How to play Frontier
Friendship is temporary. Victory points are forever.
Play FrontierAn island, five resources, ten points
Frontier is a game of building and trading on an island of nineteen hexes. Each hex produces something: timber, brick, grain, wool or ore. Every turn the dice name a number, and every hex with that number pays whoever has a village on one of its corners. You spend what you collect on roads, villages, keeps and cards, and the first player to ten points wins.
Nobody gets everything they need from their own corners, so everybody trades: ore for wool, two grain for a brick, or four of anything to the supply when nobody will deal with you.
Frontier takes sixty to ninety minutes, for three or four players.
The island and the opening
The island has four forests for timber, four pastures for wool, four fields for grain, three hills for brick, three mountains for ore, and a desert that produces nothing. Every hex except the desert carries a number from 2 to 12, and the 6s and 8s, the numbers rolled most, never sit side by side. The bandit starts on the desert.
Everyone throws for turn order. Then each player places a village and a road, going round the table once in order and once in reverse. Your second village pays you one resource from each hex it touches.
Building costs stay the same all game. A road is a timber and a brick. A village is a timber, a brick, a wool and a grain. A keep is three ore and two grain. An opportunity card is an ore, a wool and a grain.
Each player has five villages, four keeps and fifteen roads, and cannot build more once they are used.
A turn
On your turn, throw the dice first. Every hex with that number pays each village on its corners one of its resource, and each keep two. Then build and trade in any order, and end your turn when you are done.
On your own turn you can trade with any player, and they can make you offers. Two other players cannot trade with each other. The bank gives one of anything for four of the same resource, or better at a harbour.
A village needs a road of your own leading to it, and the three corners next to it must be empty, whoever's pieces they would be. A road must touch your own network at one end, and another player's building breaks your network at the corner it stands on. A keep can only be built by upgrading one of your own villages.
When a 7 is thrown, no hex pays. Anyone holding more than seven cards discards half of them, rounded down. Then the player who threw moves the bandit and takes one card from a player with a village or keep on the hex it lands on. That hex pays nobody until the bandit moves again.
Each harbour's rate is on the board. With a village or keep on one of its two corners, you can trade at that rate: two of the named resource for one of anything, or three of anything at a general harbour. With hidden harbours, a house rule the host can turn on before the game, a harbour's rate stays hidden until somebody builds on one of its corners.
Opportunity cards are bought, kept hidden, and played one per turn, before or after the dice. A card cannot be played on the turn you bought it, except a victory point that wins you the game.
- Knight
- Move the bandit and take a card from somebody on that tile.
- Road building
- Place two roads, free.
- Year of plenty
- Take any two resources from the supply.
- Monopoly
- Name a resource. Every player hands you all of theirs.
- Victory point
- Worth a point at the end. Nobody else ever sees it.
Points
A village is worth 1 point and a keep 2. Two awards are worth 2 points each, and the first player to 10 points wins.
Longest road goes to the first player with an unbroken road of five or more. Someone with a longer road takes it. If a cut leaves the holder under five, it goes to whoever alone has the longest, or to nobody. Another player's village or keep on your road splits it in two for that count.
Largest army goes to the first player who has played three knights, and moves only to someone who has played more.
You win as soon as you have 10 points on your own turn. If you reach 10 during somebody else's turn, you win when your turn comes.
Three rolls to a keep
Three players, and you have placed both villages. The first sits where a forest marked 6, a hill marked 8 and a field marked 5 meet. The second touches a mountain marked 9, a pasture marked 10 and a field marked 4. Because it was your second village, it paid out at the start: one ore, one wool and one grain.
Kemal rolls a 6, and your forest pays you a timber. Ayşe rolls a 9, and your mountain pays an ore. On your own turn you roll a 5, and the field pays a grain.
Your hand is now a timber, two ore, a wool and two grain. A keep costs three ore and two grain, so you are one ore short. You offer Kemal your timber for an ore. He counters: he wants the wool instead. You would rather keep the timber for a road later, so you accept.
With three ore and two grain, you upgrade the village on 6, 8 and 5 into a keep. Between them those three numbers come up 14 times in every 36 rolls, and a keep collects two of everything it touches. You are on 3 points, and every 8 from now on pays you two bricks.
Where to build and when to trade
Compare the numbers around each corner. A 6 or 8 comes up five times in 36 throws, a 2 or 12 once. A corner touching 6, 8 and 5 produces far more than one touching 2, 3 and 12.
Split your opening between early and late resources. Timber and brick build roads and villages, which you want first. Ore and grain build keeps and opportunity cards, which win the end. Two villages that touch all four between them make a strong start.
Hold seven cards or fewer when someone else is about to roll. A 7 comes up one roll in six, and eight cards in hand become four.
Check the score before you trade. A resource the leader needs brings them closer to ten.
Place the bandit on a productive hex where the leader has built. That hex stops producing while the bandit is there, and you take a card from a player with a village or keep on it.
Watch the roads. One village on the right corner splits a long road in two and can take Longest road, and its 2 points, away from its owner.
A 2:1 harbour for a resource you produce often turns your surplus into what you need. With hidden harbours, you learn a harbour's rate only once somebody builds next to it.