An Infamous Traffic: Second Edition
An Infamous Traffic: Second Edition Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
Rules Booklets and Aids
The game includes two rulebooks (this one and a solo rulebook) along with 2 full page aids and 10 smaller aids.
The Map
The map consists of seven regions and various tracks which are used to record each players credit and revenue. In each region, there's one or more supply chains. Most pieces are placed on spaces in a supply chain, except for Missionaries, Qing Forces, Taiping, and Treaty Port pieces.
Trackers and Tokens
There are 3 track markers for Outrage, the current decade, and the current phase. In addition there are 15 permanent debt tokens, 10 party tokens, and 13 supply chain cubes.
Player Pieces (5 sets)
Each player has a pawn, credit tracker, revenue tracker, and player board.
Conspiracy Tiles and Bag
There are 58 off-white conspiracy tiles: 15 Qing Forces, 13 Smugglers, 11 Bureaucrats, 7 Missionaries, 7 Treaty Ports, and 5 Taiping. Some of these tiles are used to set up the game (see next page). The rest are held in the black Conspiracy bag.
Event Tiles and Bag
There are XX blue-green event tiles: 10 Stability, 9 Enforcement (3 Canton, 2 Mountain, 2 Mid-Coast, 2 City), 4 Taiping Uprising, 3 Public Debate, 2 Tax, 2 Missionary Disruption. Some of these tiles begin in the teal Event bag, and the rest are placed in the Fate of China box.
Player Tiles
Each player has a set of 18 tiles: 6 of each of the three enterprises, Merchants, Ships, and Opium.
Cards
There are XXX cards in various types: 16 London, 16 India, 12 China, 12 Player Identity, 35 prizes, and XX solo cards. A card's type can be identified by its back. In the game, cards are used to represent your business and domestic capabilities and obligations.
Core Anatomy
All cards have these features: Card Type, Cost followed by Upkeep, Party Icons, Card Ability, Victory Points, and a Lock. A Lock means the card cannot be discarded.
Starting Cards
These cards are used to set up the game but work like other cards during play. Each starting card shows a Starting Pawn position and a starting tile.
Prize Card
These are gained each turn and provide you with your only way to score points. Many prizes are face-down unless certain conditions are met. For instance, to have your daughter marry well, you'll need to be married first.
Business Contact Cards
Each card's location is indicated by its back and its background. Some contacts have conduct business actions. Others have persistent powers, indicated by the feather pen.
Setup
Initial Setup
- Place the board on the appropriate side for the player count: one side is used for 2-3 players, and the other for 4-5 players.
- Place the Decade and Outrage markers on the leftmost spaces of their tracks.
- Set aside the Active Supply Chain cubes, the 7 Taiping tiles, and the 7 Treaty Port tiles.
- Place these event tiles in the event bag: 10 Stability, one +2 Outrage, one -2 Outrage, and one Canton Enforcement (fish icon).
- Shuffle the remaining event tiles and place them in a facedown pile in the Fate of China box. Draw two random event tiles and place them face up on the two Fate of China track spaces.
- Place tiles on the map of China as follows:
- Place a Qing Force tile in each region (seven total).
- Place a Missionary in the Canton region.
- In Canton, place a Bureaucrat (value 2) in its leftmost supply chain, and place a Smuggler (value 2) in its rightmost supply chain.
- In Shanghai, place a Bureaucrat (value 2) in its rightmost supply chain.
- Shuffle the conspiracy tiles and place them in the conspiracy bag.
- Draw conspiracy tiles to fill the 6 conspiracy circles: place 2 tiles face up in the first two circles and 1 tile face up in the other four circles.
- Roll the 5 opportunity dice and place them in the Opportunity Pool box.
- Roll 2 demand dice and place them in the Canton region.
- Shuffle the Prize, London, India, and China cards into separate decks and place them near the board.
Player Setup
- Each player collects the 18 player tiles of their color in their player area, face down. Each player places the two track markers of their color on the "0" space of the Cash/Debt and Revenue tracks.
- Shuffle the starting cards. Each player draws 2.
- Starting with a random player and going clockwise, each player chooses one starting card and resolves the text on the bottom of the card as follows:
- Place your pawn on the action row in the leftmost empty space of the indicated location: London, India, or China.
- Place the listed tile, with a value of your choice, in the area above your starting card. This area is called your holdings. Only you see its value but other players can see its type.
- Keep your starting card in your tableau of cards for the rest of the game.
