Darjeeling Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Game Setup
  • Starting Positions
• Game Play
  • I. Score Victory Points for Crates on the Ships
  • II. Move Tea Collector and Take Tile
  • III. Load Shipping Crates
• The Action Tiles
• Game End
• Appendix
  • Tactical Tips
• History
• Credits

Game Components

• 112 tea tiles
  • Black Tea: 21 tiles with one half, 7 with two halves, 3 with three halves
  • Green Tea: 19 tiles with one half, 7 with two halves, 3 with three halves
  • White Tea: 17 tiles with one half, 7 with two halves, 3 with three halves
  • Red Tea: 15 tiles with one half, 7 with two halves, 3 with three halves
• 1 board with the wharf and scoring track
• demand markers (2 per tea variety)
• 1 cloth bag
• 1 chute
• 7 ships
• 3 city markers
• 5 tea collectors (1 in each player color)
• 2 multiplier strips (double-sided)
• 5 player screens
• 1 set of rules
• 55 shipping crates (11 in each player color)
• 4 water tiles
• 10 action tiles (double-sided)

Game Setup

Place the tiles with the tea crate halves into the bag and mix them well. Next, build the playing area: draw the tiles from the bag, one at a time, and place them in the shape of the desired region as shown on the back of the rules. Place no tiles on the spaces marked with red squares. Instead, place a city marker on each red square space.

Depending on the number of players, select the appropriate multiplier strip and place it into the thin opening in the wharf, such that the side with the correct number of players is facing up. Place ships next to the wharf, one next to each multiplier on the strip. If fewer than five players are playing, you will not use all ships. Fill the unused berths with water tiles.

Place the chute into the opening at the top of the wharf. Then, mix the demand markers and place them in random order onto the chute, so that they can roll down it.

Place the action tiles next to the board as a supply.

Each player chooses a color and takes the tea collector, shipping crates and player shield in his color. The players place one of their shipping crates onto the "0" space of the scoring track to act as scoring markers. The players set their player screens in front of themselves (their play areas). Over the course of the game, the players will place tea tiles and action tiles behind their screens, so that the other players cannot see them. They leave their shipping crates in front of the screens.

The players agree on a starting player. That player takes the bag of tiles.

Before playing for the first time, carefully remove all cardboard components from the counter sheets, making sure that none become damaged or marked.

Note for the sheet with the wharf: the pre-punched chute pieces are in the punch-out spaces for the wharf quays and multiplier strip. These are not waste, so do not throw them away! Put the chute together as shown in the figure on the board.

Starting Positions

The start player begins. He places one of his shipping crates onto the lowest empty ship next to the wharf. This is the ship next to the lowest multiplier.

Next, he chooses a starting position for his tea collector. This can be any tea tile along the border of the playing area. The player takes the tile, putting it behind his screen and then places his tea collector onto the empty space. He places this tea collector such that its crate is pointing towards other tiles and its back is pointing towards the edge of the playing area. The tea collector's starting position may not be a location that is surrounded on all four sides (i.e. horizontally and vertically) with tiles and/or a city.

Note: if the player chooses to take a tile with three tea crate halves on it, he may take an action tile from the supply and place it behind his screen. See the detailed description of the action tile at the end of the rules.

After the start player has chosen his starting position, the player on the left chooses a starting position. He places a shipping crate onto the next-lowest empty ship — that is, the ship immediately above the one the start player placed a shipping crate on — and then also chooses a starting position.

This process continues in the clockwise direction until each player has loaded a ship with one shipping crate and chosen a starting position for his tea collector.

Now, the game can begin!

Game Play

On a player's turn, he carries out all phases of his turn. Then, play passes to the next player on his left.

A turn consists of the following three phases:

1. Score victory points for crates on the ships
2. Move tea collector and take tile
3. Load shipping crates

The order of these phases may never be changed.

I. Score Victory Points for Crates on the Ships

If the player has shipping crates on the ships at the start of his turn, he scores victory points for them. These points are added to that player's total on the scoring track.

The victory points are calculated as follows: the number of shipping crates on a ship is multiplied by the multiplier next to the ship.

If the player has shipping crates on multiple ships, the victory points for each ship are calculated separately and added together.

