Age of Steam Expansion: Christmas Village / Mexico Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Christmas Village (1 Player)
  • Setup / Basics
  • Success Conditions
  • Playing the Game
    • Action Selection
    • Track Laying
    • Delivering Goods
    • Restocking Goods
• Mexico (2 Players)
  • Setup
  • Victory Conditions
  • Playing the Game
    • Determining Turn Order
    • Track Laying
    • Delivering Goods
    • Restocking Goods
    • Advancing the Round Marker
    • End of Game

Christmas Village (1 Player)

Setup / Basics

Note: The light grey houses on the map are treated as black. They are referred to as black in the following rules, so read them as the matching houses on your map.

• Do not place presents on the goods display. Instead, take the following presents out of the bag and return all other presents and the bag to the box: 4 blue, 4 red, 4 black, 2 purple and 2 yellow.
• Regardless of how many houses there are, place one present at random on each house. (As usual, a house and a present may be the same colour.)
• Choose one of your player colours. Then choose another player colour to use as the markers for the houses you have delivered presents to.
• Leave the track tiles in the box; they are not used on this map.
• The following actions are not used, so cover them with face-down track tiles: Priority Build, Urbanize, Turn Order (pass).
• The game lasts 10 rounds.
• As usual, begin the game with the locomotive level at 1, 2 shares issued, $10 cash and income at 0.

Designer's recommendation: Take a photo of the setup before you start. If you fail, you can try again. (That means next year's Christmas. That is the good thing about seasonal work.)

Success Conditions

The target (the number of goods to deliver) depends on the difficulty you choose (Easy, Medium or Complex).

• On Easy, you must deliver only one present to each house, and only one present to each double house and each triple house. (A total of 16 goods to deliver.)
• On Medium and Complex, you must deliver one present to each of the two houses of "Sleeping Beauty's Castle" and "Cinderella's House". (A total of 18 goods to deliver.)
• On Complex, you must deliver one present to each of the three houses of "The Three Little Pigs' House". (A total of 20 goods to deliver.)

Playing the Game

Action Selection

• The following actions cannot be used: Priority Build, Urbanize, Turn Order (pass).
• The following actions are changed: Priority Delivery (see "Delivering Goods"), Engineer (see "Track Laying"), and Production (see "Restocking Goods").

Track Laying

• Houses are connected by links, and each link has a gingerbread guide on it. When you create a link between two houses, place one of your colour's discs on that link's gingerbread guide.
• In one round you may create 0 to 2 links.
• The cost is $6 per link.

Action: Engineer

• The cost of each link is halved (that is, $3).

Delivering Goods

• When you deliver a present to a house, place one disc that is not your colour on that house to remember that it has received a present. Delivering to the same house more than once is allowed if circumstances require it (for example, if you are short of money), although it costs time and you will need to produce more presents (see "Restocking Goods").
• Houses are treated as cities and gingerbread guides as locomotives, and you earn income as usual.
• Keep all delivered presents near the map.

Action: Priority Delivery → Best Present

• Choose any two houses and exchange one present between those two houses. (This is not a "delivery"; it simply changes where a present starts.)

Restocking Goods

• Delivered presents return to the map only when you choose the Production action. On Medium and Complex you cannot clear the game without using the Production action.

Action: Production

• Take 4 random presents from those you have delivered and are keeping near the map (or all of them, if there are fewer than 4). Choose one of them and place it on any house. Return the rest near the map.

Mexico (2 Players)

Nation vs. Cartel (an illegal drug organisation). One player plays the Nation and the other plays the Cartel.

Apart from the changes written here, all of the base rules apply.

Setup

• One player plays the Nation and the other plays the Cartel.
• Take 16 black goods and 20 red goods out of the bag.
• Remove 4 red goods from the game (return them to the box), leaving 16.
• Place one black good on each blue city.
• Place one red good on each yellow city.
• Take yellow, blue and purple goods at random out of the bag and place them on every space of the starting city of the goods display and on the first row of spaces of the new city. Do not place goods on the second row of spaces of the new city.
• Make sure each city has 2 goods, by taking yellow, blue and purple goods at random out of the bag that remain and placing them in each city:
  • On Mexico City, 2 random goods from the yellow, blue and purple goods.
  • On each purple city, 2 random goods each from the yellow, blue and purple goods.
  • On each blue city, 1 black good and 1 random good from the yellow, blue and purple goods.
  • On each yellow city, 1 red good and 1 random good from the yellow, blue and purple goods.
• Put the remaining 11 black goods and 11 red goods into the empty bag.
• Cover the following actions with face-down track tiles (they cannot be chosen): Production and Turn Order (pass).

Victory Conditions

Each player has their own goal:

• The Nation must remove all black goods from the map.
• The Cartel must remove all red goods from the map.

If neither player achieves their goal, both players lose. If only one player achieves their goal, that player wins. If both players achieve their goals, the player with the higher victory points wins.

Playing the Game

The game lasts 9 rounds.

Determining Turn Order

In addition to the 2 unselectable actions covered by face-down track tiles, choose 2 other actions at random. These 2 become unselectable for this round only, and they are covered by face-up track tiles.

• As usual, the player who drops out of the auction first takes the last space on the turn order track and does not pay their bid.
• If the Nation wins the auction, it pays 100% of its bid. If the Cartel wins the auction, it pays 50% of its bid (rounded down).

Track Laying

• The Nation may lay 0 to 3 track tiles. The Cartel may lay 0 to 2 track tiles.
• Laying costs:
  • Single track on flat terrain (white hexes): $2
  • Single track on mountains (brown hexes): $3

Action: Engineer

• As usual, you may lay one additional track tile. That is, the Nation may lay 0 to 4 track tiles and the Cartel may lay 0 to 3 track tiles.

Action: Urbanize

• When urbanizing, the Nation cannot choose a new red city, and the Cartel cannot choose a new black city.

Delivering Goods

• The Nation cannot deliver red goods, and the Cartel cannot deliver black goods. As usual, return delivered goods to the bag!

Restocking Goods

• Skip this phase in round 9.

Action: Production (automatic)

• The Production action cannot be chosen in the action selection phase, but in this phase the Cartel's Production action is carried out automatically. The Nation has no Production action.
• The Cartel draws 2 goods from the bag. It places one of them in any one city, and may return the other to the bag. (This production action is optional, and the Cartel may choose not to draw any goods.)

Note: If the Cartel chooses to draw 2 goods from the bag, it must place one of them.

Advancing the Round Marker

• Remove the 2 face-up track tiles that blocked actions this round.

End of Game

• If both red and black goods remain on the map, both players lose.
• If red goods remain on the map and no black goods remain, the Nation wins.
• If black goods remain on the map and no red goods remain, the Cartel wins.
• If no red goods and no black goods remain on the map, determine the winner using the same scoring as the base game.