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Orleans

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In Orléans you recruit farmers, knights, merchants and monks into a personal bag, then draw and assign them each round to trade, build and advance through medieval France. A medium-heavy bag-building strategy game for 2–4 players, around 90 minutes, ages 12+.

About the Game

Each round in Orléans you'll draw a handful of followers — farmers, knights, monks, traders and more — from your personal bag and assign them to actions on your player board. Draw the right mix and your plans click into place; draw poorly and you'll improvise. Because every recruit you hire changes the odds, shaping your bag matters as much as spending it.

Games play with 2–4 players in about 90 minutes, suit ages 12 and up, and sit at a medium-heavy complexity. Play blends bag building, worker placement and point-to-point movement as your merchant roams medieval France founding trading stations, gathering goods and advancing science.

Designed by Reiner Stockhausen and released by dlp games in 2014, Orléans helped popularise bag building as a mechanism and earned a spot on the 2015 Kennerspiel des Jahres recommendation list, cementing its status as a modern strategy classic.

History

Orléans was designed by Reiner Stockhausen and first published by dlp games in 2014. One of the earliest and most influential bag-building games, it earned a place on the 2015 Kennerspiel des Jahres recommendation list and has since become a benchmark of modern euro-style strategy design.

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Shipping details

Orleans

$49.00

Watch: How to play

Rules of Orleans

  • Setup: each player takes a player board, a bag with four starting followers (farmer, boatman, craftsman, trader), some coins and a merchant pawn that begins in the city of Orléans; goods tiles are placed on the map.
  • The game runs for 18 rounds. Each round opens by revealing an event tile, which takes effect at the end of that round, so you have time to prepare.
  • Planning: draw a hand of followers from your personal bag (four to start) and assign them to the action spaces on your board.
  • Players then take turns carrying out one action at a time; you can only perform an action once all its required followers are in place.
  • Recruiting actions add new followers to your bag and advance that follower's track, granting bonuses such as coins, goods, technology tiles, development steps or larger future draws.
  • Travel actions move your merchant along roads and rivers to collect goods, and the Guildhall action founds a trading station in your merchant's city. The Town Hall sends followers to the Beneficial Deeds board for coins, citizens and development.
  • Monks count as wild followers. Followers used in actions return to your bag; followers you drew but didn't place stay on your board for next round.
  • Game end: after 18 rounds, score your coins, goods, citizens and trading stations — citizens and stations are worth more the higher your development track. Most points wins.

Strategy

  • Shape your bag deliberately: every recruit changes your draw odds, so add followers that serve a plan rather than grabbing everything on offer.
  • An early knight or two increases how many followers you draw each round, which compounds into more options all game.
  • A monk's wild flexibility rescues poor draws — picking one up early can keep your plans moving when luck turns.
  • Technology tiles earned on the craftsman track permanently fill action slots, making awkward follower combinations cheaper over time.
  • Trading stations and citizens score based on your development track, so balance expansion with deeds that push that track upward.
  • Check the revealed event each round and keep a few coins in reserve so demands like taxes don't derail a key turn.
  • Unplaced followers carry over — deliberately banking a spare can set up a much stronger next turn.
  • Plan merchant routes that collect goods on the way to cities where you want stations, rather than making separate trips.
  • You can't do everything in 18 rounds; committing to two or three tracks usually beats dabbling in all of them.