Castles of Burgundy Tile Tracking: What Is Still to Come

The Castles of Burgundy draws its tiles at random, but not from nowhere. The depots have a fixed number of spaces of each color, and the box has a fixed number of each tile. Put those two facts together and a four-player game turns out to be far more predictable than it looks.

The numbers below come from the component list in the current rulebook and the depot spaces printed on the four-player side of the board.

The tiles in the box

What the depots show in a four-player phase

The six numbered depots have four hex spaces each, 24 in all. Count their colors on the board and you get the same mix every phase: 8 buildings, 4 ships, 4 livestock, 4 monasteries, 2 castles, and 2 mines. The black depot adds 8 black-backed tiles.

Multiply by five phases, and compare with the box:

So in a four-player base game, every hex tile in the box appears exactly once. The only castles that never reach a depot are the four starting castles already in the duchies. Every one of the 26 monasteries shows up at some point. Every mine shows up.

What that tells you

A missing monastery is coming. If you are hoping for monastery 8 and it has not appeared by phase D, it will appear in phase D or E. If someone took it in phase A, it is gone for good.

Tiles left at the end of a phase are gone. At the start of each new phase, leftover hex tiles go back to the box. A tile you skip now does not wait for you.

Mines are tight. Twelve mines reach the board in all: two per phase in the numbered depots, plus two black ones. On duchy 1, each player has 3 mine spaces, so four players on duchy 1 would need all 12 to fill them. Every mine a rival takes is one fewer for the mine race.

Castles are tight too. Twelve castles reach the board: ten from the numbered depots and the two black ones. On duchy 1, each player has three castle spaces to fill beyond the start. Again, four players would need exactly twelve.

Buildings are steady. Each type appears seven times over the game: five times in the numbered depots and twice in the black depot. Once you have seen most of a type taken, plan your towns around other types.

How to track without writing

You do not need notes for this. Keep three running counts in your head:

1. Castles left this game. Start at 12 and count down as they appear.
2. Mines left. Start at 12.
3. The monasteries you want. Two or three numbers, and whether each has appeared.

Find the two depots with dark green spaces and the two with gray spaces on your board, so you know where each phase’s castles and mines will appear.

Fewer players, fewer certainties

With two or three players, the board’s other side uses fewer depot spaces, so many tiles never appear. The two-player game uses only the inner 12 depot spaces and 4 black depot spaces each phase, 16 tiles instead of 32. Some monasteries may never show up at all.

In a three-player game, the dark green space of depot 6 holds a castle in phases A, C, and E and a mine in phases B and D, which shifts the castle and mine counts again.

Tracking still helps at lower counts, but it becomes about likelihood rather than certainty. Treat each tile as possibly the last of its kind.

Use it to plan, not to stall

Tile tracking is for big decisions: whether to chase a monastery, a color race, or a town plan. It is not something to recount every turn. Our guide to analysis paralysis is a good reminder that the table’s time matters too.