Ludopolis

Ludopolis Players

Players are one of three basic groups in Ludopolis: players, citizens, and traders.

What players control


Pawn: Each player has a pawn which can be moved across the game board. The position of the pawn determines where the player can act.

City placement: Each player decides when and where to place new cities.

City design: Each player can expand or shrink a city's borders and tell the city to build within its borders.

City culture: Each player can affect certain aspects of a city's culture, such as workday and average family size.

What players want


A winning score: Winning scores come from having cities with high culture. A player can only indirectly cause this to happen by creating cities that are attractive to citizens and traders.

Good neighbours: A player's country will do best if it has peaceful prosperous neighbours that provide good trading partners and safe borders.

Fun and learning: Playing a game is only useful if it challenges and amuses you. Don't play for too long! Ludopolis games are limited to one hour — you can begin a game and know that it will not encroach on the rest of your valuable time.

1 player = 1 country


Each player has a country, although if desired, a player can spend the entire game travelling in other countries.

A player country that loses all of its cities is not eliminated from the game. A player can found a new city at any time, even if the player's country currently has no cities.

Learn more about players:

  • Action Points and Gems — Learn how action points help you take your turns flexibly, and how many actions points there are in a game
  • Yellow and Green Actions — Learn about two general categories of actions you can take with your pawns, and why short green actions become more and more useful as you learn Ludopolis
  • Scoring — Learn how to grow your score
  • Learning Ludopolis — Learn how to become a player yourself