Kutná Hora: The City of Silver

Introduction

Silver has been discovered in a hill in central Bohemia. Miners flock to the site, turning a sleepy Czech valley into a 14th century boomtown.

Players take charge of wealthy families, each with influence in various guilds. They use their wealth to expand the mines and build the city of Kutná Hora. The economy changes as the city grows, driven by the choices the players make. To win, you will need to adapt to the price fluctuations and keep your eyes open for opportunity.

Components

• 1 Kutná Hora board
• 1 town hall board
• 1 rounds track
• 1 prospecting board
• 4 player boards
• 2 card stands
• 11 Saint Barbara tiles
• 4 reference sheets
• 24 guild building tiles
• 12 public building tiles
• 12 guild tiles
• 4 rock tiles
• 27 mine tiles
• 4 mining technology tiles
• 9 guild setup cards
• 15 mine setup cards
• 21 population cards
• 16 ore cards
• 10 event cards
• 6 action cards per player (24 total)
• 12 patrician tokens (3 of each color)
• 18 pelican tokens
• 53 coins
• 1 starting player marker

RE-Wood

We’re proud to have the first modern board game featuring RE-Wood – a revolutionary material developed in Germany. This new technology combines wood waste and recycled binding material to make highly detailed board game components with a unique feel.

• 1 rounds counter
• 1 tax counter
• One set of pieces in each player’s color:
  • 12 house tokens
  • 9 miner figures
  • 3 plot markers
  • 6 production counters
  • 1 reputation counter
  • 1 score counter

REPLACEMENT TOKENS: Store this tile in the box in case you lose one of these essential tokens. Do not punch these out!

Assembly

Card Stands Assembly

Fold cardboard away from half-cut side. If you fold the wrong way, it will snap.

1. Step A: Fold the cardboard base.
2. Step B: Insert the slider components (with ‘This side up’).
3. Step C: Insert the indicator arms and cards into the assembled stands.

Player Board Assembly

Apply double-sided tape as shown to adhere the layered player board pieces together.

Board Setup

Rounds Track

• A 4-player game uses the side with five rounds.
• A 2- or 3-player game uses the side with six rounds.

1. Place the rounds counter on the first space of the rounds track.
2. Place the tax counter on space 0 of the tax track, which runs along the bottom of the rounds track.
3. Place the 3 red-patrician buildings in a stack on the rounds track, on the marked square that shows when they come into play.

Town Hall Board

4. Group the guild buildings into 6 stacks, by color. From each stack, take the tile with the marked corner.

   The marked tiles will be at the bottom of their stacks. Shuffle them and deal them randomly to the 6 spaces in the two leftmost columns. Place the remaining 3 tiles from each stack in a random order atop the matching tile on the board.

   This face is up until the building is built.

5. Group the green, silver, and yellow patrician buildings into 3 stacks, by color. Each stack is mixed randomly and placed at the end of a row, on the space corresponding to the depicted patrician.

   From now on, we will refer to all patrician buildings as public buildings – anyone can build them, but no one will own them.

Kutná Hora Board

Assemble the Kutná Hora board with the correct side up:

• A 3- or 4-player game uses the side with more squares.
• A 2-player game uses the side with fewer squares.

6. Choose one mine setup card at random.
7. Shuffle the rock tiles face down, deal them to the mining spaces depicted on the setup card, and then turn them face up.

   These stars will be important at the end of the game, when calculating the value of each row.

Common Play Area

8. Card Stands: Place the card stands where everyone can see them. The indicator arms start on the left, showing only numbers in the leftmost column. Check to be sure cards are in numerical order, starting with card 0 in front and the turn-over card in the very back.
9. St. Barbara’s Cathedral: Set up St. Barbara’s Cathedral where everyone can see it. The 11 tiles are arranged in order, with 1–5 on the bottom, 6–10 in the middle, and 11 on top.
10. Bank: Keep the coins near the board to form a bank, along with the patrician tokens and the pelican tokens. Use exactly 3 patrician tokens of each color.
11. Mining Technologies: Place the 4 mining technology tiles in a face-down stack, in order. The tile with 1 belongs on top.
12. Mines Stack: Group the mine tiles face down, according to their backs. Shuffle each stack, then make a mining tile stack with tiles on top, the tiles in the middle, and the tiles on the bottom. Place the stack in the middle of the prospecting board, leaving one space empty for the discard pile.

