Lonja (GER/ENG)

A tactical card game for 2 or 3 players aged 8 and up Setup: 16 of the cards are laid out in a 4x4 grid in the middle, with each coin type (gold, silver, bronze) represented at least 5 times. The remaining cards are shuffled. Then each player is dealt 10 cards face down. Each player takes 3 cards into their hand, and the rest form their personal, face-down draw pile. All remaining cards are set aside. One person becomes the starting player, and the other person may choose a coin type first. The starting player then chooses one of the remaining coin types for themselves. Objective: The aim of the game is for players to achieve a majority in as many rows and columns as possible with their coin type and then win these rows as points. (All points from all rows + all points from all columns + the same calculation from round 1 added together.)

Procedure: Players take turns placing a card face up on one of the cards already laid out, thus covering it. The active player may either cover a card of the same type (e.g., gold on gold) or of the same value (e.g., silver 3 on copper 3). The player then draws a card from their draw pile (if still available). Scoring: When both players have placed all their cards, the score is calculated. For each row (i.e., each row and each column), the majority coin type is determined. The points for gold, silver, and bronze in the row are counted. The simple majority wins the row. For the player of this coin type, all points from all cards in this row are counted as points. If no player has the majority or the neutral coin type has the majority, no one receives any points. Then another round is played with the second set of cards, with the starting player changing (and the other player having the choice of coin type). End of the game: The game ends after the second round. The winner is the player who has scored the most points from all rows in both rounds of the game.