A printable Alhambra log lives or dies on the one record nobody keeps: how many buildings of each colour each player actually had in their Alhambra at each scoring round, because the game scores three times, the points grow every round, and the final round pays first, second, and third place for each of six building kinds plus one point per segment of each player's longest exterior wall. Nobody at the table argues about the money cards they drew; they argue about whether two players were really tied for the most arcades, whether the tiles sitting on a reserve board were really in the Alhambra, and whether a wall that runs back-to-back inside the city was really an exterior wall. The score track is a total with no memory. The only evidence is the log: a round-by-round record of each colour count, each wall length, and each tie split, or a single number that was written at the end and can be defended by nobody.
Majorities are the first trap the sheet is built to catch, because the points for each building kind are fixed by the scoring table and the only question is who held which rank when the scoring card was drawn. In the final scoring round, first, second, and third place pay sixteen, eight, and one for pavilions, seventeen, nine, and two for seraglios, eighteen, ten, and three for arcades, nineteen, eleven, and four for chambers, twenty, twelve, and five for gardens, and twenty-one, thirteen, and six for towers, while the first scoring round pays only first place and the second round pays first and second. A tie sums the points for the tied positions and splits them, always rounding down, so two players tied for first in arcades in the final round share eighteen plus ten, fourteen each, not eighteen each and not ten each. And building tiles sitting on a reserve board are not counted at all, because the reserve is storage, not the city, and a player who counts reserve tiles toward a majority has invented a lead out of tiles that were never placed.
Walls are the second trap, because only one wall per player scores and only its exterior length counts. Each side of a tile carrying a wall segment on the outside of the Alhambra counts for one point, the longest joined exterior wall is the one that scores, and walls that sit back-to-back inside the city score nothing, no matter how long they run. A player who measures every wall segment on every tile, inside and out, and adds them together has counted a wall the rules never pay for, and a player who measures only the wall they remember building has usually forgotten the segment that joined it last. The log tracks the longest exterior wall as its own column, separate from the colour counts, because a wall folded into a running total can never be re-measured once the tiles are back in the bag.
Here is the worked final tally the sheet is built to settle. Player A holds four pavilions, two seraglios, three arcades, five chambers, one garden, and two towers, with a longest exterior wall of nine segments. Player B holds three pavilions, four seraglios, three arcades, two chambers, four gardens, and two towers, with a longest exterior wall of eleven segments. Pavilions pay A sixteen for first and B eight for second; seraglios pay B seventeen for first and A nine for second; arcades are tied at three each, so A and B share eighteen plus ten, fourteen each; chambers pay A nineteen for first and B eleven for second; gardens pay B twenty for first and A twelve for second; towers are tied at two each, so A and B share twenty-one plus thirteen, seventeen each. A totals eighty-seven from buildings plus nine for the wall, ninety-six in all, from sixteen plus nine plus fourteen plus nineteen plus twelve plus seventeen plus nine. B totals eighty-seven from buildings plus eleven for the wall, ninety-eight in all, from eight plus seventeen plus fourteen plus eleven plus twenty plus seventeen plus eleven, and B wins by two even though both players hold eighty-seven building points, because B's longer wall breaks the tie the majorities left.
Give A sole first place in arcades instead of the tied split and A falsely gains four points to one hundred, flipping the winner, which is exactly what happens when a tie is scored as a win because nobody wrote both counts down. Count three back-to-back internal wall segments inside B's city as exterior wall and B falsely gains three points to one hundred and one, stretching a two-point win into a five-point rout on wall the rules never pay for. Count two towers sitting on A's reserve board as placed and A falsely takes sole first in towers at twenty-one instead of the tied seventeen, gaining four points to one hundred, flipping the winner again on tiles that were never in the city. Every one of those lines has decided a real game, and every one of them is on the sheet.
That is why the sheet sells as a download rather than as a blank score pad. A blank pad records a final total nobody can audit; a worked wall-and-majority log records the decisions the table actually argued about, with each colour count per scoring round, each tie split, each longest wall, and the reserve explicitly excluded, on the same sheet, so the winner falls out of the log instead of out of a twenty-minute recount. Print it, update one line per colour as buildings land and walls join, and the next time someone says their Alhambra total adds up, the answer is on the paper, not in anyone's memory.
This is an unofficial fan-made log sheet, not affiliated with or endorsed by Queen Games. Alhambra is a board game designed by Dirk Henn.
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