King of Siam is a game for 2 to 4 players. In the 2-player and in the 3-player game, each player plays against each. In the 4-player game, the two player opposite each other are one team. In the game, the three Siamese factions (that is: the Royals, the Malays, and the Laos) are struggling for dominance over Siam. No player is playing a certain faction. Instead, by playing action cards players change the balance of power in Siam and increase their influence over one or the other faction. After 8 power struggles, the game ends. The winning player is the one who has gained the highest influence over the finally dominating faction.

Set up the game

The gameboard shows Siam in the year 1873 and its 8 provinces. Each faction has one home province (it is the one with the faction's coat of arms).

	You set up the game doing the following steps:
	(1)	Every player receives 2 cubes (the so-called "followers") and puts them in front of him. (The choice of the cubes is by chance.) These 2 cubes are his initial influence over the factions.
	(2)	Each of the 8 provinces receives 4 randomly chosen followers. However, in a home province there has to be at least 2 followers of the corresponding faction.
	(3)	the 8 province tiles are put in random order on the boxes numbered 1 to 8. After that turn them face-up. These sequence of these tiles is the sequence in which the 8 powerstruggles are conducted.
		Now the game is ready to start!

How to play King of Siam:

(1)The tile to the upper left indicates in which province the next power struggle takes place. Here, it is Sukothai. Currently, the blue faction has the majority in Sukothai with 2 followers.		(2) The game goes clockwise. A player may play one of his eight action cards, or he may pass. Here, the player plays the action card "Khon Thai". With that he is allowed to put 1 follower of each faction from the pool onto the board.
(3) The player decides to put a yellow follower to Sukothai. The other 2 go to different provinces. (Note that he would have been allowed to put all followers in one province as well.) After performing his action a player must remove a follower from any one povince. In the example, the player chooses a blue follower in Sukothai.		(4) He places this removed follower in front of him. Together with the 2 followers from game start he has now an influence of 1 over each of the 3 factions. The played action cards stays in front of the player. He cannot use it once again in the game.
(5) Now, it is the next player's turn. He may play an action card, or he may pass. At the moment all players have passed in a row, the power struggle in the contested province ends. – In our example, the other players decide to conserve their valuable action cards for later use. So they pass all in a row.		(6) Resolving the power struggle: As to be seen, the yellow followers have the majority in Sukothai now. Therefore yellow (the Royals) take over control in Sukothai: The province is emptied (all cubes go the pool), a yellow control marker is put into it, and finally the province tile is turned face-down. The game procedes with the power struggle of the next province. This procedure is repeated until all 8 provinces had their power struggle.
(7) When the power struggle results in a tie, the British are marching in. The province is then marked with a Union Jack. – Whenever the British have taken over control in 4 provinces, then the game ends immediately (with different victory conditions!).		(8) The game ends when all 8 power struggles have been resolved. The winning faction is the one which controls the most provinces. In the example, it is blue with 3 provinces. – The winning player is the one who has collected the most cubes of the winning factions. In the example, the player to the right has the most blue followers. Therefore he is the winner!