II. Move Tea Collector and Take Tile

The player must move his tea collector. The player may only move in the direction that his tea collector's crate is pointing. Before moving his tea collector, the player may rotate his tea collector by 90 degrees to either the right or the left. Also, for the cost of 2 victory points, he may turn his tea collector 180 degrees. Note: If the player doesn't have enough victory points to pay the cost, he receives negative points and must move his scoring marker the appropriate number of spaces behind the 0 space on the scoring track!

While moving the tea collector and afterwards, its orientation may not be altered!

The player may move his tea collector as far as he wishes in a straight line. While moving, he may pass over cities or other players' tea collectors. However, he must pay 1 victory point for each tile and 2 victory points for each city or opponent's tea collector that his tea collector passes over.

The tea collector's movement must end on a tile. The player must take that tile and place it behind his screen.

If he takes a tile with three tea crate halves, he may take an action tile from the supply and place it behind his screen.

Finally, the player draws a new tile from the bag and places it into the now-open space in which his tea collector was standing at the start of the turn.

III. Load Shipping Crates

Now, the player may load tea onto a ship using his shipping crates. The shipment can consist of any number of complete tea crates. All tea in a shipment must be of the same variety. All crates must be closed. No shipment may include half tea crates, which are still open on a side.

Loading shipping crates is carried out in four steps.

1. Lay out tea tiles
2. Load shipping crates onto the ship
3. Discard tea tiles
4. Score bonus points

Note: as this sequence is the trickiest in the entire game, we recommend keeping the order of the steps in mind.

1. Lay out tea tiles

The player takes the tea tiles he would like to ship from behind his screen and puts them together, so that all players can see how many complete crates of which tea variety he would like to ship. The crates may form different sets of crates as long as they are all the same variety.

Note: only the number of whole tea crates matters. The number of tiles used is unimportant. So for example, it is possible to combine one tile with three half crates and three tiles with one half crate each into three complete crates, provided that all tiles are of the same tea variety.

2. Load shipping crates onto the ship

If the player's tea collector is standing on a space that is immediately horizontally, vertically or diagonally adjacent to a city, he may load as many shipping crates onto the ship as the number of whole crates shown on the tiles he laid out.

If the player's tea collector is not immediately adjacent to a city, then he may only load one crate fewer than the number he laid out.

Important: a player is not permitted to lay out tea tiles and ship them, if the player cannot load any shipping crates on a ship. This may occur if the player lays out a single tea crate and his tea collector is not standing next to a city.

When loading, the player removes the lowest ship from the wharf. If there are shipping crates on that ship, the player returns them to the player that owns them.

Next, the player moves all ships one space downward, so that the space next to the highest multiplier value becomes empty. The player places the ship he removed from the wharf into the empty space at the top. Finally, the player loading shipping crates places the crates he is shipping onto that ship.

Note: since the number of shipping crates is limited, if a player is allowed to load more crates than he has in his supply, he may move his crates from other ships to the one he is loading to make up the deficit.

3. Discard tea tiles

The player collects the tiles he laid out and places them in a face-up stack onto the warehouse on the wharf. If there is already a stack of tiles on the warehouse, he places the older stack into the bag.

4. Score bonus points

The player earns bonus points for the demand and the number of crates shipped.

Demand bonus

There are two demand markers for each tea variety on the chute. After the player has discarded his tiles, he takes the lower marker of the tea variety he loaded off the chute and adds it back to the top. Then, he counts how many markers of other tea varieties are located between the two markers of the loaded variety. This number is the number of victory points he scores for the shipment.

Quantity bonus

If the player loads 4 or more crates on the ship, he receives a bonus of 1 victory point per crate he loads. If he loads three or fewer crates on the ship he receives no quantity bonus.

Note: to receive a quantity bonus, the number of crates a player loads is important. It is not important how many crates are shown on the tiles he has laid out.

The Action Tiles

Each time a player takes a tile with three tea crate halves on it, he may take an action tile from the supply and place it behind his screen.

Note: as a reminder, these tiles have a clipboard on them identical to the one on the action tiles.

If a player takes a tile with three tea crate halves on it when there is no action tile left, then he does not take a tile!

Play an action tile

A player may play up to two action tiles when he is loading shipping crates. The marker shows the two actions possible on each face. The player may also play an action tile that he just received that turn. He may not use the same action twice in his turn.

After playing the tile, he returns it to the supply.