Getting to Know Your Firm
Your Pawn
Each player has one pawn, which tracks your location within the game world. Each turn, you will use your pawn to take actions and travel between London, India, and China.
Your Cards
Over the course of the game, players will manage a row of cards in their player area. These cards in your player area represent your professional network and domestic obligations.
There are several card types: Conduct Business cards (showing a location icon) with actions you can take, Persistent Power cards (showing a feather pen icon), Prizes, and a player's starting card.
You may have up to five cards in your player area. If you ever gain a sixth card, you must immediately discard one of your other cards, returning it to the top of its matching deck. This is the only time when you can voluntarily discard a card.
Face-up cards with a lock icon cannot be discarded. A face-down Prizes card can only be discarded if you replace it with another prize.
Tableau Limit Example: If you wanted to add Thomas Macaulay to your row, you could only discard your Merchant or your Influential Doctor. The face down prize could be discarded, but only if it were replaced by another prize.
The Location Decks
Before beginning your first game, it's worth discussing the three location decks. The most profitable merchants and shipbuilders are found in London, while the best opium production is found in India. The China deck offers powerful abilities but no cards that can be used to gain tiles. Drawing from the China deck is also risky: if you draw the Expelled by Lin Zexu card, you skip your turn.
Your Tiles
There are three types of player tiles: ships, opium, and merchants. Each player has a supply of unbuilt tiles, kept face down near them. A player can peek at their unbuilt tiles at any time.
When you gain a tile, place it, face down, in your holdings. This is the area above your starting card. All players should be able to see the type of every tile in your holdings, but only you can see their values. The value of a tile determines how much revenue the tile might generate per decade. We'll talk more about how tiles make revenue later.
Tiles in your holdings or in an inactive supply chain are inactive, and tiles in an active supply chain are active. If you have too many inactive tiles at the end of a decade, some will get returned to your supply.
Your Revenue, Cash, and Debt
Players track their finances on two tracks in the bottom-left part of the board: the vertical Revenue track and the horizontal Cash/Debt track.
Your Revenue is the sum of all tiles of your player color in active supply chains. Revenue is kept up to date at all times: if a supply chain becomes active or inactive, Revenue can change. Players may advance beyond the end of the Revenue track, but it is exceptionally unlikely.
Many actions require you to take Debt. Each time you take Debt, shift your Cash/Debt marker one space to the left. If you end the game in Debt, you may lose victory points.
Thankfully, players will have an opportunity to escape a life of debt by gaining Cash. Each time you gain Cash, shift your Cash/Debt marker one space to the right. At the end of each decade, players gain Cash equal to their Revenue minus any Upkeep they must pay on the cards they have.
At the end of a decade, if you are in Debt, your Debt might compound, making you take more Debt, and your Debt carries over to the next decade. If you have Cash, it is frittered away and reset to 0.
Doing Business in China
China's Regions and Supply Chains
China is divided into 7 regions, grouped into four larger areas: Fish, Wave, Temple and Mountains.
Each region has an alignment box (Qing, Open Port, or Taiping), a Missionary box, and one or more opium supply chains. A region is adjacent to other regions sharing a thin border. Regions separated by the mountain chain are not adjacent.
Every supply chain has a number of spaces that each hold one tile. Spaces with a Ship or Opium icon can only hold Ship and Opium tiles, respectively. Blank spaces can hold Merchant, Smuggler, and Bureaucrat tiles, not Ships or Opium.
A supply chain can either be active or inactive. A supply chain is active while its tile spaces are full and the combined value of its tiles is less than or equal to the region's demand (explained soon). When a supply chain becomes active, mark it with an Active Supply Chain cube. Then, for each Smuggler in the chain, move the demand die of the lowest value from the region to the supply. Returning dice often means that the demand will go below the value of the recently completed line. This is fine: once a line is active, it will remain active unless disrupted by specific events.
Most supply chains are coastal, which have at least one ship space. Supply chains with no ship spaces are interior supply chains. Interior chains have an extra condition to become active: all connected supply chains towards their coastal line must be active.
The missionary icon is a reminder that only one missionary can be in each region. The four areas are also denoted by the color of their regions.
Internal Supply Line: Though filled and under demand, this line is not active because its connected, upstream line is not active.
Coastal Supply Line: The value of a line is only checked the moment it becomes active. So, though demand has since dropped, this line remains complete.
Demand
Each region in China has a demand for opium, which is the sum of all demand dice in the region.
