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Old West Empresario (Solo Variant)

Description

The journey out west was daunting and fraught with peril, but you made it! And now you’ve been granted land to take responsibility for new settlers.

In Old West Empresario, you take on the role of an empresario, building a prosperous town in newly settled western territories.

Attract settlers through clever dice drafting and tile placement. Build the most valuable town with the most population to become the state capital!

Video Review

Solo Rules

SOLO VARIANT 1.0 by mattlowder from BoardGameGeek

Set-Up

  1. Put 5 black dice, 40 coins, and 30 VP in a general supply
  2. Draw 4 random “Wanted” Objective Cards (GOLD cards only)
  3. Set up the six Number Tiles showing 1 through 6
  4. Count out 40 random building tiles to form the main stack. Deal two of these under each numbered tile.
  5. Draw three buildings off the top of the main stack and draw two random character/persona cards. Keep one Persona and one unbuilt building. Return the other two buildings to the bottom of the town stack. The unchosen Persona card goes into the box.
  6. Roll the 5 black dice and place accordingly at the top of the appropriate columns.
  7. Take 3 Coins from the supply, and you are ready to play!

On Your Turn

You go first every round. Select a die on a Numbered Tile and Discard it to either:

  1. discard a building tile from the corresponding column for 3 coins, or
  2. claim one of the tiles in that column and add it to your town according to normal rules, or
  3. use the number of that die to trigger all matching built buildings in your town in any order.

If you complete a Wanted Objective Card at any time, flip it face down.

You can spend a single coin as normal to change the value of the die +1/-1.

After you pull a die, if there are two or more dice remaining on the Number Tiles, carry out an Automa turn.

However, if after your turn or an Automa turn there is exactly one die left, the round ends immediately.

You get to use the last die to trigger one building as normal, then, go to the end of the round.

On The Automa Turn

Roll a die not in the game. This represents which Numbered Tile the Automa interacts with. Three things could happen:

  1. If there are no dice on the matching Numbered Tile, remove the topmost tile in that column from the game and give the Automa three coins from the supply.
  2. If there are no dice on the matching Numbered Tile and there are zero buildings in its column, simply give the Automa 1 VP.
  3. If you roll and there is a corresponding die on that Numbered Tile, the Automa removes that die from the Numbered Tile, adds the topmost tile of that column to the Automa area above the game space, full-color side up, and the Automa takes a 1 VP citizen from the supply into its area.

After a single die remains and you use it to trigger one building in your town, the round ends.

Take 1 citizen VP from the general supply at the end of every round and add it to the Automa’s area.

Gather all 5 black dice, reroll them, and place them on the appropriate Numbered Tiles. Refill from the building stack any gaps in the game area from right to left, and bottom to top, so there are 12 buildings again.

Ending the game

The game ends if at any point in the game:

  1. the general supply of money or VP is emptied, immediately go to final scoring.
  2. you cannot completely fill the 12 spaces needed to begin another round, the game ends immediately and proceed to final scoring
  3. you have 15 built building in your town, complete the current round and then do final scoring.

Scoring

Score as you would a regular game with a few changes:

  • You must have 5 or more Oil drop building icons to be considered to have the most.
  • You must have 5 or more Green Native tiles adjacent to each other to earn the 4 bonus points.
  • Rail and Cotton icons are scored as normal.
  • You receive points for the Wanted Objective Cards you completed.
  • Any face up Wanted Cards you didn’t complete go to the Automa victory area.

The Automa gets a simple 3 points for every building tile in their area. Nothing else printed on the tiles matters, except the three commodity icons.

The Automa scores 1 VP for each cotton and rail icon, 1 VP for each pair of oil icons, and 1 point for each complete set of 3 coins.

Finally, add all VP from citizen tokens to the automas score. No other powers or civic buildings matter in solo mode.

Files

A selection of files from BoardGameGeek. Links will open in a new window or tab.

Old West Empresario rules EN (compressed)

English rules for Old West Empresario, by Stan Kordonskiy (developed by Seth Jaffee, published by TMG)

>> Click to download PDF <<

Simple Solo Variant – v 1.0

An unofficial, unauthorized, fan-made, simple variant with very little A.I. upkeep, inspired by Stonemaier Games Automa. Enjoy!

>> Click to download PDF <<