Harbour
Harbour Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components & Setup
4 Player pawns – Give one colored pawn to each player, returning any extras to the box.
1 Market board – Place this in the center of the table, within easy reach of all players, with the side mentioning the Inland Traders face down.
36 Building cards – Shuffle these together. Draw a number equal to the number of players plus three and place them face up next to the Market board (e.g. for a 3 player game, you would deal 6 buildings face up). Place the remaining deck face down beside the Market board.
Note: If three or more of the buildings dealt to the center have the "Buy a Building" symbol like the one on players' Starting Building, reshuffle and deal out a new set.
4 Bonus Point Cards (optional) – Randomly deal 1 to each player, and keep them secret. At the end of the game reveal your card, you trade goods of that type to score bonus points as indicated.
You may also use these cards to randomly distribute Goods markers on the Market board. Shuffle these cards and Reveal 1 for each market square.
14 Player boards – Each of these has two sides. One says "The Wharfs" at the top and is identical on all boards. The other side has a character with a unique name and ability. As a group, decide whether you will play with or with out characters.
Give each player a Player board. If playing with characters, then instead give each player 2 player boards. After examining the face up buildings, they'll choose 1 to keep and return the other to the box.
The Player boards each have a Starting Building and a warehouse to keep track of goods. The characters also have a Special Ability that applies only to that player.
20 Goods markers (5 each of 4 colors) – Take one marker of each color and distribute them randomly onto the four market squares on the Market board (one marker per square).
Then give each player one marker of each good. Allocate your markers any way you choose so that you start with a total of 3 goods of your choice.
If this is the first time playing, you may need to apply stickers to the goods markers to indicate which types of goods they represent. Be sure to apply all the stickers depicting a particular kind of good to the same color of marker.
If this is your first game of Harbour, we suggest the following changes to Setup:
- Instead random buildings, begin the game with the Lighthouse, Canal Lock, and Shipbuilder's Guild in play, plus 1 random building per player.
- Use "the Wharfs" side of the your player board, not the character side.
- Start with 1 of each good instead of 3 goods of your choice.
Building Card Anatomy
Each Building card has the following parts:
- Victory Points – shown as a star with a number in the top-left corner of the card.
- Building Cost – shown as a dollar value in the top-right corner of the card (e.g. a Storehouse costs $10).
- Special Symbols – icons (such as Coins or Anchors) placed on the card that grant a passive benefit to the building's owner.
- Action – the effect at the bottom of the card that the active player performs when they move their pawn onto that building (e.g. "any goods type" plus "one good of the same type per warehouse").
Gameplay
The player who was most recently on a boat is the Starting Player and will take the first turn. Play proceeds clockwise from there.
On your turn, you must move your pawn to a vacant building. This can be a building you own (such as the Starting Building on your Player board), a building in the center of the table, or one owned by another player (although you will have to pay them for that privilege). If your pawn is on a building at the beginning of the turn, you may not leave it there – you must move to a different building. Once you've moved your pawn to a new building, you must perform the action to the best of your ability.
When a player buys their 4th building (so they have 5 total buildings, including the Starting Building on their Player board), every other player takes one final turn. Then the game ends and players total up the Victory Points on the buildings they own. Highest total wins!
How Buildings Work
On your turn, when you move your pawn to a vacant building, you must take the entire Action described at the bottom of the building to the best of your ability. These actions will usually allow you to gain goods, convert goods, buy buildings, or take other special actions.
Buildings have various symbols in the Actions area of the card:
- The arrow tells you that this building CONVERTS goods from one type to another (e.g. pay any goods type to gain 2 different goods types).
- Some buildings allow you to adjust the demand for goods on the market board, for example "Swap 2 Market Markers."
- Some Buildings have a unique ability, accompanied with text to allow you to better understand its use (e.g. "Each opponent gives you 1 good of THEIR choice").
- This building allows you to GAIN 1 Stone good and buy a building by shipping goods in any order.
- This building allows you to GAIN 1 Livestock good for each Anchor you have. Anchors are found on buildings ("Gain one livestock per anchor").