Demand will change over time as dice are added, removed, and rerolled. The number of demand dice in a region always equals the number of black tiles (Missionary, Smuggler, and Open Port tiles) in a region that are not in an active supply chain.
Empty Dice Supply: Rarely, a demand die will need to be placed when its supply is empty. In these cases, return the lowest demand die from the region with the lowest demand as well as a black tile in the region, Missionaries first, then Smugglers in inactive lines. In the case of any ties, the leftmost player in the Action row decides.
Opportunity
Trade in the nineteenth century was a difficult matter. To simulate this, players will often be limited in their ability to place tiles by the dice in the Opportunity Pool.
You cannot place a tile in a supply chain unless you have opportunity in that region: at least one die in the Opportunity Pool must match the value of at least one demand die in that region.
At the start of the game, the Opportunity Pool contains five dice. This pool may contract over the course of the game if the Taiping gain a foothold in China.
To help players easily visualize their access to regions in China, dice in the pool that match dice in China can be shifted to the mini map at the top of the Opportunity Pool.
Opportunity Example: Assuming the only demand was that indicated by examples on these two pages, there is opportunity in Changsha and Wuchang. Only the "5" does not match, so it is moved to the bottom of the box.
Disruption and Outrage
The Qing Dynasty did not look kindly upon the opium traffic and restricted it heavily.
Throughout the game, tiles can become disrupted. When Bureaucrats and Smugglers are disrupted, they are removed from the game. When a Merchant, Ship, or Opium is disrupted, increase Outrage by one and return the tile to its player's holdings. Sufficient Outrage will cause an Opium War at the end of the decade (page XX).
When an active chain is disrupted, return its Active Supply Chain cube to the supply, decrease each player's Revenue equal to the total value of their tiles in that chain, and disrupt all tiles in the chain. If a supply chain with interior chains becomes inactive, disrupt any active interior chains as well.
Disruption Action: A line in Wenzhou is disrupted. All tiles in the line are removed from the board. Each of the three player tiles are returned to their owner's holdings. The smuggler is removed from the game. The line is no longer active and players lose revenue equal to their disrupted tiles. Blue's revenue goes down 1 space, and brown and green have their revenue reduced by 2. The supply chain cube is returned to the supply. Finally increase the outrage marker for each player tile removed.
Sequence of Play
The Four Decades
An Infamous Traffic is played over the course of four decades. Each decade is composed of many rounds. In a round, each player takes one turn each, and then an event tile is drawn from the bag and resolved. At the end of a decade, an opium war might occur, players balance their finances and have an opportunity to buy prizes, and then new, more disruptive event tiles are added to the bag as China is destabilized.
At the end of the fourth decade, the game ends, and the player with the most victory points wins the game.
The Structure of a Round
A game of Infamous Traffic is played over several rounds, in which each player will take one turn. Turn order is the order of pawns in the action row from left to right.
On their turn, a player takes one action, then cleans up and checks for any changes in supply chains.
After each player has taken a turn, the final player who took an action this round moves any pawns on the travel row to the action row and resolves the event.
After the last event tile is revealed and resolved, the decade ends. Players then (1) check for an Opium War, (2) balance books, (3) resolve the London Season, (4) add event tiles, and clean up.
This continues until players have played 4 decades or an early game end condition occurs.
General Actions
Each turn players take one action from those described in this section. Some actions can only be taken if a player's pawn is in a specific location in the action row: London, India, or China.
Inquire
Draw the top 3 cards from your location's deck. You may either:
- Take 1 card into your play area and return the other two to the top of their deck in the order of your choice.
- Return all 3 cards to the bottom of their deck in the order of your choice.
Conduct Business
Use any actions on cards you have that match your location (London, India, China). Resolve these actions one at a time in any order. You may choose to not resolve a card's action.
The most common kind of action on cards is gaining a tile. Take Debt as shown in the red circle, take a tile of the type shown on the card from your supply, and place it in your holdings so that only you can see its value.
Gaining a Tile Example: James Matheson is in London and conducts business. He chooses to use both his starting card and his merchant. He takes 1 debt and selects two matching tiles from his supply to add to his holdings. Only he knows their values.
Travel
Place your pawn in the leftmost empty space of the travel row in any other location. At the end of the round, pawns in the travel row will move up to the leftmost empty spaces of that location's action row, preserving their turn order.
Travel Example: Yellow is in India and travels to London. At the end of the round, they will shift their pawn to first free space of the London action row.
Pass
Place your pawn in the rightmost empty space of the travel row in your location.