Player Setup

Each player chooses a color and takes the pieces in that color. Most of them go on your player board:

• Place 4 production markers at 0. The other 2 stay beside your board in case you need to track income over 10.
• Place 3 plot markers on their designated slots on the board.
• Place 12 house tokens in their rows.
• Place 1 miner in the miner pool. Store your other 8 miners in the waiting zone on the right.
• Your reputation marker starts at 0. Note that there is ample room for your reputation to go negative.
• Your score counter starts on space 0 of the scoring track of the Kutná Hora board.
• Keep the 6 action cards in your hand – either literally in your hand, or in a place that you think of as “your hand”. The cards are not secret.

Starting Player

The starting player marker is based on Kutná Hora’s first town seal, from 1308. Give it to the player who was most recently underground. (Or choose randomly.)

Starting Groschen

• First player – 40 groschen
• Second player – 41 groschen
• Third player – 42 groschen
• Fourth player – 43 groschen

Guild Setup

Each player belongs to 3 guilds. Your guilds determine which buildings you can build and which you can’t. The guild setup card depicts one set of guilds for each player. Choose a card at random and use the row matching how many players you have.

• In reverse order, each player chooses one set, starting with the last player and finishing with the starting player, who has only one choice.
• Then everyone chooses which of their guild tiles go in which rows. Players make this choice in order, starting with the first player.

For your first game, use guild setup card 1. Give each player a different set of 3 guilds, chosen from the appropriate row of this card. Place the guilds on your player board in the order shown on the card.

Two-Player Game – Event Card Setup

In a 2-player game, event cards are used to increase the economic activity of the game.

1. Separate the event cards into decks A and B and shuffle both.
2. Each round except the last will have an event. The rounds before the red-patrician stack have A events. The rounds after have B events.
3. Deal an event from the appropriate deck face down above each space of the rounds track (and remember that the last round has no event).
4. Reveal the round 1 event now, before round 1 begins.
5. If the round 1 event has a tax symbol in the upper left corner, advance the tax counter by the amount shown.

Event cards can also be used to liven up the economies of 3- or 4-player games, but they are not necessary.

Round Structure & Turn Overview

The game is played in rounds, as indicated by the rounds track at the top of the board.

The player with the starting player marker takes the first turn of the round, and play continues clockwise until each player has taken 3 turns.

On your turn, you choose one of your action cards and play it, choosing one of the two actions printed on it.

Once played, the card cannot be used again for the rest of the round. So when you choose the action you take, you are also giving up the possibility of using the other half of the card. Plan ahead.

• You play 2 cards per turn for your first two turns.
• After that, you have only 2 cards left. Choose and play only 1 card on your final turn.

The round ends once all players have taken 3 turns (and played 5 of their 6 cards). Certain things happen at the end of a round, as shown on the rounds track:

• At the end of each round, each player must either pay taxes or pay a reputation penalty.
• After a few rounds, the red patrician tiles come into play.
• Patricians may hand out points for various things at the end of each of the final three rounds – or they may not! Players will have control over what is scored during this step.

To set up for the next round, take all your action cards back into your hand. They are now all usable again.

The starting player marker passes to the left, and the new starting player starts the new round.

How to Win

The player with the most points wins. There is a special patrician-scoring phase at the end of each of the last 3 rounds. And a decisive amount of points is awarded at the end of the game. Look at your tiles and pay attention to the upper left corner:

• Matching dots: These dots can match dots on the sides of the board and on neighboring buildings. Each matching dot will be worth 1 point at the end of the game.
• Stars on mines: These stars indicate how much a row of mines will be worth. Players with more stars will get more points from the row. Try to dominate lucrative rows.

Prices & A Dynamic Economy

Kutná Hora has 6 commodities. Their values are given in Prague groschen, the coin that King Wenceslas II began minting after he took control of the silver mines of Kutná Hora.

When the game says you must pay a certain quantity of wood or permits, check the current price and pay that many groschen.

Prices will change during play. Whenever an effect advances the population deck or the ore deck, remove the top card and slide it into the back behind all the other cards. (Do not flip it over.)

Supply and Demand Principles

• As population increases: prices will also increase.
• When you build a guild building: its indicator moves right and prices go down.
• As ore production increases: ore prices will fall, but silver prices and permit costs will rise.
• Silver buildings: make silver prices go down, but ore prices go up.

