Carnegie
Carnegie Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object
Score the most victory points (VP), earned from connecting major cities, building projects, developing departments and project tabs, making donations, and keeping active employees. Most VP at game end wins.
Company Basics
Each player's Company is organized into Departments, each tied to one of the four action types:
- Human Resources — move employees around your Company board.
- Management — gain goods and money, and build new Departments (each Company starts with two Management Departments).
- Construction — build projects developed by your R&D.
- Research & Development (R&D) — design new projects and develop transportation.
Each Company starts with 1 Lobby and 5 Departments. A Department holds 1–3 active (standing) employees, one per illustrated Workstation, plus any number of inactive (lying-down) employees. A Department only works if it has at least one active employee, and can be used once per round per active employee it contains.
Employees enter a Company inactive. To activate an inactive employee, pay the cost printed on its Workstation (some are free) and stand it up—this may only be done at the end of a round, after all other actions. Active employees stay active until they move or go on a Mission. Missions send an active employee to one of the four map regions (West, Midwest, South, East); employees on Missions are inactive and generate income when recovered.
Setup (overview)
Place the board (a US map divided into West, Midwest, South, East). Shuffle the 8 Timeline tiles, draw 4, and frame them with the Start/End tiles; place the 4 action markers at the left of their Timelines. Remove Department tiles based on player count and lay out the rest. Each player takes a Company board, 4 project tabs, 4 goods and $12, 10 employees (5 on Departments, 5 in the Lobby, 5 set aside), and 30 disks placed on the score track, the four transportation tracks, and their project tabs. Give out Action Choice tiles (3–4 players). The most daring player is first and takes the first-player and Timeline markers. Players then make setup moves and place a starting Housing project and Department.
The Round
The game is 20 rounds; each round has four parts.
1. Select Timeline
The first player picks one of the four Timelines (Human Resources, Management, Construction, or R&D) and places the Timeline marker just to the right of that action's marker. This chosen action type is what all players will perform this round.
2. Events
Placing the Timeline marker triggers an event on that space—either Take Income or Make a Donation (the four rightmost Timeline spaces allow both):
- Take Income: the Timeline space activates a Mission region. Starting with the first player, each player with employees in that region may return one or more to their Lobby, gaining transport income (based on their transport level in that region, per employee returned) and, once per round, project income from every project they have already built.
- Make a Donation: the first player, then others clockwise, may each make one donation (see below).
3. Use Departments
Starting with the first player, each player uses their own Departments matching the chosen action type, in any order. A Department is used once per active employee; you must finish one Department before starting another and can't return to it. Some Departments have passive effects that work as long as they hold an active employee.
The five starting Departments:
- Human Resources: each active employee grants 3 moves (minimum 3, from a permanent employee). Move active/inactive employees orthogonally around your board; moving an active employee lays it down. Activated at end of turn.
- Management — Commerce & Finance: per active employee, choose: gain $3; gain a goods cube; send on a Mission for $6; or send on a Mission for 2 goods cubes.
- Management — Strategic Planning: per active employee, build a new Department—pay 1 goods cube to place it on a space already holding an employee, or 2 goods cubes for any free space. No duplicate Departments.
- Construction: per employee, send it on a Mission to a region, pay 1–2 goods cubes by project type, and move a disk from the matching project tab onto a legal space in that region. Building in certain small cities grants immediate transport income.
- R&D: each active employee grants study points. Spend them to advance a project tab one space (revealing a new project disk) or advance a transport disk one space on any regional track. Unused study points are lost.
Action Choice tiles (3–4 players) let a player take a different action type than the first player, once per game; unused, each is worth 3 VP.
4. Activate Employees & End of Round
Players may pay to activate inactive employees on Workstations. Then the first player advances the chosen Timeline's action marker one space and passes the Timeline and first-player markers clockwise.
Transportation Tracks
Each region has a transportation track (starting at Cart, or Stagecoach in the East) that players develop toward Railroad and beyond. Reaching a track's final space grants a one-time reward (3 goods or $10; only one player may occupy that space). Transport income when recovering employees equals your disk's position in that region times the number recovered.
Donations
When a donation event triggers, players may each place a disk on an unoccupied space of the donation chart. A player's first donation costs $5, and each later donation costs $5 more ($10, $15, …). Donations score VP at game end based on factors like projects built, Departments, wealth, or regional development—up to a maximum of 12 VP per donation (raised by certain project-tab bonuses).
End of the Game
After 20 rounds, add each player's immediate VP plus end-game VP:
- Connections between major cities — up to 36 VP for linking New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco with a continuous network of your construction disks, cross-referenced with your lowest transport level across the connected regions (only your highest-scoring network counts).
- 3 VP for an unused Action Choice tile.
- 1 VP per active employee (Missions and the permanent HR employee don't count).
- 2–3 VP per Department built (3 VP in the top row, 2 VP elsewhere).
- Project-tab VP — up to 6 (Housing), 9 (Commerce), 12 (Industry), 15 (Public Infrastructure).
- 0–3 VP per Construction project, by the city where it was built.
- Donation VP (max 12 each).
The player with the most points wins. There are no tiebreakers—tied players share the victory.
Solo Game
Play against a virtual opponent driven by a deck of solo action cards, set up as a 2-player game. Each round, after your turn, the solo cards dictate the opponent's donations and constructions.