Location Specific Actions
Throw Party (London)
Take 1 Debt to gain a Party token. (During the London Season, players will draft prizes in party order: the player with the most parties drafts first, followed by second most parties, etc. All ties are broken by Cash, and further ties are broken in turn order.)
Deploy (China)
Place an inactive tile face up onto a supply chain space. You must have opportunity (page XX) and follow the rules on tile types (page XX).
Note: You can use this action to move a tile that is already in an inactive chain in China.
Placing Merchants: The Opium trade was strictly forbidden in Qing China, and very few traders spoke Chinese or understood proper protocols. After you place a Merchant in a Qing or Taiping region, you must reroll all dice in the Opportunity Pool that match any demand dice in the region where you placed the Merchant.
Underselling: Players may deploy tiles to a supply chain space that already has a tile by underselling. If a player has a matching tile of a lower value, they may gain one debt to replace that tile with their own tile. (Like other deploy actions, opportunity is still required to undersell. Players may also undersell their own tiles.)
If the replaced tile belonged to a player, it returns to that player's holdings, hidden. If the replaced tile was in an active supply chain and returned to a player, that player reduces their Revenue by an amount equal to the tile value. Then, the underselling player increases their Revenue by the value of their placed tile.
Deploying a Merchant Example: There is currently opportunity in Changsha (matching the 3 and 1), so pieces can be deployed in either region. Green deploys their Merchant to Changsha to complete the line since the supply line is full, equals demand or lower, and the linked line is also complete. They gain 2 revenue. However, because Western merchants didn't speak Chinese or have deep business connections, all matching opportunity dice must be rerolled after deploying. The rerolled results in a 1, 2, and 2. Opportunity remains in Changsha but it has been weakened.
Adjust Price (China)
Choose a tile of yours in an inactive supply chain, or reveal a tile on your tile holdings. Swap this tile with a new tile from your supply. The new tile must be the same type as the old tile, and its value must be one lower or higher.
If you're swapping a tile in your holdings, reveal the new tile, then flip it back to hidden.
Influence (China)
Reroll up to 2 dice in the Opportunity Pool. For each China card you have, you may reroll an additional die. Note: Starting cards are never China cards.
After taking this action, you may take 1 Debt to take the Deploy action.
Conspiracy (China)
Choose one conspiracy bowl: take 1 Debt if it has any Smugglers or Missionaries. Place all conspiracy tiles from that bowl, as described below in Conspiracy Tiles in Detail.
After taking this action, you may take 1 Debt to take the Deploy action.
Conspiracy Tiles in Detail
Each conspiracy tile's placement restriction and effect is described in this section.
Missionary: Place it in the Missionary box of a region that has a black tile or is adjacent to a region with a black tile. (They are not placed in supply chains.) Each region may only have one Missionary. After placing it, roll and add one demand die to its region.
In the rare instance when there are no black tiles in China, you may always place a Missionary in Canton.
Qing Force: Place it in a region, not a supply chain. Qing Forces can be placed three ways:
- If placed in a Qing region, reroll all dice in the Opportunity Pool that match demand dice in its region.
- If placed in a Taiping Region, you must conduct a battle in the region. To do this, you must first remove Qing Forces from adjacent regions equal to the total number of Taiping tiles in China, but you cannot remove the last Qing Force/Treaty Port tile in a region to do this. After placing it, remove the Taiping tile in the region you placed it in, then roll and add a die to the Opportunity Pool.
- If placed in a Treaty Port, tuck the tile under the Treaty Port. No opportunity dice are rerolled. This placement is mostly used to defend a region from the Taiping or prepare for a Taiping Attack.
Smuggler: Place in a supply chain in a region with a black tile or a region adjacent to a region with a black tile. Each supply chain may only have one Smuggler. After placing it, roll and add one demand die to its region.
In the rare instance when there are no black tiles in China, you may always place a Smuggler in Canton. If none can be placed there, you may place the Smuggler in any region.
Bureaucrat: Place it on an empty interior space in a region with at least one demand die. Then, you may reroll a demand die with the lowest value in this region.
In the rare instance where there are no regions with demand, place them in any region.
Competition Among Bureaucrats and Smugglers: You may place a Smuggler or Bureaucrat in a supply chain space filled with a matching piece of higher value. The previous piece is removed from play. Then, you may reroll a demand die with the lowest value in this region. (This is not a Deploy action, so opportunity is not required.)
Conspiracy Action Example (shown graphically in the rulebook).
