How to Play Hamlet: By the Lake

Game Objective

In Hamlet: By the Lake, you take your village building to the lakeside! The objective is to form lakes, build Boats, go Fishing, and feed your Villagers seasonal meals that grant them special abilities. The game adds variability, customization, and more individual resource control, elevating the strategy of the base game Hamlet.

Preparation (Setup)

Prepare the game according to the base game manual's instructions (page 4), with the following additional steps:

1. When organizing the new Building Tiles, place the Warehouse Tiles (2) into the bag at the start of the game. Then, shuffle the other new tiles into their corresponding stacks based on the icon displayed on the back of the tile:
   • Wood: Shipyard
   • Milk: Aquarium
   • Brick: Cliff
   • Flour: Beach
2. Place the 30 Fish Tiles (11 Common Fish, 10 Uncommon Fish, 9 Rare Fish) into the new canvas bag.
3. Give each player their additional Flag Token, so each player has a total of 7.
4. Choose a season - Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter - and place its 2 Menu Cards face up on the table. Common Fish have the same Menu Card in all seasons.

New Components

• 6 New Building Tiles
• 30 Lake Tiles
• 9 Menu Cards (1 Common Fish, 2 Spring, 2 Summer, 2 Autumn, 2 Winter)
• 4 Flags (1 of each color)
• 1 Canvas bag (for Fish Tiles)
• 10 Boat Tokens
• 4 Villager House Tiles
• 20 Fish Tokens

Game Flow

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Actions and How to Play

Forming Lakes

Lake Tiles are used to fill empty spaces created between other Building Tiles. Whenever a player places a Building Tile that completely surrounds any amount of empty space between tiles, a lake is formed in that enclosed space.

• Lakes form even when tiles surround a space corner-to-corner, without touching segment-to-segment.
• Lakes can touch any type of border – Mountains, Forests, Roads, or Water.
• Place a Fish Token on each new Lake Tile that is adjacent to a Building Tile.
• If the lake has 2 or more tiles, you can place a Boat on the lake and place a Flag Token of your color on it.

Boats

Boats allow you to move workers and transport materials across lakes. They are not on a specific Lake Tile, but "on the lake" – meaning they can be used to connect all Building Tiles that are adjacent to that lake.

• Unlike Paths and Bridges, Boats can only be used by the player who placed them.
• Once you place a Boat and a Flag, they cannot be removed for the rest of the game.
• You cannot place a Boat if you have no more Flags in your personal supply.
• If you use a Boat to deliver resources to a building, it costs 1 extra Wheat. Deliver the 1 Wheat to the same building, then remove it from the board. This 1 Wheat allows you to use the Boat throughout the entire Villager action.
• If you use a Boat to move workers, it costs no extra resources.
• Boats do not count as Paths/Bridges/Roads for scoring purposes, such as scoring the longest road or a Landmark. However, you can build a Path or Bridge connecting two tiles that are already connected by a Boat, even if you cannot otherwise access them.

Fishing

Fishing is a new Villager action.

1. To go Fishing, you must place one of your Villagers on a Building Tile adjacent to at least one Lake Tile containing a Fish Token. A Lake Tile is adjacent to a Building Tile if it shares a segment with that Building Tile - not if only a corner touches the Building Tile.
2. Remove all Fish Tokens from all Lake Tiles adjacent to the tile where your Villager is (this can be multiple lakes).
3. Randomly draw Fish Tiles from the bag equal to the number of Fish Tokens you removed from the Lake Tiles.
4. You have them in your personal supply at the end of your turn. If you have more than 3, choose which 3 tiles you wish to keep and place the rest back into the bag.

Fish Tokens do not replenish after being removed (unless otherwise specified) and it is not possible to go Fishing on tiles that no longer have adjacent Fish Tokens (except the Beach, if you own it).

Selling and Eating Fish

At any time during your turn, you can Sell or Eat your Fish. This does not require a Villager action.

Depending on the rarity of the Fish, you can Sell it for Gold or cook a delicious meal to gain the ability on the corresponding Menu Card. Each ability can be activated once per player per turn. Each type of Fish can be consumed once per player per turn.

When you trade any number of Fish Tiles for Points, Gold, or abilities, place them back into the bag.

• Common Fish (green): Gain 2 Gold.
• Uncommon Fish (blue): Gain 1 Gold and the ability on the corresponding Menu Card.
• Rare Fish (red): Gain the ability on the corresponding Menu Card.

New Buildings

The new buildings follow the same rules as the base game buildings. You gain Blueprints by visiting the Town Hall, build them by supplying the necessary materials, place them following Adjacency rules, and score Points as indicated in their Reward slot.

All new Building Tiles have a Flag icon, meaning the player who built them must mark them with a Flag Token. Only the owner of a building can activate it and use any of its abilities or benefits.

Building Placement: Water Edges

New buildings work the same way as in the base game, but have a new type of segment: Water. These segments can only be placed adjacent to other Water segments.

The Villager House

Hamlet: By the Lake includes a Villager House in each of the players' colors. At the end of your turn, instead of keeping your Villagers on the board, remove them and put them to sleep in their beds in your Villager House. Whenever you hire a new worker, place them sleeping in the Villager House, ready to be used at the start of the next turn.

At the start of your turn, wake up all your hired Villagers, placing them upright, and perform actions by placing them one by one on any building connected through the road network or using Boats.

Warehouses

Activate the Warehouse by transporting Raw/Refined materials to the tile and placing them in the slots. Only you can activate the Warehouse and only you can use the materials stored in the Warehouse.

When you move Refined materials to the Warehouse, the players who produced those materials immediately gain the rewards. They do not gain rewards when these materials are removed from the Warehouse. You cannot buy materials from the Market to place them in the Warehouse.

Aquarium

In addition to scoring Points for remaining Fish, the Aquarium can unite two lakes through a water channel between the islands on its tile. Once the Aquarium is built, Lake Tiles are placed according to the Lake Formation rules. However, for Adjacency and Transportation purposes, the entire body of water is considered a single lake.

Beach

The Beach tile counts as having 2 permanent Fish that can always be Fished. You can perform a Fishing action here even if there are no Fish in the surrounding lakes or if there are no lakes surrounding the Beach. Other players can perform a Fishing action at the Beach, using the surrounding lakes, but cannot Fish the two additional Fish that are on the Beach.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends when a player makes the last Church delivery, or a player places their last Flag on a building or Boat.

Complete the current round so that each player has played the same number of turns (until the player seated to the right of the starting player has completed their turn). Then, proceed to End Game Scoring as described in the base game rules (page 11).

Note that Hamlet: By the Lake includes an additional Flag, so each player has 7 Flags, not 6.

Additional Building Scoring

• Shipyard: Score 3 Points for each of your Boats on the board at the end of the game.
• Cliff: Score 3 Points for each Water segment that is adjacent to a lake. No road is needed to score this building at the end of the game.
• Forming Lakes: Score 1 Point for every 2 Lake Tiles placed (rounding down, up to a maximum of 10 Points per lake).

Tips for Winning

Refer to the manual for details on this section.