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About Orléans
Orléans is Reiner Stockhausen's bag-building game set in medieval France. You recruit followers such as farmers, boatmen, craftsmen, traders, knights, scholars and monks into a cloth bag, draw a handful each round and combine them to trigger actions on your own board. Over eighteen rounds your bag gets better, your options widen and the scoring multipliers climb. It was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2015.
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Is Orléans Right for You?
Best for
Orléans is for players who enjoy watching an engine grow and like to plan with a degree of control over their luck. The bag-building core is simple once it clicks, planning is simultaneous so downtime is modest, and a full game gives an arc from cramped to expansive. It was nominated for the Kennerspiel in 2015 and plays best at three or four. If you have enjoyed Concordia or Istanbul and want something with more moving parts, this is a natural next step.
Maybe skip it if…
Interaction is light outside the shared buildings and the event tiles, and the board is busy for a first game. Groups who dislike luck of the draw will still curse the bag occasionally.
How to Play Orléans
Setup
Give each player a board, a bag with starting followers, and markers on the tracks. Shuffle the hour glass tiles that set each round's event, and place the goods and buildings.
On Your Turn
- Draw followers from your bag equal to your knight track position and place them on your market.
- Plan simultaneously: assign combinations of followers to actions on your board, which fire once all required spaces are filled.
- In turn order, take one activated action at a time until everyone passes, then resolve the round's event.
How to Win
After eighteen rounds, score coins, goods, and your development level multiplied by your trading stations plus citizens. Highest total wins.
💡 Strategy Tips
Knights and scholars look dull and are not. Drawing more tiles and advancing development are what make every later round better.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Recruiting without a plan. Every follower dilutes your bag, and a bag full of mismatched tiles triggers nothing.
- Neglecting the knight track. Drawing four tiles a round for the whole game is a serious handicap.
- Forgetting the development multiplier. Your development level multiplies trading stations and citizens at the end, and it is often the largest single score.
- Ignoring the events. Every round brings one, and being caught short by plague or taxes costs followers or coins.
Advanced Strategy
- Build a bag that fires the same two or three actions reliably. Specialising beats keeping everything open.
- The beneficial deeds are a steady source of citizens and coins. Track which ones are still open and who is racing for them.
- Place followers across rounds when you need to. An action does not have to fire the round you start filling it.
- Buildings with permanent effects are best bought early, when they have the most rounds left to pay off.
Variants & House Rules
Orléans: Invasion
An expansion with scenarios, including cooperative and solo play, plus a duel mode. The usual first addition.
Orléans: Trade & Intrigue
A second expansion with new buildings and more ways to interact with rivals.
Video Guides
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Our Verdict
Orléans is one of the best bag-builders in the hobby and a very satisfying mid-heavy euro. Planning simultaneously keeps it moving, and the multiplier at the end gives the whole game a clear direction. It is a little solitary, but the engine is a pleasure to build.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take?
Around ninety minutes with experienced players. A first game with four people can run nearer two hours.
Can you play it solo?
Not from the base box. The Invasion expansion includes a solo scenario.
Is it heavy?
It is a solid middleweight. The rules are not long, but new players take a few rounds to see how the pieces fit.