Economic Adjustments

During play, these symbols might appear on the ore and population decks:

• A star by a number: indicates that it has just changed.
• Town builds a building: Demand is so great that the town takes action without waiting for the players. Immediately move the indicator arm one notch to the right. Also, find the corresponding stack on the town hall board and discard the top tile of that stack. Then move the stack to the end of the row, and slide stacks to fill in the empty space. (If the stack is gone, no tile is discarded, but you still must move the arm.)
• Red X: Indicates that there is no market for more of that commodity. No one is allowed to build a building of that type unless demand increases. (You can still buy Rights to those buildings – you just can’t build them yet.)
• Turn-over icon: You are halfway through the deck. Remove the entire deck from the stand, flip it over, and continue on. The population deck goes from 19 to 20; the ore deck goes from 14 to 15.

Reputation

• Score negative/positive points: Score points at the end of the game if your marker is on those spaces. (No effect during play.)
• Beyond the track ends: For each step that your marker would take off the negative end of the track, immediately lose 2 points instead. For each step off the positive end, immediately gain 2 points instead.
• At reputation 3 or more: Claiming a plot costs you only 1 groschen, instead of the usual cost.
• At reputation 6 or more: Using the Joker no longer costs you any reputation.

The Mine Action

Mining increases your ore production and may give you opportunities to score points later in the game.

1. Check your miner pool: You start the game with one miner in the pool, so for your first mine, you can skip this step. But if you have no miners in the pool, you must buy a permit for more miners. Check the current price of a permit (the blue indicator) and pay that many groschen to move up to 2 miners from the zone on the right into your miner pool. (It can hold no more than 2.)
2. Draw mine tiles and choose 1: The number you draw depends on the current level of mining technology. At the beginning of the game, this is 1, so you draw only one tile. At higher levels, you draw the indicated number of tiles and choose one to play. The rest go in the discard pile. If the stack runs out, reshuffle the discard pile.
3. Choose a space and pay the cost: You must build on an entrance, beside a mine that has already been built, or below a mine that has already been built. The two entrances are printed on the board and the cost to build on one is 2 wood. The cost to build on any other empty square is given by the mine that is beside or above it. If multiple costs could apply, you pay the highest cost (not the sum of all costs). You cannot build on a rock tile or on an existing mine.
4. Place the mine tile, mark it with a miner from your pool, and evaluate it:
   • Ore production: Most mine tiles increase ore production. Move the ore counter on your board to show you are now producing this much more ore. Advance the ore deck by the amount shown.
   • Population: Some mines draw more people to the town. Advance the population deck by the amount shown.
   • Immediate points: Some mines give you immediate points. Advance your score counter by the amount shown.

The Rights Action

Before you can build a building in Kutná Hora, you must acquire the exclusive rights to it.

1. Choose a building tile from the town hall board: Only the topmost tile of each stack is available. You can choose a guild building only if it belongs to one of the 3 guilds you placed on your board during setup. Alternatively, you can choose a public building, but remember that public buildings will not increase your income.
2. Pay the cost for the rights: Buildings in the far left column cost only 1 groschen. Those in the other columns cost 1, 2, or 3 permits, as shown on the board. Look up the current value of permits and pay that many groschen.
3. Take the tile: You keep it in one of the three slots above the right side of your board. If all slots are currently full, you cannot perform a Rights action.
4. Move the tile’s stack to the end of the row: Remove the stack, place it at the end of the row, and use it to push the other stacks into the empty space.

   Note: Tiles are always slid left to fill empty spaces, so the 3-permit column will not be used until the red-patrician tiles come into play.

The Plot Action

1. Claim a plot of land:
   • When there are no buildings, you can claim any unclaimed square in town for 5 groschen.
   • If there is a building in town, you can only claim a plot next to a building. You pay the amount of groschen printed in the upper right corner of the building. If you claim a plot next to 2 or more buildings, you pay the highest cost (but not the sum of them).
   • If all plots next to buildings are claimed, then once again you may claim any unclaimed square for 5 groschen.

   Note: If your reputation is 3 or higher, you pay only 1 groschen for a plot!

2. Mark your plot: Take your leftmost plot marker from your board and place it on the plot you claimed. Note that you cannot have more than 3 plots claimed at a time. Also, be aware that you will have to pay extra taxes if you have multiple plot markers in Kutná Hora at tax time.