End of Turn
At the end of your turn, check for newly active supply chains and for early decade end. Then, if all players have taken a turn this round, resolve the end of round cleanup.
Check for Active Supply Chains
A supply chain becomes active if every space in it is filled and the total value of all tiles in the chain is equal or less than the region's demand. If it is an interior chain, all chains leading to it must also be active.
If the chain was completed this turn, mark the chain with an Active Supply Chain cube and increase each player's Revenue by the total value of all of their player tiles in the chain. Finally, if there is a Smuggler in the newly active chain, return the demand die of lowest value in the region to the supply.
Activating a Supply Chain Example (shown graphically in the rulebook).
A supply chain becoming active can change the demand in its region, which might make it impossible for another supply chain to become active in the same region. If this happens, the active player chooses which supply chain becomes active first.
Early Decade End
The decade ends early if at least one of the following is true:
- There are no dice in the demand dice supply.
- There are no dice in the Opportunity Pool.
- Outrage is in one of the two rightmost positions. Note: that it can get to the furthest position if an event caused 2 or more outrage to be gained in a single instance.
If this happens, resolve the End of the Decade steps now.
End of Round Cleanup
Resolve Travel
From left to right, slide each pawn in the action row to the left in its location, filling any gaps. Then, from left to right, shift each pawn that traveled this turn to the leftmost empty space on the action row of their new location.
Resolving Travel Example (shown graphically in the rulebook).
Resolve Event
Take a random tile from the event bag, place it on the next empty space of the event track, and resolve it as described in the next section.
After the eighth event is resolved, the decade is over. Resolve the End of Decade phases. Otherwise, play then continues with the leftmost player on the action row.
Player Scaling: Usually only one tile is drawn at the end of each round. However, if playing with 4 players, two tiles are drawn after the first round of play each decade. If playing with 5 players, three tiles are drawn. In both cases, tiles are resolved one at a time in the order drawn. In practice, this rule just means that a decade with 4 players is resolved over 7 rounds of play and 6 rounds of play with 5 players. However, no matter the player count, each decade will have see 8 events.
Dev Note: After resolving the event, players may wish to pass the bag to the new leftmost player (who will resolve the next event). Or, a single player can resolve all of the events, to speed play. In this case, if any decisions need to be made during the event, the player who was in the rightmost space last turn decides.
Event Tiles in Detail
At various points, an event may have multiple targets. The player resolving this phase always decides among tied choices.
Stability: Nothing happens.
Public Debate: Increase or decrease Outrage as indicated (-2 or +2).
Tax: Find the Qing region with the most tiles in active chains in that region (count all tiles, even non-player tiles!). All players with tiles in that region must gain one debt for each of their tiles in that region. Ignore this event if there are no active chains in Qing regions.
Missionary Expulsion: Remove the Missionary from the Qing region with the highest demand. Return the lowest demand die from that region to the supply. (If there are no Missionaries in China, this event is ignored.) Increase Outrage by 2.
Enforce in [Area]: In the area shown on this tile, find the active supply chain in a Qing region that provides the most Revenue: the sum of all tiles in that chain and active chains connected to it. Disrupt that chain and active chains connected to it.
Return disrupted player tiles to their players' holdings, and remove disrupted Smugglers and Bureaucrats from the game. (If there are no valid supply chains, this event is ignored.) Increase Outrage by 1 for each disrupted player tile.
Taiping Uprising: This event has different targets based on the status of the Taiping:
- Founding the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: If there are no Taiping regions, target the region with the lowest total of Qing Forces and Bureaucrats.
- Expanding the Heavenly Kingdom: If there are any Taiping regions, target the region with the most tiles in supply chains that is adjacent to a Taiping region. (This is the only event that will ever occur in a Treaty Port.)
In the target region, remove one Qing Force plus one Qing Force for each Taiping region in China. If no Qing Forces remain in the region, the Uprising is successful:
- Disrupt all supply chains in the region (active or not).
- Place a Taiping tile in the region's alignment box.
- Remove the lowest die from the Opportunity Pool.
Taiping Examples (shown graphically in the rulebook).
End of the Decade
First, Resolve the Opium War
If the Outrage marker is on a space with a left-facing arrow, lower Outrage by one space.
If the Outrage marker is on a red space, an opium war occurs. The number listed on the Outrage space is the war's strength. For this war, the player with the leftmost pawn on the action row is the commander.
