainder.
- In the Gardens step (rounds 1–2) it scores the round number for each of its Gardeners that activates.
- Shuffle the Solitaire deck.
Final scoring
The rival scores like a player, except for leftover Resources and coins (already scored each round).
The rival’s icons
| Icon | What the rival does |
|---|---|
| Gardener to a Garden | On the shown Garden type, the lowest-value card without its Gardener (you break ties). If both types are shown, the lowest of all. |
| Warrior to a Yard | Into the Training Yard with the shown cost. |
| Courtier to the Gate | Places a Courtier at the Gate. |
| Climb 1 or 2 | Moves its lowest Courtier up; on floors 1–2 you choose the room and its card is removed and replaced; on floor 3 it takes the leftmost free Daimyo favour. |
 | Gains that many Clan Points. |
 | Moves its Influence that many spaces. |
 | Gains that many coins. |
The nine Solitaire cards are pictured in Cards & Components.
[Matcha] The expansion adds 3 Solitaire cards and Geisha icons (Matcha). [Bōeki] Rival setup changes are on the Bōeki page.
The Gingkogawa Clan bot
A community bot sheet (credited to MCLof) that makes the rival choose Castle rooms more cleverly. Set up as above, with these changes:
- The bot is first in turn order and starts on the Passage of Time track at 1 (Easy), 2 (Normal) or 3 (Hard).
- Its cards are read as three zones: Stewards’ floor, Diplomats’ floor and Outside the Walls.
On its turn it draws cards until a die is available, then:
- Stewards’ floor zone: if a free room has two Die tiles of the same colour, the die goes there (several: the first from left to right, starting from the shown position). It does the last card’s actions, plus — Easy: 1 Influence and 1 Clan Point; Normal: the round number in Influence and Clan Points; Hard: it reveals another card and does its actions too.
- Otherwise, if the shown position is free, the die goes there and it does the last card’s actions.
- If the position is taken but the zone has space, the die goes to the next free position to the right (wrapping to the left) and it does the last card’s actions.
- If the zone is full, the die goes to the Well for coins. Easy: 1 Influence and 1 Clan Point. Normal: the same, then the top half of the last card if the die is odd, the bottom half if even. Hard: the round number in Influence and Clan Points, then the top or bottom half the same way.
Extra rules:
- A Courtier move with no Courtier in the Castle places one at the Gate instead (a 2-floor move: place it, then move it to the 1st floor). A Gate placement with no Courtier left moves the lowest Courtier up 1 instead.
- Used cards go to a discard pile; reshuffle it when the deck runs out and at the start of each round.