Guilds to Galaxies Rules
Buy, build and charge rent — on nine boards, a century each.
Guilds to Galaxies is the property game, played across nine boards — one for every century from the 1400s to the 2200s. Buy what you land on, complete a group, improve it in three even steps, and take rent from everyone who passes. The rules are constant; what changes is the world you are trading in, from caravans and guild halls to routes between planets.
Ways to play Guilds to Galaxies
Two to four at the board
Play Guilds to Galaxies against the computer with one, two or three others at the board. Every seat is filled, so a game always starts.
Online with friends and family
Create a board, share the code, and play together on the same board. Online games count towards your rating and My Stats.
Picked up where you left it
Close the tab mid-game and come back to it — the game is kept in your browser, on the board you were playing.
No ads, ever
No advertising, no interruption, nothing to dismiss. The same promise as every Vanikar™ game.
🎯 Objective
Be the richest player when the rounds are up.
🎲 Guilds to Galaxies setup
- Choose a century — the 1400s through to the 2200s — and its board, tokens and groups come with it.
- Two to four play, and you go first. Empty seats are the computer’s.
- Every seat starts with the same cash and a token on the first space.
- The track runs round an oval of forty spaces, with four wide spaces set a quarter apart.
▶ How to play Guilds to Galaxies
- Roll two dice and move your token that many spaces round the track.
- Land on a holding, a transport or a works the bank still owns, and you may buy it at the price on it.
- Land on someone else’s deed and you pay its rent — a holding’s bare rent doubled when its owner holds the whole group.
- Land on a transport you own with another of yours somewhere ahead, and you may ride on to it, past whatever lies between.
- A works bills a visitor for every deed the owner holds — there are no dice in it.
- Doubles roll again, as often as they come.
- The news and post spaces turn the top card of a deck: money in, money out, a move somewhere, or so much for every deed you hold.
- When your move is done you may still improve a group you own outright, and mortgage anything whose group has no improvements.
📖 Detailed guide
Buying, renting and improving
- Everything on the track that can be owned is bought from the bank at the price printed on it, when you land on it.
- Rent is what you pay for landing on someone else’s deed. Hold every holding of a group, unmortgaged, and its bare rent doubles.
- Improvement takes three steps, made evenly across a group: a stall, a workshop and a guildhall in the 1400s; a pilot, a scale-up and a campus in the 2000s.
- You can only improve a group you own outright, on your own turn, and never two steps on one holding while another lags behind.
- A deed whose group has no improvements can be mortgaged for half its price, and lifted later.
Transports and works
- Transports are the routes of the century — caravans and ships, then railways, then lines between worlds. Rent rises with how many of them you hold.
- Owning a transport lets you ride from it to another of yours further round, and you are paid if that carries you past the start.
- A works — a watermill, a press, a grid, a swarm round the Sun — bills a visitor for every deed its owner holds. No dice come into it.
- Holding the most works earns a discount on building, which is the quiet way to win a long game.
The quarter spaces
- Four wide spaces sit a quarter of the way apart round every board: a start, a rest, a hazard and a hold.
- Rests pay you — the Village Well for every group you hold a deed in, Safe Harbour and the Observation Deck for every route, the Co-working Café for every network.
- Only some hazards send you to the hold, and what the hold is depends on the century: the stocks in the 1400s, a tax audit in the 1900s, a suspended account in the 2000s, cold sleep in the 2200s.
- Held is held: nothing about the dice puts you there or gets you out, and the 1500s board holds nobody at all.
Nine centuries
- Each board is a century, made of what the world owned and traded then — herds, fields, mines, workshops and markets in the 1400s; networks and orbitals at the far end.
- Every century brings its own tokens: cowries, sailboats, lanterns, crowns, gears, lamps, rockets, domes, planets — with houses, stars, crystals, pawns and counters besides.
- Group colours, transport names and the words on the spaces all change with the century; the rules do not.
- Tap any space to read its deed — its group, its price, its rents, and whose it is.
🏁 How Guilds to Galaxies is won
The richest seat when the rounds run out wins — cash, plus what the deeds and improvements are worth. A debt your cash cannot meet is met for you: improvements are sold back, the most improved holding first, and then your cheapest deeds are mortgaged.
❓ Guilds to Galaxies — frequently asked questions
How many players do you need for Guilds to Galaxies?
Guilds to Galaxies is played by 2–4. Seats you do not fill are taken by the computer, so a game always starts.
When can I play Guilds to Galaxies?
Guilds to Galaxies is in development. It will arrive in Board Games by Vanikar™ and is included in the same subscription as the card games, with nothing separate to buy.
Is Guilds to Galaxies included in my subscription?
Yes. One Card Games by Vanikar™ subscription covers the card games, Chess & Checkers and the board games, and every game released after them.
Does Guilds to Galaxies have ads?
No. No Vanikar™ game has ever carried advertising, and none ever will.
How many boards does Guilds to Galaxies have?
Nine — one for every century from the 1400s to the 2200s. The rules are the same on all of them; the holdings, transports, works, tokens and colours all change.
How do I improve a property?
Own every holding in a group, with none of them mortgaged, and then improve on your own turn: one step at a time, spread evenly across the group, three steps in all.
What happens if I cannot pay?
The debt is met for you: improvements are sold back, the most improved holding first, and then your cheapest deeds are mortgaged until the debt is covered.
How does the game end?
It runs a set number of rounds, and the richest seat at the end of them wins — cash plus the worth of the deeds and improvements held.
Guilds to Galaxies is inspired by The Landlord’s Game, created by Elizabeth J. Magie and described in expired U.S. Patent No. 748,626 (1904). Vanikar’s artwork, board designs, eras, terminology, software, and additional gameplay features are independently created.