The commander must spend all of the war's strength to take the following actions in legal regions: a coastal region, a Treaty Port, or a region adjacent to a Treaty Port.
- Attack Qing: Spend 1 strength. Remove 1 Qing Force. If this is the last Qing Force in the region, place a Treaty Port tile (black lion rampart) in the region's alignment box, then add a rolled demand die to the region.
- Suppress Taiping: Spend strength equal to the number of Taiping regions. Remove a Taiping tile, place a Treaty Port tile in that region's alignment box, then add a rolled die to the Opportunity Pool.
- Police Treaty Port: Spend 1 strength to remove any number of Bureaucrats and Smugglers from inactive supply chains in a Treaty Port region. Each time you remove a Smuggler, remove the lowest demand die from the region.
Opium War Example (shown graphically in the rulebook).
Second, Resolve the Post-War Rush
If an opium war just happened, resolve the Post-War Rush as follows.
First, each player gains 2 Cash for each region that became a Treaty Port in the war.
Then, in turn order, each player may either pass or take a China action (Deploy, Adjust Price, Influence, or Conspiracy), but each action costs one extra Debt. After each action, check whether any supply lines become active.
The Post-War Rush may continue for several rounds. If a player passes, they cannot take China actions in later round of the Post-War Rush. This continues until all players have passed.
Finally, reset Outrage to zero.
Post-War Rush (shown graphically in the rulebook).
Third, Balance Books
Each player gains Cash equal to their Revenue minus their Upkeep: the sum of all values in parentheses in the top-right corner of their face-up prize cards.
Then, players return inactive tiles above their tile limit to their supplies. A player's tile limit is the large number next to their Revenue track space.
Remember, inactive tiles are those in your holdings and in inactive supply chains. In practice, this phase can be resolved simultaneously. If timing conflicts arise, players resolve in turn order.
Tile Support (shown graphically in the rulebook).
Fourth, London Season
The player with the most parties (tokens and icons on cards) draws 5 prize cards. They may keep one prize (and discard if over 5 cards), then they pass the remaining prize cards to the player with the next most parties. With 2 or 3 players, after a player chooses a prize to keep, they also randomly discard one prize, face down, before passing the remaining prizes to the next player.
If you take a prize face up, take Debt as shown by the first number in the top-right corner of the Prize (not the number in parentheses).
This continues until all players have had a chance to take a prize. If players are tied for parties, the tied player with the most Cash goes first. Break further ties in turn order.
There are four types of prizes:
- Displays of Wealth. These cards cannot be discarded.
- Marriage Cards. You may only have one marriage card. It cannot be discarded.
- Family Ambitions. These cards must be played face down and are turned face up the moment you have a face-up Marriage card. When they are turned face up, you must take Debt as indicated. You do not pay Upkeep on facedown family ambition cards.
- Secret Ambitions. Keep these cards face down until the end of the game. When they are turned face up, you must take Debt as indicated.
After all players have chosen, place any remaining prizes on the bottom of the prize deck, then return all party tokens to the supply.
If this is the final turn of the game, you must reveal any secret ambitions now and take Debt for them. Facedown family ambitions are discarded and do not make you take Debt.
Finally, Debt compounds and any excess Cash is frittered away. Players in Debt may need to take more Debt, as indicated by the Debt track. If you would advance past the end of the Debt track, take one permanent debt marker for each space you would have advanced. If you have more than 0 Cash, reset it to 0 and curse your frivolous friends and relations.
Fifth, Add Events
Place all event tiles on the event row back into the bag. Then, add event tiles equal to the sum of the number of Taiping regions plus regions with any active supply chains.
Note: the same region may be counted twice if it is a Taiping region where opium is being traded.
When adding tiles, the first two tiles come from the face-up Fate of China track (rightmost first). Additional tiles come from the facedown supply of events. If the rare instance that this supply is empty, remove one Stability tile from the event bag for each tile that you could not add to the bag, if possible.
Finally, slide any remaining tiles on the Fate of China track to the right and fill any empty slots with face-up event tiles.
Finally, Clean up
Add one tile to each conspiracy bowl. Then, advance the decade track. The leftmost player on the action row will take the first action of the next decade.
Game End and Victory
The game ends after the London Season step after the 4th decade. The game may also end after the London Season step if the Opportunity Pool or the supply of demand dice is empty.
At the end of the game, players tally up their victory points on their cards minus any victory point penalty from being in Debt, including -1 for each permanent debt token they have. The player with the most victory points wins the game. Ties are broken in turn order.