The Building Action

If you have a building tile (thanks to the Rights action) and a plot in Kutná Hora (thanks to the Plot action), then you can build the building on your plot.

1. Choose one of your plots in Kutná Hora: Return the plot marker to your board. It goes in the rightmost empty space.
2. Place the building tile on the plot and pay the cost: The cost is measured in wood, so you pay the current price of that much wood.
3. Resolve the effects shown on the tile: There is a key to the effects on the back page of this rulebook.
4. Turn the tile face down: Once the effects are resolved, they are no longer relevant.
5. Mark with a house and resolve the house effect (if guild building): Each row of your board corresponds to a different guild. When you build a building of that guild, you remove the leftmost house from its row and perform the indicated effect:
   • Gain a public building tile: You take a bonus Rights action, but pay nothing. Just take the top tile from any public building stack, then move the stack to the end.
   • Gain a pelican token: Keep it purple-side-up until you use it.
   • Increase your reputation: by the indicated amount.
   • Immediate points: If points are depicted, score them immediately.

If you build a public building, you get no house effect. You do not own it, and you do not put a house on it.

Guild Buildings & Public Buildings Details

Guild Buildings

When you build a guild building, it increases your production of the associated commodity. Mark this on your player board.

Most guild buildings will tell you to move a commodity indicator one notch to the right. (Miners’ guild buildings are the only exception.)

Some guilds get involved in the construction of St. Barbara’s Cathedral. When you see this effect, turn the current St. Barbara tile face down. No player will be able to use that effect in this game. Increase taxes by the amount shown on the bottom of the tile.

Miners’ Guild

A miners’ guild building increases your ore production. The ore deck increases by the same amount. Your board lets you track ore from buildings and ore from mines separately (but it’s all the same commodity).

Draw the top mining technology tile and immediately play it. It can go on any square on which one could play a new mine. You pay no wood for it. You mark it with a miner taken for free from the zone beside your miner pool. (Use a miner from your pool only if there are no others left on your board.)

Taking the tile increases the level of mining technology, which determines how many tiles players choose from when they take the Mine action.

Public Buildings

The buildings with patricians on them are public buildings. You do not mark a public building with a house of your color:

• You don’t have any house effect to resolve.
• You don’t own the building.
• You don’t get any production from the building.
• It won’t score you points at the end of the game – at least, not directly.

However, by judicious placement of a public building, you can make one or more of your guild buildings more valuable, either during the patrician-scoring phase, at the end of the game, or, ideally, both. Also, public buildings have powerful immediate effects that can give you reputation, pelican tokens, and even immediate points. Effects vary, depending on the building’s patrician.

All public buildings add a patrician to the patrician pool. Take the corresponding token from the bank and put it in the space in the middle of the town hall board marked with the rainbow-patrician icon. A patrician in the pool has no immediate effect, but any player can add the patrician to the town council during their Income action.

WARNING: Public buildings give you no income. In the early game, you need to focus on building income, and this means building guild buildings.

The Income Action

This action is the only way to get more money. Simply add up your total commodity production and take that many groschen.

Adding a Patrician to the Council

Whenever a player builds a public building, 1 patrician token of a particular color is moved from the bank to the patrician pool. Patricians in the pool are waiting to get on the town council, but for the moment, they still have no effect.

During an Income action, after collecting income, you can pay 10 groschen to put a patrician on the town council – that is, you move one patrician token from the patrician pool to its scoring space on the edge of the board. (You can’t pay more to move more than one.) At the ends of each of the final three rounds, all players will score points for that patrician.

The St. Barbara Action

The Brotherhood of Corpus Christi is organizing the construction of a grand cathedral, and your contributions will be greatly valued.

1. Use 1 pelican token: Turn it from its purple side to its silver side. If you have no unused pelican token, you cannot take the St. Barbara action.
2. Resolve the current St. Barbara tile: Each tile has a different effect, as explained on the back of this rulebook. After resolving the effect, turn the tile face down. There is now a new current St. Barbara tile. Tiles become “current” in numerical order – left to right, bottom to top.

When you take the St. Barbara action, ignore any tax increase printed on the tile. That applies only if the tile is flipped over by a guild building.

The Joker

The Joker action lets you take any one of the other actions. However, to use it, you must first lose 1 reputation.

Note: If your reputation is 6 or higher, this penalty does not apply!

