Circus Maximus (2008) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Preparation
• Playing the Game
  • Phase I: Caesar's Favor
  • Phase II: Tickets
  • Phase III: Events
  • Phase IV: Scoring
  • The Special Events
• End of Game
• Variant for Experienced Players
• The Favor Cards
  • Favor Card Translations

Components

110 Cards total:

• 5 Locations
• 40 Traders (8 each in 5 colors)
• 18 Favor Cards
• 18 Tickets
• 16 Visitors
• 12 Coin Cards
• 1 Starting Player Card

In addition, paper and pencil are needed (not included with the game).

Preparation

The Caesar Card is taken out of the Visitor Card deck and removed from the game. It is only needed for the Advanced Variant, explained at the end of these rules.

With only 3 players, the following cards are sorted out:

• One of each of the 9 different Favor Cards, so that 9 Favor Cards remain in the game.
• One of each of the 5 different Visitor Cards, so that 10 Visitor Cards remain in the game (or 11 Visitor Cards, if playing the Advanced Variant with the Caesar Card).

The cards that are sorted out are placed back in the box. They are not used in the 3-player game.

Each player takes a hand of the 8 Traders in one color.

The Locations are placed in a column in the middle of the table so that there is enough room on both sides to place additional cards. Caesar's Villa is the top-most card, the Forum Romanum is placed under it, and the 3 Event Locations, Circus Maximus, Colosseum, an Pompeius-Theater, follow in any order.

The Starting Player Card is placed to the left of Caesar's Villa.

The Favor Cards are shuffled. Then as many cards are drawn as the number of players and placed face-up in any order to the left of Caesar's Villa and the Starting Player Card.

The Tickets are shuffled. Then twice as many cards as the number of players are drawn, sorted according to color, and placed face-up to the left of the Forum Romanum. Layer the cards so that the values (coins) for each ticket are visible.

The Visitors are shuffled. Then as many visitors are drawn and placed face-up for each Event Location as the number of tickets drawn for that location minus 1.

The Coin Cards are placed to the side. They will used later in the game for the special events. The decks of leftover Favor Cards, Tickets and Visitors is also placed to the side and will be needed for later.

The player who most recently bought a ticket to a museum, movie or stadium etc. is the starting player (He does not receive the Starting Player Card, however!).

Playing the Game

The game is played over 3 days of events, no matter how many players there are. The order of each day of events is the same. The only difference is the number of special events on each day:

• 1st Day: no special events
• 2nd Day: 1 special event
• 3rd Day: 2 special events

Each day is played in the following phases:

• Phase I: Caesar's Favor
• Phase II: Tickets
• Phase III: Events
• Phase IV: Scoring

The individual phases are explained in detail below:

Phase I: Caesar's Favor

Beginning with the Starting Player and continuing clockwise, each player has the choice between 2 actions:

• Play a Trader
• Pass

Note: starting in the second round, a third option is to use the special action from a Favor Card!

A player who passes can no longer take any actions during this phase. If a player plays a Trader, that card is placed face-up to the right of Caesar's Villa. In this way the Traders are placed in the order of their rank (1-8) from left to right, with the higher rank to the left. (The rank shows the ability of the Trader to arrive earliest in line or push themselves to the front). If a Trader is played with the same rank as one that is already in line, the new Trader must be placed to the right of the previously placed one.

Example: Yellow begins and plays his rank-1 Trader, placing it to the right of Caesar's Villa. Then Red plays a rank-6 Trader which is placed to the left of the Yellow-1 (cards are shifted to the right as needed). Blue is next and plays a rank-4 Trader which is placed between the Red-6 and the Yellow-1. Afterwards Green takes her turn and plays the rank-4 Trader, which is placed between the Blue-4 and the Yellow-1.

The players continue in this way until every player has passed. Then the players collect Caesar's favors in the form of the face-up Favor Cards. The player whose Trader is farthest to the left in line (closest to Caesar's Villa) chooses a card first and adds it to his hand. Next the player whose Trader is in the second spot chooses, then the player whose Trader is third in line, and so forth, until all the Favor Cards have been taken (Traders too far back in line receive nothing), or until every Trader in line has receive a Favor (cards not taken are removed from the game).

Note: The function of the Favor Cards will be explained later.

