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About Kutná Hora: The City of Silver
Kutná Hora is a Czech Games Edition euro about building the silver-mining city of the same name. Players mine, buy plots, take permits and raise buildings for their guilds, and every building shifts a shared supply-and-demand economy. Build another brewery and beer is worth less to everyone who already owns one. The rules are ordinary; the market that reacts to every move is what makes it memorable.
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Is Kutná Hora: The City of Silver Right for You?
Best for
Kutná Hora is for euro players who want their economy to fight back. Every building changes what goods are worth, so you are always reading the market as well as your own plan. It suits groups who enjoy indirect interaction and a bit of arithmetic, and it is best at three or four where the prices move most. Fans of Brass or Barrage will recognise the appeal of an economy shaped by the players rather than by the rulebook.
Maybe skip it if…
It has a lot of moving parts for a game with fairly plain actions, and the scoring only clicks after a full play. Players who want a tidy, predictable engine will find the shifting prices frustrating rather than interesting.
How to Play Kutná Hora: The City of Silver
Setup
Lay out the city board, the mine and the price tracks. Each player takes an identical hand of double-sided action cards and the buildings of their guilds.
On Your Turn
- Play action cards from your hand, choosing one of the two actions printed on each.
- Mine tiles, buy plots, take building permits, raise guild or public buildings, or collect income at current market prices.
- At the end of each round, pay tax and resolve the round's scoring set by the public buildings in play.
How to Win
After the final round, the player with the most points from round scoring, buildings and cathedral work wins. Cash left over does not score.
💡 Strategy Tips
Watch what your buildings do to other players' prices, not just your own. The best build often makes a rival's income collapse.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Building only for your own production. Your buildings lower the value of that trade for everyone, including yourself.
- Forgetting the tax. Leftover money does not score, but running short when tax comes due is expensive.
- Ignoring the public buildings. They set which scoring criteria matter each round, and whoever builds them shapes the whole game.
- Treating the mine as a side activity. Silver and ore are central to income, and a late start there is hard to recover.
Advanced Strategy
- Look at what the next building of each type does to the price track before you build. Timing a build just after a rival's income can hurt them more than it helps you.
- Take income when your goods are expensive, not on a fixed rhythm. An income action taken just before a price drop is worth far more than the same action a turn later.
- Your two action choices per card are a hand-management puzzle. Plan which side each card will be used for across the whole round.
- Watch the population. Growth changes demand, and a well-timed push can lift the value of everything you already own.
Variants & House Rules
Promo cards
Czech Games Edition has released promo cards for the game. They add small amounts of variety and are not needed to enjoy it.
Video Guides
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Our Verdict
Kutná Hora takes a familiar build-and-produce structure and makes it interesting through a market that reacts to every move. The interaction is indirect but constant, and a single building can change the value of half the table's economy. It takes a play to understand, and we think it rewards the second one well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who designed Kutná Hora?
Ondřej Bystroň, Petr Čáslava and Pavel Jarosch. It is published by Czech Games Edition.
How long does it take?
Roughly thirty minutes per player once everyone knows the rules. First games run longer.
Is it a heavy game?
Medium. The actions are simple, but understanding how prices and scoring interact takes a full game.