Round End Procedure

The round ends once all players have taken their third turn. At that time, players must decide whether to pay taxes.

1. Taxes

Each player must either pay taxes or lose the amount of reputation indicated for the current round. (You are allowed to take the reputation loss even if you have enough money to pay the tax. Conversely, if you don’t have enough money, you take the reputation loss and pay nothing.)

Plot surcharge: Players who currently have more than 1 plot marker in Kutná Hora have their taxes increased:

• +3 groschen if two of your markers are in Kutná Hora.
• +8 groschen (3 + 5) if all three are still in use at the end of the round.

(If you choose not to pay taxes, you don’t pay this plot tax, either.)

2. Patrician Scoring

At the ends of each of the final 3 rounds, after taxes, patricians on the town council offer points to all players:

• Green Patricians: For each building you own, gain 1 point for each public building next to it. (Multiply this by the number of green patricians.)
• Silver Patricians: For each pair of pelican tokens you have used, gain 3 points. (Count used tokens, divide by 2, round down, then multiply by the number of silver patricians.)
• Yellow Patricians: If you have at least 1 mine in each row of the mines, gain 2 points. If you have at least 2 in each row, gain 4 points! (Multiply by the number of yellow patricians.)
• Red Patricians: For each column of your player board in which all houses have been removed, gain 3 points. (Multiply this by the number of red patricians.)

3. Setup for Next Round

• Red-Patrician Buildings: In a 4-player game, they come into play at the end of round 2; in a 2- or 3-player game, at the end of round 3. Shuffle them and place one at the end of each row on the town hall board.
• Event Card: Advance the population/ore deck if the event specifies, before taxes and scoring. When setting up the new round, reveal the next event card; if it increases taxes, advance the tax counter.
• The starting player marker moves to the next player on the left, and all players pick up their action cards.

Game End

A four-player game ends after 5 rounds, and a two- or three-player game ends after 6. Players have accumulated points during play, but now evaluate long-term strategies:

1. Kutná Hora: Go through the city building-by-building and award the owner of each building 1 point for each matching dot on an adjacent building or side of the board. (Tip over each building after evaluation so you know which have been counted.)
2. Mines: Go through each row of mines. Count up the total number of stars in that row to determine how much the row is worth:
   • 0–5 stars: 2 / 1 / 0 points
   • 6–9 stars: 3 / 2 / 1 points
   • 10+ stars: 5 / 3 / 2 points

   Players with no stars get no points, even if they own a mine in the row. Players tied for a place get the full value of the place (e.g., tie for second means both get second place points, but no one gets third place points).

3. Income: Calculate your income according to the final state of the economy. Divide that number by 10 (round down) and score that many points. (e.g., income 48 scores 4 points).
4. Reputation: Gain or lose points based on the final position of your marker on the reputation track.
5. Extras: Score 1 point for:
   • Each building tile in a slot on your board.
   • Each claimed plot that you did not build on.
   • Each pelican token you did not use.

Winning

The player with the most points wins. Break ties in favor of the player with the most groschen left. Any remaining ties can be settled by jousting (unless players agree to accept a draw).

Quick Reference: Mine and Building Effects

• Increase your production of the indicated commodity by the amount shown.
• Move the depicted commodity indicator 1 notch to the right.
• Take the top mining technology tile and play it as though it were a free mine – pay no wood, and mark it with one of the miners waiting to enter your miner pool.
• Increase the ore production deck by the amount shown.
• Increase the population deck by the amount shown.
• Immediately score the indicated points.
• Gain the indicated amount of reputation.
• Take the indicated number of pelican tokens. Keep them purple-side-up until you use them.
• Increase taxes by the indicated amount.
• Move the depicted patrician token from the bank to the patrician pool.
• Remove 1 house from your player board. (It must be the leftmost house in its row. Ignore its effect.)
• Flip over the current St. Barbara tile. If it showed a tax, add that much tax to the current tax rate. (If all 11 tiles have already been built, this has no effect.)

Economic Adjustments Quick Reference

• A star by a number indicates that it has just changed.
• The town builds a building. Discard the top tile of the stack and move the indicator to the right.
• New buildings that produce this commodity cannot currently be built.
• Turn the deck over.

