Kingdom Builder Score Calculator for Final Gold
🏰 Kingdom Builder Score Calculator
Total three Kingdom Builder scoring cards, castle and location adjacency, connected settlement groups, terrain objectives, and expansion toggles in one final gold sheet.
Enter the final state for one player. The calculator evaluates the three active scoring cards independently, then adds castles, location links, board-sector comparisons, and optional expansion bonuses.
📍 Presets
🎴 Three Active Scoring Cards
First of the three scoring cards revealed for the game.
Second card, calculated with the same board statistics.
Third card. Duplicate card choices are flagged for review.
⚙ Settlement and Board Inputs
Used only in the result summary and printout.
Controls expansion bonus wording and audit notes.
Most games score after all 40 settlements are placed.
Each adjacent castle is worth 3 gold once.
Counts location adjacency for Workers and route checks.
Merchants awards 4 gold for each connected site.
Fishermen scores 1 gold per settlement adjacent to water.
Miners scores 1 gold per settlement adjacent to mountain.
Workers scores 1 gold for these adjacent settlements.
Discoverers scores 1 gold per occupied horizontal row.
Knights scores 2 gold per settlement in the strongest row.
Hermits scores 1 gold for each separate group.
Citizens-style scoring awards 1 gold per 2 settlements here.
Farmers-style scoring uses the least populated sector.
Lords awards 12 gold per sector won.
Lords awards 6 gold per sector second place.
For expansion cards that reward a chosen terrain pattern.
Calculated as 1 gold each when a terrain objective is active.
Adds a controlled expansion line instead of mixing it into card math.
Enter printed expansion reward, token bonus, or table-agreed card total.
Final Score
0goldThree cards plus castles and expansion lines.Three Card Total
0goldCard A, B, and C evaluated separately.Castle and Location Gold
0goldCastle adjacency plus route connections.Expansion and Terrain
0goldTerrain objective and expansion toggle.📊 Full Breakdown
| Score line | Input used | Formula | Gold |
|---|
0Settlements
NoneTop card
0Groups
0Touched sites
🧩 Game Component Grid
40
Settlements
Most final scoring starts when a player has placed all of them.
3
Scoring cards
This tool calculates all three independently.
3
Castle gold
Count each castle once even if several settlements touch it.
4
Board sectors
Use first and second sector standings for Lords.
📚 Reference Tables
| Scoring card | What to count | Formula used | Calculator input |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fishermen | Settlements adjacent to water | 1 gold per counted settlement | Settlements adjacent to water |
| Miners | Settlements adjacent to mountain | 1 gold per counted settlement | Settlements adjacent to mountain |
| Workers | Settlements beside locations or castles | 1 gold per counted settlement | Settlements adjacent to a location or castle |
| Merchants | Locations or castles joined by your network | 4 gold per connected site | Locations or castles connected by settlement network |
| Discoverers | Horizontal rows with a settlement | 1 gold per occupied row | Horizontal rows with at least one settlement |
| Knights | Largest settlement count in one row | 2 gold per settlement in that row | Most settlements in one horizontal row |
| Hermits | Separate connected settlement groups | 1 gold per group | Separate connected settlement groups |
| Citizens | Largest connected settlement group | 1 gold per 2 settlements, rounded down | Largest connected settlement group size |
| Lords | Sector first and second placements | 12 gold for first, 6 for second | Board sector standings |
| Farmers | Settlements in the weakest sector | 3 gold per settlement | Settlements in weakest board sector |
| Board feature | Score impact | Counting rule | Audit note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castle hex | 3 gold each | Count each touched castle once | Do not multiply by the number of adjacent settlements. |
| Location hex | Card dependent | Counts for Workers and Merchants style routes | A single settlement can support multiple score lines. |
| Water edge | Fishermen | Count settlements touching any water edge | One settlement still counts once even if it touches multiple water hexes. |
| Mountain edge | Miners | Count settlements touching any mountain edge | Separate from castle or location adjacency. |
| Connected group | Hermits and Citizens | Use orthogonal board adjacency through settlement pieces | Group count and largest group may both be relevant. |
