Build Your Own Alhambra

Alhambra is a hand management game involving both cards (money) and tiles (your Alhambra). Each of the 3 to 6 players begins with a fountain tile around which you will build your personal Alhambra of tiles you acquire.

Tiles come in 6 basic colors, and you want to get some of each for scoring purposes – probably specializing in a few of the colors. Whoever has the most tiles of a given color in each of the 3 scoring phases scores the most points for that color. And each color has different values based on how many exist in that color.

Every turn, there are 4 money cards available to you. You can grab only one, unless the total is 5 or less. Money cards come in 4 different currencies. Each currency can be used to purchase one of the 4 available tiles on the corresponding currency spot. If you can pay the exact amount required, you get another action then and there. So you could have as many as 5 actions on a turn (though that is rare).

Tiles you purchase must either be added to your Alhambra following certain “wall rules” or must be relegated to your Reserve board for play on a later turn. Most tiles have 1-3 dark edges representing the walls of your building. In general, the “wall rules” state that you must arrange your tiles so that, if you were actually inside your Alhambra, you would have an uninterrupted walk (without stepping on the table) from any given tile to any other.

At the end of the game, you get bonus points for your longest unbroken outer wall, so that’s something to consider while building as well.

Alhambra is easy to learn and fun to play over and over again. I’ve played it almost 100 times myself as of this writing. If you like building with tiles and set collecting, you’ll probably enjoy Arkadia, the next game in line for a post.

Check the price of Alhambra on Amazon.