St. Barbara Tiles

1. Gain 2 reputation.
2. Gain 1 reputation. Take a Rights action, but pay nothing for taking the building tile.
3. Lose 1 reputation. Choose a guild on your board and remove the leftmost house token of that guild from your board to increase production of that commodity by 2. (Do not gain the benefit of the house’s effect.)
4. Gain 1 reputation. Take a Plot action. You pay nothing for the plot, and you are not required to claim a square next to a building.
5. Lose 2 reputation. Then take 2 Income actions. (That is, you gain income twice and have 2 chances to add a patrician to the council.)
6. Score 2 points. Take a patrician token from the bank (not the board) and place it in its space for patrician scoring.
7. For each of your buildings, gain 1 reputation for each public building next to it.
8. Score 1 point. Take a Building action, but pay 0 wood to build.
9. Take 2 Mine actions. You pay 0 wood to build. Mark the mines with unused miners that are not in your miner pool. (You can use miners in the pool if they are the only ones you have left.)
10. Choose 1 of your buildings and score 1 point for each matching dot on an adjacent building or edge of the board. (Like final scoring, but for only 1 of your buildings.)
11. Gain 5 points, then flip the tile over. From now on, anyone who takes the St. Barbara action gains 2 reputation.

Rules Reminders

• You can refill your miner pool only as the first step of a Mine action, before placing the mine, not after.
• If you try to draw a mining tile and can’t, reshuffle the entire discard pile to make a new stack. (The 3 sets of tiles will be mixed.)
• A mine does not affect the cost of a space above it, nor grant access to that space.
• The mining technology level increases only when a player builds a miners’ guild building.
• You cannot take a guild building tile for a guild you do not belong to.
• Your production can go over 10. Leave your counter on the 10 space and use one of your extra counters to track the excess.
• The house effect that lets you take a building tile for free only applies to public buildings.

Special Cases

• Running out of pieces: The components on your board are limited. If an action needs a plot marker, a house token, or a miner figure you don’t have, then the entire action is performed with no effect. Patrician tokens are limited to 3 of each color. If an effect requires you to do something with a patrician token that is not available, ignore that part of the effect. Pelican tokens and groschen are not limited. If you run out, use a suitable substitute.
• Ignoring actions and St. Barbara effects: Whenever you take an action, you can choose for it to have no effect. For example, you can play a card as your action and announce that it has no effect. You can ignore the public-building Rights action of a house token, and still score any points it offers. You can play a St. Barbara action and ignore the middle effect of the tile. On tile 3, you must lose 1 reputation, but you can choose to not remove a house.
• Mining regulations: You are allowed to pay full price to add only 1 miner to your miner pool. After looking at your choice of mines, you are allowed to discard them all and build no mine. Similarly, when placing a mining technology tile as a mine, you can choose to remove it from the game instead.
• Limits: Taxes can’t go above 25. If the population or ore deck reaches its maximum card, ignore effects that try to increase it.

Credits

Game Design: Ondřej Bystroň, Petr Čáslava, Pavel Jarosch

Development Team: Tomáš “Uhlík” Uhlíř, Emil Jenerál, Jakub Uhlíř, Vít Vodička, Adam Španěl

Graphic Design: Radek “RBX” Boxan

Art: Milan Vavroň, Jakub Politzer, Štěpán Drašťák, Dávid Jablonovský

Trailer & 3D Assets: Radim “Finder” Pech, Roman Bednář

Photos of Kutná Hora: Josef Čáslava

Production: Vít Vodička

Rulebook Writer: Jason Holt

Project Management: Jan “Zvonda” Zvoníček

Project Supervision: Petr Murmak

Kutná Hora Background Lore

In 1260, the discovery of silver near present-day Kutná Hora led to a silver boom that attracted people from all over Europe. Settlements and provisional chapels sprang up alongside the new mines, and on a hill above the river, the town of Kutná Hora was born. In the century that followed, it would become a mighty source of power and wealth for the Czech crown, with an importance that rivaled even that of Prague.

Its beginnings were organic, with no plan. Mining camps expanded and merged into a single settlement. But soon the settlement was organized, walls were built, and Kutná Hora became a town.

Within 20 years, Kutná Hora was producing one-third of Europe’s silver. And that was just the beginning. In our game, one turn represents roughly 13 years of progress … but really, that’s just an abstraction. It only takes you two turns to build a church that was, historically, constructed over a span of decades.