| Expansion toggle | When to use | Added line | Input pairing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expansion card off | Base game or no extra scoring card | No expansion gold | Leave expansion bonus at zero. |
| Nomads task completed | Nomads board modules or task tiles | Manual task reward plus terrain objective | Terrain objective and expansion bonus fields. |
| Crossroads building enabled | Crossroads building tiles or special powers | Manual printed building reward | Expansion bonus field. |
| Marshlands special terrain enabled | Marshlands terrain or special scoring | Terrain objective plus manual reward | Terrain count and selected objective. |
| Quality check | Expected range | Warning trigger | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Settlements placed | 0 to 40 | Any adjacency count above settlements placed | Prevents accidental double-counting of one category. |
| Occupied rows | 0 to 5 | More than five rows | Base boards score five horizontal rows. |
| Sector standings | 0 to 4 firsts, 0 to 4 seconds | Combined placements above four sectors | Lords compares each of the four board sectors. |
| Connected groups | 1 to placed settlements | Groups exceed settlements | Each group needs at least one settlement. |
| Three card set | Three different cards | Duplicate selected scoring card | Official setup reveals three distinct cards. |
🗂 Component and Scoring Comparison
| Component or category | Primary count | Score relationship | Best calculator field |
|---|---|---|---|
| Settlement supply | 40 per player | Caps all adjacency and group totals | Settlements placed on board |
| Scoring cards | 3 active cards | Main end-game gold engine | Scoring card A, B, and C |
| Castle tokens | Board dependent | 3 gold per adjacent castle | Castle hexes touched by settlements |
| Location tiles | Board dependent | Adjacency powers and scoring-card support | Location hexes touched by settlements |
| Terrain objective | Expansion dependent | Optional 1 gold per qualifying settlement | Terrain objective focus and count |
💡 Scoring Notes
Adjacency audit
Count each settlement once per scoring category. A settlement touching two water hexes still contributes one Fishermen gold.
Card-by-card total
Keep the three card totals separate before adding castles and expansion lines. It makes final table checks faster and easier to verify.
Kingdom Builder scoring is a process that uses three card to determine the total amount of gold that a player will score in a game of Kingdom Builder. During the game, each player places their settlements on the game board. Following the game, each player uses the three scoring cards to calculate the total amount of gold that each player’s settlement earned during that game.
Each settlement might be counted on multiple scoring cards during this calculation process, but the same settlement might not be counted on other scoring cards. Each game feature a different selection of three scoring cards, so each game will feature a different total amount of gold earned by each player. Each of the three scoring cards measure a different aspect of the game board.
How to Score in Kingdom Builder
For instance, cards like Fishermen and Miners score based off how close the player’s settlements are to the edges of the terrain on the board. Cards like Workers and Merchants score based upon how many of the player’s settlements is adjacent to specific types of built features on the board. Cards like Knights and Discoverers score based upon how many rows and columns the player’s settlements occupy on the game board.
Cards like Hermits and Citizens score based upon how many separate group of the player’s settlements are present on the game board. Cards like Lords and Farmers score based upon how many of any of the four quadrant of the game board the player controls. Each game features a different selection of these scoring cards, so each game will have different scoring for each player.
For these various reasons, the scoring process for Kingdom Builder can be confusing. Each player’s mind have to simultaneously work to calculate how many groups, how many quadrants, how many features, and how many edges are controlled by each player’s settlements. As a result, each player might be calculating some aspects of the score while others are still calculating others.
Each player might be uncertain as to whether some of their settlements should score additional gold for different reasons. For these reasons, many players spend several minutes calculating their score at the end of the game to ensure that they have obtained the correct amount of gold. The calculator that is provided for Kingdom Builder allows each player to enter the number of their settlements that are adjacent to each of the three scoring type.
