How to Play Harborfall

Harborfall drops three to six players onto a freshly discovered island made of forest, field, hill, pasture, and mountain hexes, each ringed by open sea. Every dice roll pays out to whoever is touching the right hexes, so nobody is ever just waiting for their turn — you’re always watching the board for what you’re about to earn. Here is everything you need to play a full game from first settlement to the winning point.

Overview and goal

The island produces five resources: brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore. You spend them to lay roads, plant settlements, and raise cities across the island’s corners and edges, and you’re racing everyone else to ten victory points. Points come from your settlements and cities, from two bonus awards you can fight over, and from a handful of secret cards only you can see. The first player to reach ten points on their own turn wins immediately — there’s no countdown and no final round.

Because every roll produces for every matching player, a Harborfall board is a shared engine: the hex a rival owns can hand you resources too, if your own settlement touches it. That overlap is what pushes people to trade face to face instead of playing in silence.

Components

• The island — 19 hexes for 3–4 players, or 30 hexes for 5–6, each showing a terrain and (except the desert) a number from 2 to 12.
• Harbors — coastal trade posts on the sea frame; some accept any resource at 3-for-1, others accept one specific resource at 2-for-1.
• Settlements and cities — a settlement sits on a corner where hexes meet and produces one card per matching roll; upgrading it to a city doubles that to two cards and is worth more points.
• Roads — laid on the edges between corners; they connect your network and can win you a standing bonus.
• The robber — a single piece that blocks whichever hex it sits on from producing anything for anyone.
• Development cards — a shuffled deck of hidden cards bought with resources and revealed only when used (or never, for the secret point card).
• Resource and development cards, dice, and player pieces in six colors, expanding from four at the base player count.

Setup

Players take turns placing their first two settlements and the roads attached to them, going once around the table and then back in reverse order — so the last player to go gets the first crack at a second, better spot. Placing your second settlement pays you one resource card for every hex it touches; the first settlement pays nothing. No settlement may sit directly next to another, so the map fills up fast — chosen spots close off nearby options for everyone else.

Once every seat has two settlements and two roads down, the player who rolled highest during setup takes the first full turn.

A turn, step by step

1. Roll two dice. The total decides production for the entire table, not just the active player. Anyone with a settlement or city touching a hex whose number matches the roll collects a card of that hex’s resource — one for a settlement, two for a city — unless the robber is sitting on that hex.
2. On a roll of seven, nothing produces. Instead, everyone holding more than seven cards discards half of their hand (rounded down), and the active player moves the robber to any other land hex, then steals one random card from a rival touching that hex.
3. Trade. The active player may trade with the shared supply at their best rate (4-for-1 always, better at a harbor they own) or propose a resource swap with any other player. Only the active player can be part of a trade, and every trade has to be a genuine two-way exchange of cards both sides actually hold — no gifts, no promises.
4. Build or buy. Spend resources on roads, settlements, cities, or a development card, in any order and as many times as you can afford. You may also play one development card this turn (see below).
5. End your turn. Play passes to the next player around the table.

Worked example: you roll an 8. Two of your settlements and one rival’s city touch an 8-hex, so you collect two resource cards and your rival collects two (their city produces double). You then trade two of your surplus wool for a rival’s brick, spend brick and lumber to lay a road toward an open harbor, and end your turn.

Special rules and edge cases

• The bank can run dry. If there isn’t enough of a resource in the shared supply to pay everyone who’s owed it on a roll, nobody gets any of that resource that turn — unless exactly one player is owed it, in which case they take whatever is left.
• A settlement can only be built where it connects to your own road, and never on a corner touching another settlement or city, even a rival’s.
• Upgrading to a city returns your settlement piece to your own supply, so it isn’t wasted — you can plant a new settlement with it later.
• A card cannot be played the same turn you bought it, except the secret point card, which is never “played” at all — it just counts the moment you hold it, and you may reveal it on your own turn the instant it pushes your total past ten.

Development cards

Buying a card costs one ore, one wool, and one grain, and draws the top card of a shuffled deck. You may play at most one per turn, and never one bought that same turn:

Card	Effect
Move & steal	Move the piece that blocks production to any other land hex, then take one random card from a rival touching it. Playing several of these across a game earns a standing bonus.
Free roads	Place two roads at no cost.
Bonus harvest	Take any two resource cards straight from the shared supply.
Forced trade	Name one resource; every other player must hand you all of that resource they’re holding.
Secret point	Worth one hidden point, counted the instant you draw it but never revealed unless it wins you the game.

How the game ends and scoring

Source	Points
Each settlement	1
Each city	2
Longest continuous road of 5+ segments	2 (can be taken by a rival who builds a longer one)
Most move-and-steal cards played, minimum 3	2 (only lost if another player plays more)
Each secret point card	1

The moment your total reaches ten on your own turn, the game ends and you win — reaching ten because of something that happens on someone else’s turn doesn’t count until your next turn begins. Because turns are strictly one at a time, there’s never a tie for who gets there first.

Variants

• Five and six players play on the larger 30-hex island with more harbors and a bigger card supply. After each player’s turn, every other player gets a short extra turn to build or buy with resources already in hand — no trading, no moving the blocking piece, and no playing development cards during it.
• Random balanced island: every new game shuffles the terrain and numbers onto the island fresh, with one rule enforced — the two highest-odds numbers, 6 and 8, are never placed on neighboring hexes, so no single spot dominates the whole board.

Quick-reference summary

• Players: 3–6, no two-player mode. Goal: first to 10 points on your own turn.
• Build costs: road = brick + lumber; settlement = brick + lumber + wool + grain; city = 3 ore + 2 grain; development card = ore + wool + grain.
• Rolling a 7: discard half your hand over 7 cards (rounded down), move the blocking piece, steal one card.
• Trade rates: 4-for-1 with the shared supply, 3-for-1 at a general harbor, 2-for-1 at a matching specific harbor.
• Bonuses: longest road (5+ segments) and most cards of one type played (3+) are each worth 2 points and can change hands.