When you gain or lose goods, slide the corresponding Goods Marker in your warehouse to the square indicating the current quantity you own. For example, if you have 4 fish and you gained 2 more, you would slide your fish marker to the "6" square in your warehouse.
You may never drop below zero nor have more than 6 of any good. You may take an action that would cause you to go over 6, however any excess goods gained beyond 6 are lost. You may never perform an action that would cause you to go below zero.
Some actions have two separate parts which are not dependent on each other, and in those cases you may perform the parts in any order, or perform one part and not the other. However, you must perform both if you can. The actions with two separate parts are on the Library, Bank, Traders Guild, Architectural Society, Privateer Ship, and Seaside Crane.
Paying a toll - If you use another player's building (including their Standing Building) you must pay them a toll of one good of your choice. Announce what good you are giving them, and then you must both adjust your warehouses accordingly. You may pay before OR after you take the action.
Each building has one or two symbols that will benefit the player who owns the building. Each symbol grants a different benefit.
- Coins reduce the cost of a building by $1 whenever a player buys buildings. Coins are cumulative.
- Top Hats allow a player to use buildings owned by other players without having to pay the toll.
- Anchors are used to gain extra benefit from some buildings. Anchors are cumulative for these benefits.
- Warehouse symbols let players keep one shipped good for each warehouse symbol they own. Also used to gain extra benefits from some buildings. Warehouse symbols are cumulative for these benefits.
Buying a Building and Shipping Goods
Your Starting Building, as well as a few others, will allow you to buy a new building to add to your tableau. To buy a building, you must ship goods to pay for it. Taking a "buy a building" action is the only time you may ship goods, and you must first meet the minimum requirements for shipping them – indicated by the Market Board. For example, if the Stone Marker is on the "4" space of the market, you need at least 4 Stone in your warehouse to ship it.
Once you've determined that you meet the requirements for shipping a good, you may move the Good Marker in the market straight down to the ship below it, and gain the dollar value shown. You can (and often will) ship several different goods at the same time to afford a building. Now reduce the amount of goods of the chosen type(s) in your warehouse to zero by removing the token – when you choose to ship a good, you must ship all of it; any extras beyond what were needed you can blame on inclement weather, poor trade deals, and the like.
In this example, you ship all 6 of your stone to gain $4:
Then adjust the Market – shift all the goods remaining in market squares (goods which you did not ship this turn) to the right as many squares as you can, keeping them in the same order and leaving only one Goods Marker in each square. This should leave the lowest value Market Squares empty. Now, from left to right, move the shipped Goods Markers into the vacant Market Squares following the arrows.
In this example, you ship fish and stone for a total of $6, and then the market is adjusted appropriately:
Now that you have money from shipping, you may spend it to purchase a building from the center of the table. Take a building from the center with a cost equal to or less than the amount of money you made this turn, and add the building to your tableau – it belongs to you now. Other players will have to pay you a toll (1 good of their choice) if they wish to use it, and you benefit from its special symbols. If you have any leftover money it is lost to taxes; you cannot save money from one turn to the next. You may only purchase one building at a time, unless the action taken specifies otherwise (for example, the Library allows you to buy 2 buildings at a time).
After buying a building, replace it by dealing a new one to the center of the table from the top of the deck.
Winning the Game
After a player has bought their 4th building, each other player will get one last turn. At that point, the players total up the Victory Points from all of their buildings and add any bonuses from their Special Ability, and the highest total wins! In the event of a tie, the tied player with the most buildings wins. If still tied, the one with the most resources amongst tied players wins. The other players may now grumble, make excuses, and ask for a rematch.
Inland Traders Expansion (Optional)
The Inland Traders is only recommended for 3 and 4 player games. Flip the market board over to reveal the Market with the Inland Traders. Once per buy action, before shipping goods, a player can trade one of each good to the Inland Traders to receive the dollar value shown. This does not count as shipping.
Credits
Game Design – Scott Almes Game Development – TMG Development Team Illustration – Rob Lundy Graphic Design – Max Holliday
© 2014 Tasty Minstrel Games LLC