On their turn in the settler phase, the owner of an occupied forest house may place a forest on one of their empty island spaces instead of choosing one of the available plantations (or quarry, if that was an option). To do so, they take one of the forest tiles and place it face-up on an empty island space on their player board.
When a player builds a building (whether the forest house is occupied or not), the player may reduce the cost of the building by 1 doubloon for each two forests on their island. This reduction is in addition to the builder and quarry reductions, but does not come with the column restriction of the quarry.
Note: Forests do not have space (or need) for colonists.
Example: Anna has 6 forests, 2 occupied quarries, and is the builder; to build a large warehouse, she pays nothing: 6 –1 (builder) –2 (quarries) – 3 (forests – no column limit) = 0.
Note: If the owner of an occupied forest house also has…
...an occupied hacienda, they may look at a face-down tile before deciding to take a forest or the face-down tile; if the player chooses the forest, they return the facedown tile to the stack
... an occupied library, they can choose freely to place no, one, or both plantation tiles as forests;
... an occupied hospice and places a forest, they place the colonist on their windrose.
Once placed on the player board, a player may not change a plantation to a forest or vice-versa.