Alhambra: The City Gates
Alhambra: The City Gates Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Equipment
6 wooden city gates and 6 playing cards showing a city gate.
Getting Ready to Play
Take one wooden city gate and one playing card for each of the players.
When the money cards in the original game are divided into five piles at the start of a game, the city-gate cards are inserted face down – spread out as evenly as possible – in the 3rd, 4th and 5th pile. The wooden gates are placed ready.
How Do You Get a City Gate?
If the top card taken from the money pile is a city-gate card, it is placed face-up next to the wooden gates or put on the discard pile if another city-gate card is in play.
Another card from the pile is then turned over, until there are once more four cards lying ready next to the building market.
From now on a player can pick up the city-gate card instead of a money card (or a bureau de change card from the 1st extension).
How Do You Use a City Gate?
Playing or using a city gate does not represent a separate turn during the game. Instead, it allows a player to lay a building tile which is only connected to the Alhambra by a double wall and cannot be reached "on foot" from the starting fountain. A wooden gate is placed on the newly-created double wall (this therefore fulfils the pedestrian rule again). The city-gate card is then removed from the game.
The use of a city-gate card enables players to lay buildings in places which were previously out of bounds due to the "pedestrian rule". The city gate "opens" the city wall so that the "pedestrian rule" is fulfilled again.
Notes
- A player can hold several city-gate cards in their hand.
- A player can use several city-gate cards in one go.
- The city-gate card can also be used during a move where the player "redesigns their own Alhambra".
- Once a city gate has been played, neither the city gate nor the two building tiles lying under it can be redesigned.