How to Play Splendor With 2-4 Players

Splendor is a 2-4 player board game where players try to accumulate wealth and purchase developments to attract nobles and gain prestige as a Renaissance-era merchant. To set the game up, separate the development cards by color and shuffle them into separate piles. Arrange them in a column so that all of the level 1 green cards are on the bottom, the level 2 yellow cards are in the middle, and the level 3 blue cards are at the top. Flip over the top 4 cards from each pile and lay them face-up in rows on the right side of the deck that they belong to. Next, shuffle the noble cards and flip over one card for each player in the game, plus one extra. Set these in a row on top of the development cards. Finally, separate the gemstone tokens by color and set them up in separate piles under the development cards. Play starts with the youngest player at the table and moves clockwise. On a player’s turn they can do 1 of 4 things. First, they may take 3 gem tokens in different colors. Alternatively, they can take 2 gem tokens of the same color, although there must be at least 4 tokens of that color available in the pile in order to do this. Gold does not count as a gem. Players may never have more than 10 gem tokens in front of them at any one time, and a player must put any excess tokens back at the end of their turn if they have too many of them. If a player has enough gems, they can also spend their turn buying a development card. The price of each development is listed on the front of the card, and they pay the gems for it by returning them to the pile. When a player buys a development card, they take it off of the board and put it in front of them, face-up. This development is theirs for the rest of the game. That card is replaced with another from its corresponding draw pile. On the top right of each development card is a gemstone. When a development is face-up in front of a player, they can treat the gemstone on that card like it’s a gem token in their hand, and they have access to this extra resource for the rest of the game. On the top left of some cards, there is a number. These are prestige points, and the aim of the game is to get as many prestige points as possible. The final thing a player can do on their turn is reserve a development. To do this, they take the development card off of the board without paying for it and replace it with a card from the draw pile. However, instead of this card going face-up, it goes into the player's hand. When a player reserves a development, they take a gold token. Gold tokens are basically wild cards, and players can use them in place of any gemstone. Players can only have 3 development cards in their hand at a time, and while they don’t get access to the prestige points or gemstone on the card while it’s in their hand, they can buy it on their turn by paying its cost to add it to their board. At the end of each player’s turn, everyone checks to see if they’ve attracted the attention of one of the noblemen or noblewomen by looking at the noble cards at the top of the board. The developments that attract each noble are printed on their card underneath their prestige points. If a player attracts them, they are automatically added to their board. The nobles are not replaced once they’re taken from the board. The game continues until any player reaches 15 prestige points, which triggers the final round in the game. Once every player takes one more turn, everyone adds up their prestige points and the player with the highest prestige is the winner.