Each of these types are scored separately, so that each player can determine which of the three scoring cards earn the most gold for that player. The calculator also asks for the number of location (like cities or outposts) that any of the player’s castles and settlements touch. These touches are sometimes accounted for in the Worker or Merchant cards, but sometimes the location and it’s touched castles can score the player some additional gold without relation to any of the three scoring cards.
These terrain objectives and expansion bonuses are also asked for in separate categories from the three main scoring cards. When scoring the number of touched castles by the player’s settlements, it is important to understand that each of the player’s castle that is touched by one of their settlements earns the player three gold. However, each of the castles is only counted once, even if multiple of the player’s settlements are adjacent to that same castle.
The same rule applies to locations when using the Merchant card. Each location only earns the player gold if it is touched by at least one of the player’s settlements. Any additional settlements that touch that same location earn the player no additional gold.
If each of the settlements that touches a player’s castle is counted separately, the player will earn an incorrect total amount of gold for the game. Scoring the number of separate groups of the player’s settlement also introduces additional complexity into the game. Cards like Hermits score the number of separate clusters of the player’s settlements on the board, while cards like Citizens score the number of separate clusters of the player’s settlements on the board if they are all together in one cluster.
Because both of these cards can be selected for a game, each player must calculate how many separate cluster of their settlements are on the board for both of these scoring types. Each settlement that is located in the middle of two separate clusters of another player’s settlements can be used to define the boundaries of those clusters. For these reasons, each player is asked to calculate the numbers of clusters separately for both of these scoring types.
The four quadrants of the game board are scored by both the Lords and Farmers cards. However, the Lords and Farmers scoring types reward opposite types of the control of the quadrants of the game board. For instance, the player that scores well on the Lord card may have a strong number of settlements in three of the quadrants, while the player that scores well on the Farmer card may have relatively few settlements in three of the quadrants, but a small number in their weakest quadrant.
Players may choose to play both of these cards during the same game. As a result, each player can earn large amounts of gold for controlling either the strongest quadrant for their Lord card, or the weakest quadrant for their Farmer card. Additional to the base game, additional modules can be purchased to expand the game beyond its original format.
The terrain objectives ask for the number of the player’s settlements that is placed upon specific types of terrain on the game board. Additionally, an expansion toggle is used to separate these types of terrain objectives from the main scoring of the game, since the bonus for these objectives is based upon the number of the player’s settlements that are adjacent to terrain objectives. Any additional modules to the base game will also earn the player additional gold, which is published in a separate category from the main scoring of the game.
It is very common for a player to believe that the number of their settlements is the most important factor in determining the total amount of gold that the player will score for the game. It is possible for a given player to have forty of their settlement pieces placed on the game board. However, it is also possible for that same player to score less gold than a player that has fewer total settlements.
The most important factor in the game is the number and placement of the player’s settlements on the game board. Some of the earlier decisions that a player makes during the game can have an enormous impact upon the total amount of gold that a player scores. For instance, if a player places their settlement in many different rows of their game board, that player is creating potential for scoring well with the Discoverer card.
Similarly, if a player places their settlement near the water on the game board, the player is scoring potential points with the Fishermen card. These early placement decisions can create opportunities for the scoring of the player’s settlements with the three scoring cards that will be used at the end of the game. By understanding each of these scoring types, each player can understand the reasoning behind the total amount of gold that each player earned during that game of Kingdom Builder.
For instance, if a player earned a high total amount of gold from their castles, that indicates to others that the player maintained contact with the built features on the game board. Similarly, a high score on the Hermit card indicates to others that the player did not create numerous groups of the player’s settlements. A high score for the Lord card indicates to others that the player controlled at least one of the quadrants of the game board.
Thus, the total amount of gold that a player earned is a record of the types of settlements that the three scoring cards awarded to each of the players in the game. The calculator allows each player to reach this total without making any mistakes in the calculation of their total score.
