The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition · Board game rules

Can I place a Chateaumu on any county hex?

Quick answer

No — the Châteauma cannot place a tile on just any county card space; it follows a fixed search order, always starting with the leftmost, topmost open matching space.

Details

When the Châteauma takes its turn, it doesn't choose freely where to place a hex tile. It rolls its die, checks the matching depot, and then searches its selected county card starting from the leftmost, topmost open hex space, moving left to right and top to bottom, until it finds a space matching an available tile's color [p.24 — Châteauma Actions]. Only if a match is found there does it place the tile on that specific space; otherwise it checks the next open space, and if none match on the county card, it moves on to check other depots clockwise [p.24 — Châteauma Actions].

If it can't find a match on the board at all, it falls back to using tiles from its Reserve, wild tiles, or ultimately buying a tile from the black depot as a face-down wild tile — again, all following the fixed leftmost/topmost priority order, never a free choice of space [p.24 — Choosing and Placing a Hex Tile].

Watch out: This strict placement order also applies when the Châteauma moves hexes from a completed county card onto its duchy board — tiles go to the topmost, leftmost available matching space, and if the duchy is already full of that color, extra tiles just stack on top of an existing tile rather than being placed "anywhere" [p.25 — County Card Completion].

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