No rotting

If, when loading, the player's tea collector is not immediately adjacent to a city, he may still load as many shipping crates as the number of complete crates he laid out.

Double demand bonus

This turn, the player scores twice the normal demand points.

Note: the bonus for the number of crates shipped cannot be doubled by this action!

Game End

The game ends as soon as a player reaches 100 victory points or more. If a player scores more than 100 victory points, then his scoring marker is moved ahead appropriately and 100 points added to his score.

Note: if, for example, a player reaches or exceeds 100 victory points at the start of his turn for shipping crates, the game ends immediately and he does not finish his turn.

Now, each player reveals any tiles he still has behind his screen. For each half crate on a tile, he loses 1 victory point. It makes no difference if he could have formed whole crates or not.

Note: the game is over, even if the negative points scored by the player who triggered the end of the game bring that player's total to less than 100 victory points.

All action tiles are worthless.

The winner is the player with the most victory points.

In the case of a tie, the players rejoice in their shared victory.

Appendix

India is particularly suited for beginning players of any number. If the players prefer less competition with the collecting of crates, we recommend China with 4 and 5 players. For players who want a more competitive game, or for 2 or 3 players, we recommend Sri Lanka. When players have gained experience with Darjeeling, they can invent their own starting regions or play the given displays with other player numbers.

Tactical Tips

When first playing Darjeeling, we recommend players start in the proximity of a city, but at some distance from the other players. With experience, of course, players should select starting positions that give them good access to the crates they want to collect and/or positions that might impede the progress of their opponents. With Darjeeling, there is no rule of thumb for the "correct" way to play.

Some players may find that frequently shipping small numbers of crates keeps them scoring at least a few points each round. Shipping just one or two crates is especially advantageous when the demand bonus for that variety of tea is high. Additionally, each time a player ships, he reduces the value of the crates of all other players with crates on the wharf.

A player building a large shipment should carefully plan when to ship it, so that other players will not quickly ship small amounts to reduce his potentially large score to a single multiplier score in just one or two rounds. A good time to ship a large number of crates would be just after several players have shipped and/or when players' tea collectors are not near cities, and, thus, they would lose a crate by shipping from there.

Of course, watching what tiles other players are collecting will always provide a player an advantage. It is especially annoying to want to ship a variety of tea your opponent just shipped, reducing your demand bonus to 0!

History

In 1835, the British East India Company leased the region around the location of the modern-day city of Darjeeling. The British had more than a strategically-placed trading post in mind — because of the favorable climate, they wanted to build a sanatorium there as well! That climate, which was to bring relief to sanatorium visitors, can be thanked for one of the most sought-after tea varieties in the world: Darjeeling. Tea connoisseurs from around the globe treasure the extremely fine and flowery aroma of the First Flush, the first harvest of the year's new growth. But the many flavors of teas from the following harvests are also unsurpassed.

For a long time, only traditional black tea was produced in Darjeeling. In the meantime, however, other teas are exported from the region. Such teas are produced by different fermentation techniques. So these days, for example, Green Darjeeling is not the rarity it once was.

Our tea crates have the colors black, green, white and red, representing black, green, white, and red tea. Originally, red tea was another name for black tea, but today, red tea (or Pu-Erh) refers to tea that once brewed has a strong red-brown color. Even if not all varieties of tea are available in the region you choose to play, remember that it is a game and not a tea collecting simulation.

Another important difference in teas comes in the way they are manufactured or fermented. With green tea, for example, fermentation is prevented by heating the leaves right after picking to destroy the enzymes. Red Pu-Erh tea is fermented before drying and treated with a tea fungus. Some teas are fermented so lightly that the leaf margins only lose their color. They are sometimes known as white tea. Black tea gets its name from its dark color, which is caused by the fermentation procedure used to produce it.

Teas offer unbelievable taste variety. Where and how the plants are grown as well as how they are fermented play big roles in their final taste. Young leaves and buds produce tea with a finer flavor, for example. Of course, teas can also be aromatized or blended with other leaves or fruits. The possibilities are nearly endless and new blends are added each year to bring new lovers of tea to the market.

Credits

Author: Günter Burkhardt

Illustration and Layout: Christof Tisch

Translations: Patrick Korner, Jay Tummelson

© 2007 ABACUSSPIELE Verlags GmbH & Co. KG, Dreieich. All Rights Reserved. Made in Germany.

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