Place the Market board in the center of the table, making sure to leave space next to it for the Cathedral Construction Site.

Each player chooses a color and places the following in their own playing area:

• Their personal Workshop board, with either the basic side (recommended for your first few games) or the advanced side up.

• 4 (of their 6) Banners are placed in the Inventory on their Workshop board. The remaining Banners are placed outside the Inventory.

• Their 4 Ornamentations 1 Door, 2 Arches, and 1 Cross, are placed in the matching spaces of their Workshop board.

The Advanced Workshop side shows a compass on the workbench. They have special rules for the use of Workshop tiles and for unlocking the Ornamentations.

If you are playing with the Advanced Workshops, use the following setup: Ornamentations are placed in the indicated Workshop tile spaces, four Banners are placed in your Inventory and two Banners are placed in your white Workshop tile spaces.

Place the score markers for each player on the 2 space of the Scoring Track (around the edge of the Market board), with the “+40” facing down.

Shuffle the Resource tiles and place one randomly in each of the 8 spaces on the Market board. Turn them face up.

Shuffle the Influence cards for each of the four groups (the Craftsmen’s Guild, the Teamsters’ Guild, the Merchants’ Guild, and the Clergy) separately. Draw one of each and place them in the four spaces indicated on the Market board (it does not matter which position each card is placed in).

If this is your first game, we recommend that you use the set of cards shown below:

Take all 5 dice in both hands and shake them. Starting with the space next to the Resource tile that grants , let one die fall randomly into that space. Then drop one die in each of the following spaces, in the direction of the arrows.

To one side, within reach of the players, create a general reserve for all of the building Materials and Rubles.

Take the Building Plan cards that show the number of players in the game and mix them. Draw one at random and leave the rest in the box. This card will show the height for each of the towers that the players will build. Every tower has exactly one base and one dome, but the number of middle sections between each base and dome can vary.

Take the Cathedral cards and shuffle them into three decks: the bases, the middle sections, and the domes. Randomly pull the number of base cards indicated on the Building Plan and place them in the Construction Site, making sure that the face showing the Building Costs on each card is showing. After that, place the number of middle cards indicated on the Building Plan for each tower above them, and then finish each tower with a dome card. You can now return the Building Plan card and the rest of the Cathedral cards to the box with the others.

Take the Workshop tiles. If the game is being played with less than three players, put all of the tiles that have this icon back in the box. Place the tiles face down on the table and shuffle them well. Then, one by one, turn them face up and place one randomly on each of the Cathedral cards . Put any leftover tiles back in the box.

You may choose who will be the first player to take their turn however you like. Once that has been decided, the first player will take 3 Rubles. The rest of the players are then given Rubles in clockwise order, receiving 4 Rubles, 4 Rubles, and 5 Rubles respectively.