Instead of a Favor Card, a player may take the Starting Player card, which the player then places face-up in front of him. He is now the new starting player. If no one selects the Starting Player Card, it is awarded to the player whose Trader was first in line!

The Trader Cards played remain in the line next to Caesar's Villa until the end of the "day."

Example: In the first example, Green had last played the rank-4 card. After that, Yellow takes her turn and passes. A Red-2 and Blue-3 follow, and then Green passes. It's Yellow's turn again, however she has already passed and is therefore not allowed to play another Trader. Red and Blue both pass, and the actions are completed. Now the players take their Favor Cards: first Red chooses a card, then Blue and Green. Blue can then take a second card, as well as Red. After that, all Favor Cards, including the Starting Player Card, have been taken and Yellow's last card receives nothing.

Note: the players should be cautious is using their Traders. Every Trader that is not used by a player earns as much money for him as the number of coins pictured under the Trader's rank!

Phase II: Tickets

Now the players play Traders in order to buy Tickets. The Starting Player begins. Players take turns placing their Traders in the same way as in Phase I at Caesar's Villa except they now form a line to the right of the Forum Romanum. At this time, Favor Cards may also be played (see "The Favor Cards").

Choosing the Tickets also proceeds in the same manner as choosing the Favor Cards in Phase I in that the Trader farthest to the left has first choice, etc. It is important to note that the Tickets are for different Venues and each have different values (shown by how many coins are pictured), dependent upon whether their seats are box seats, arena, or balcony. The Tickets taken are placed face-up in front of each player. The Trader cards remain in the line until the end of the "day."

Note: The players should be careful to keep enough Traders for Phase III so that they can sell all of their Tickets!

Phase III: Events

In this phase, more Traders are played in order to sell the Tickets to Visitors. The Starting Player begins again, and turns involve playing Traders in the same way as in Phases I and II. This time, however, the Traders are placed to the right of the Circus Maximus, Pompeius-Theater or the Colosseum. As soon as one player passes, he can no longer perform any actions on any of the three Venues!

Note: the players should only place Traders at Venues for which they have Tickets. If a Trader does not have a Ticket for a Venue, he may not take a Visitor Card.

As soon as all players have passed, the Tickets are sold. At each of the 3 Venues, as before, the player whose Trader is farthest to the left in the line has first choice of the Visitors to which he would like to sell his Ticket. The player takes the Visitor and places it over his Ticket in front of him, so that the coins pictured on the Ticket Card are still visible.

Phase IV: Scoring

Each player counts his coins for:

• Each Visitor to which he could sell a Ticket
• Each Ticket that he could sell to a Visitor
• Each Trader that he did not play

Note: unsold Tickets are worthless! Unused Favor Cards only count towards a player's score at the end of the game, not at the end of the first and second days!

Example: At the end of the first day, Green has the following cards in front of her: A balcony Ticket for the Colosseum which was sold to a Senator (1+6=7 coins), an arena Ticket for the Pompeius Theater, that a student bought (2+3=5 coins), and a balcony Ticket for the Pompeius Theater that did not find a buyer (0 coins). The player also still has the Trader cards of ranks 6, 3 and 2 (2+1+0=3 coins) and a Favor Card that does not count towards the players score at this time. (At the end of the third day, however, this Favor Card would be worth 2 coins). Green scores a total of 7+5+3=15 coins for the day.

Each player's coins are recorded on a piece of paper. At the end of the first and second days, the next events are now prepared:

• Each player takes back all of his Trader into his hand
• Unused Favor Cards are kept in player's hands
• The Starting Player Card is placed to the left of Caesar's Villa (the player who last had the card remains the Starting Player for Phase I of the next day!)
• From the Favor Card deck, as many cards as the number of players are drawn as in the beginning of the game. (Note: the Favor Card deck is not shuffled again! Favor Cards that are played are taken out of the game!)
• All Tickets are collected, shuffled again, drawn and placed in the same number and manner as in the beginning of the game.
• All Visitor are collected, shuffled again, drawn and placed in the same number and manner as in the beginning of the game.
• Now, however, the Special Events come into play.