Silver was mined in Kutná Hora for several centuries. In the beginning, it was quite near the surface, but over the years, the mines had to go deeper and deeper. Deeper mines necessitated more complicated logistics. Water needed to be pumped out. Fresh air needed to be let in. Kutná Hora’s deepest mine, the Donkey, was probably the deepest active mine in the world.

The silver enriched not only the aristocrats, but also the common townsfolk. Miners, builders, merchants, and smiths – everyone involved in the silver trade got a piece of the action. And when the townsfolk prospered, they wanted to show off their prosperity to the world. They built churches and townhouses – even mansions – demonstrating their wealth and independence, and demonstrating their desire to govern themselves, without interference from the nobility.

So this is what we hope our game brings you – the spirit of a time when hardworking miners and townsfolk turned a medieval valley into one of the most important cities in Europe’s Renaissance.

Guilds & Laborers

Miners

A miner worked in subterranean darkness, his only light a tiny lamp that gave off barely as much illumination as a lit match. Every day, he risked death from asphyxiation and tunnel collapses. But unlike the medieval serfs, Kutná Hora’s miners were free townsfolk, which meant that, in exchange for such dangerous work, they could expect to be well paid.

Metallurgists

The process of extracting silver from the ore was long and complicated. The Metallurgists’ buildings in this game represent various steps in that process. Kutná Hora was an industrial town, and dozens of furnaces burned day and night.

Guild Lore

• Scribes: Kutná Hora’s mining industry and royal bureaucracy went hand in hand. Scribes’ buildings represent administrative activities essential for ensuring fair distribution of wealth.
• Builders: Represents craftsmen (carpenters, masons, plasterers, glassmakers) and the availability of wood, stone, and brick.
• Grocers: Bakers, butchers, and vegetable sellers who fed thousands of people in the boomtown.
• Innkeepers: Food, beer, and bathhouses (where barbers also served as dentists and surgeons).

Churches

For the medieval European, the church was the center of daily life. Miners, especially, were aware that they lived each day at the mercy of a higher power. The first chapels were built of wood, close to the mines. But as the town grew, the townsfolk began to construct churches of stone, many of which still stand today.

High Church of the Virgin Mary

The “High” or “Upper” Church of the Virgin Mary was so called because it was situated higher on the hill than the town’s other Church of the Virgin Mary.

Its construction was funded by Kutná Hora’s mintworkers, and the nave was built to be the same height as the aisles. As a consequence, light fell upon all worshipers equally – in contrast to other churches of the era, in which some could worship in the light and those of lower standing were relegated to the shadows.

However, the mintworkers’ egalitarian ethic was not absolute – important citizens who lived in the surrounding houses had special walkways leading directly into the building so they could attend services without exposing themselves to bad weather and grimy streets.

Church of Our Lady

The other Church of the Virgin Mary was known as the one “on the Sweepings.” According to legend, every day, the ore market’s cobbles would be swept clean, and the silver in the sweepings was collected, eventually amounting to enough silver dust to fund the construction of the church.

Why were Kutná Hora‘s two most important churches both called the Church of the Virgin Mary? Because Mary was the patron saint of the basilica at nearby Sedlec Abbey. In this way, the abbot emphasized that the new town was part of his ecclesiastical domain.

Saint Barbara’s Cathedral

Technically, a cathedral is the seat of a bishop, and the name of this building is St. Barbara’s Church. But it is sometimes referred to as St. Barbara’s Cathedral because it was built in the Gothic cathedral style.

The Scribes’ Guild organized a Brotherhood of Corpus Christi for the purposes of constructing this magnificent church in 1388. The Brotherhood’s heraldic symbol is unknown, but the pelican symbol found on the church is our best guess. The pelican was believed to pierce its breast to feed its young with its blood, and so for medieval Europeans, it symbolized Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.

Because Sedlec Abbey claimed jurisdiction over all churches in Kutná Hora, the Brotherhood built St. Barbara’s outside the city walls. This also meant they did not have to contend with any neighboring buildings, which encouraged them to plan a cathedral-style building on a grandiose scale. As was typical, the construction lasted centuries and was never completed on the scale the founders imagined.

By 1400, St. Barbara’s was already in use, even though the walls were only half built and the ceiling was just a tarpaulin. For the medieval European, it was quite common to attend Mass in a construction zone.

Like the actual church, our game’s St. Barbara’s stands outside the town walls and has no deadline for completion. Will you manage to get the roof built before the game ends, or will the congregation spend the entire game under a tarpaulin? It’s up to you.