The Special Events

On the second day, one of the three Venues holds a Special Event which provides the Traders with an even larger profit. To signify this, one extra Ticket is drawn and placed to the left of the Forum Romanum, and an additional Visitor is drawn and placed to the left of the Venue matching the Ticket. On this day, every Visitor at this Venue will pay one coin more for each Ticket! For this reason, one Coin Card is now placed under each Visitor Card at that Venue. When a Trader sells a Ticket to one of these Visitors in Phase III, he takes the Visitor Card together with the Coin Card and places them together with his Ticket in front of him.

On the third day, two special events take place! That means that two additional Tickets together with two more Visitors are drawn, and Coin Cards are added to all the Visitors at both Venues. Should both additional Tickets be for the same Venue, two Coin Cards are placed under each Visitor at that Venue. Those Visitors are willing to pay two coins more for Tickets!

End of Game

The game ends after Phase IV on the third day. Each player adds coins to his score from unused Favor Cards. Whoever has the most coins at the end of the 3 days wins the game. If a tie, then there is more than one winner.

Variant for Experienced Players

The Caesar Card is shuffled into the Visitor Card deck at the beginning of the game. If Caesar is drawn for one of the Venues, two additional Visitors are immediately drawn and added to this Venue! For this day, and at this Venue, a player may substitute a Favor Card from his hand for a Ticket! (in other words, he sells the Visitor a Favor which allows him to sit next to Caesar, the best seat in the house!)

Note: a player may place a Trader at this Venue, even though he does not have a Ticket for it, as long as he has at least one Favor Card!

In the game, it works as follows: when it is time for a player to use his Trader at the Venue to sell to a Visitor, he places a Favor Card from his hand face-up in front of him. Then he chooses a Visitor from that Venue and places the card on top of the Favor Card so that the coin(s) on the card are still visible. During scoring, the coins on the Favor Card are counted in the same way as the coins on a Ticket.

Before the next player takes his turn, the Caesar Card is taken and placed back on the Visitor deck. No other player may use a Favor Card as a Ticket on this day, since there are no more empty seats next to Caesar.

The Favor Cards

The Favor Cards offer player the opportunity to take special actions. There is no limit to the number of Favor Cards a player can hold in his hand. As soon as a Favor Card is played, its special action is immediately resolved and only takes effect once. Afterwards, the card is removed from the game.

When a player can play such a card is described in the first sentence of each card description. These are the following possibilities:

• The card is played instead of a Trader
• The card is played together with a Trader
• The card is played when a Trader takes an action at the end of a phase

Unused Favor Cards are worth the number of coins pictured on the card to that player at the end of the game. For this reason, each player must always weigh the amount the card is worth against the effects of the card, should he choose to use its special action!

Note: in the Variant with Caesar, the Favor Cards have yet another function!

Favor Card Translations

[Note: the explanations in the German rules are incorporated below.]

+Visitor Play this card instead of a Trader. Draw an additional Visitor and place it at a Venue of your choice.

+Trader Play this card together with a Trader. You may immediately play a second Trader this turn.

Ticket → Legionnaire Play this card when a Trader sells a Ticket to a Legionnaire. The Legionnaire pays 6 Coins instead of 2.

II +Ticket Play this card when one of your Traders is buying a Ticket at the Forum Romanum. He/she may buy 2 Tickets at once.

III +Ticket Play this card when one of your Traders is selling tickets at a Venue. He/she is allowed to sell 2 tickets at once.

↓ Trader Play this card instead of a Trader. Take one Trader from an earlier Phase and play it immediately again.

II +Ticket +Visitor Play this card instead of a Trader during Phase II. Draw a new Ticket and place it in front of you. Then draw a new Visitor and place at the matching Venue.

With this card, it is important to note that the player immediately takes the new Ticket and places it in front of her, while at the same time, the new Visitor is placed to the left of the Venue matching the Ticket.

Rank 1 Visitor → Rank 8 Visitor Play this card together with a Trader with rank 1 and it becomes rank 8. The Trader becomes a rank of 8 for this phase only!

If played again (by using the appropriate favor card) it is rank 1 again!

← Trader Play this card instead of a Trader. Move one of your Traders ahead one place in line. For the rest of the phase, the Trader that has been moved ahead in line is considered the same rank as the Trader that he overtook.

Example: The red-2 is moved forward one position between the yellow-7 and the blue-5. From now one, the red-2 is treated as though it were a rank of 5. That means that every Trader with a rank higher than 5 will be placed to the left of red-2, and every Trader with a rank of 5 or lower will be placed to the right of blue-5.