Import / Export Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Overview
• Setup
• Playing a Turn
• An Example Turn
• Crew / Goods Limit
• Discarding Cards
• Actions
• Supply
• Import
• Contract
• Load
• Pirate
• End of the Game
• Scoring
• Capital Expansion
• Tokyo Expansion
• Flag Expansion
• Commodities Market
• Appendix - Contract Powers
• Alternative Ways to Play

Contents

• 170 Commodity cards (each with a unique power)
  • 100 Basic commodity cards / 15 Capital Expansion cards / 10 Tokyo Expansion cards / 15 Kickstarter Expansion cards / 10 Kickstarter 2 Expansion cards / 10 J Expansion cards / 10 Flag Expansion cards
• 1 Large Supply Island with Port of Tokyo back
• 6 Shipment Payout cards with mini harbor backs
• 1 Optional Market card
• 6 Large Harbors
• 12 Ships
• 60 x 2 Container/Credit tokens (square)
• 50 x 10 Container/Credit tokens (rectangular)
• 1 first player buoy
• 1 Rulebook

Overview

Import/Export is played over a number of turns, during which the leading player (the one whose turn it is) chooses whether to draw cards or play a card to perform an action. If they perform an action, other players can follow that action by playing a card with a matching action from their hand, or they can draw cards. After everyone performs their actions, the next player in clockwise order then becomes the new leading player.

Throughout the game, you will earn credits by fulfilling Contracts, selling Goods, and using unique powers from some of your fulfilled Contracts. At the end of the game, each collected Good is worth credits and the player with the most of each type of Good receives a bonus. If you manage to collect at least one of each Good type, you receive an additional bonus. But watch out, the player with the most Illegal Goods must pay credits to the bank!

The player with the most credits at the end of the game is the winner!

Setup

1. Place the Supply Island in the center of the play area. The area around the outside of the Supply Island is known as the Open Sea.
2. To form the draw deck, shuffle all of the Commodity cards and place them next to the Supply Island. Leave space next to it for a discard pile.
3. Reveal and place a number of Commodity cards on the Supply Island equal to the number of players.
4. If playing with fewer than 6 players, return the light gray Harbor card and Ships to the box. Give each player one of the remaining Harbor cards at random, two Ships of the same color, and a Ship reference card. Return any remaining Harbor cards, Ships, and reference cards to the box.
5. Each player places one of their Ships near their Harbor and the other one in the Open Sea.
6. For each Ship in the Open Sea, reveal four Commodity cards from the draw deck and place them below the Ship.
7. Give each player 10 credits. The amount of credits players have is open information. If playing with 6 players, give the gray player 4 additional credits.
8. Place the remaining credits by the draw deck as the bank.
9. Each player draws 5 cards from the draw deck as their starting hand. Cards in hand are hidden from other players.
10. Randomly choose a starting player and give them the first player buoy.

3 player setup shown

Playing a Turn

On their turn, the leading player chooses one of the following two options:

A. Draw cards from the draw deck until they have 5 cards in hand, or, if they already have 5 or more cards in hand, draw 1 card instead. Then, their turn ends and the next player clockwise becomes the new leading player. Note: If the draw deck is ever empty, shuffle the discard pile and create a new draw deck.

OR

B. Play a card from their hand onto their Harbor and declare the number of actions they will perform. They must declare one action of the type shown on the left side of the played card, but if they have any cards in their Crew that match the declared action, they may declare one additional action of the same type for each matching Crew card they choose to use. Note that the player does not perform the action yet, they only declare their intention to do so.

You play this card and declare the Load action. Since you have two matching cards in your Crew with the Load action, you can declare that you are performing the Load action 1, 2, or 3 times.

TWO CARD WILD: If you do not have a Commodity card in hand with the desired action, you may also declare or follow an action by playing 2 cards of the same color together. This also applies if you are the leading player.

If the leading player chose option B above, now follow these 4 steps:

1. In clockwise order from the leader, all other players decide to either: Follow by playing a card with the same action from their hand to their Harbor and declaring how many actions they will perform. They must perform the action once for the card they played, and may also perform the action an additional time for each matching action card in their Crew they choose to use.

   OR

   Draw until they have 5 cards, or, if they have 5 or more cards in hand, just draw 1 additional card. After drawing cards, the player may also then declare they are performing the action once for each card in their Crew they choose to use that matches the action.

   Note: Players do not perform the actions yet, only declare their intention to do so.

2. Beginning with the leading player and then in clockwise order, each player must perform the action as many times as they previously declared.

3. Once all players have finished, place all cards that were played to a Harbor this turn into the discard pile.

4. The next player in clockwise order then becomes the new leading player; pass them the first player buoy.

An Example Turn

PLAYER 1 plays a Load card from their hand to their Harbor. They do not have any matching Crew, so they declare they will perform the Load action once.

PLAYER 2 does not have a Load card in hand and chooses to draw. They have 3 cards in hand, so they draw 2 cards. They also do not have any matching Crew, and declare they are not performing the action.

PLAYER 3 plays a Load card from their hand to follow the declared Load action. They have 1 matching Crew and can declare they are performing the action once or twice.

PLAYER 4 has 2 Pirate cards in hand, but chooses not to follow, and draws instead. They have 5 cards in hand, so they draw 1 card. However, they have 2 matching Crew and so can perform the action once, twice, or not at all. They declare they will perform the action once.

The actions are then performed and all cards played to the Harbor are then discarded.

Crew / Goods Limit

At any time, the maximum number of Crew you can have is equal to the number of your fulfilled Contracts.

Also, the maximum number of Goods you can have is equal to twice the number of your fulfilled Contracts.

You begin with 1 fulfilled Contract, as indicated at the top of your Harbor.

As above, if you have a total of 3 fulfilled Contracts (1 Base from your Harbor board and 2 cards), the most Crew you can have is 3 and the most Goods you can have is 6.

Discarding Cards

During the game, cards are discarded face up to the discard pile. Only the topmost card on the discard pile should be visible; players cannot look through the discard pile unless a game effect allows them to do so.

Actions

The 5 available actions are:

SUPPLY: Either sell a card to the Supply Island for 4 credits, or take a card from the Supply Island into your Crew.

IMPORT: Select a Ship in the Open Sea and hold a bid for the Ship's Goods. The winner takes two cards.

CONTRACT: Take a card from your hand and place it as a Contract onto a Ship in your Harbor.

LOAD: Take a card from your hand and place it onto the Contract of a Ship in your Harbor.

PIRATE: Take one Container from any Ship in the Open Sea or from the Supply Island. This may be placed on your Ship, if it has capacity, or discard the card.

Supply

Each time you perform the Supply action, you have two options:

a) SELLING TO THE SUPPLY ISLAND: Choose a card from your hand, place it on the Supply Island, and take 4 credits from the bank. You can only choose this option once per turn.

b) TAKING A CARD FOR YOUR CREW: Take a card from the Supply Island and add it to your Crew by tucking the card under the left side of your Harbor. Crew cards allow you to perform additional actions as mentioned earlier. You can choose this option multiple times per turn.

NOTE: If you are already at your Crew limit, you still take a card from the Supply Island when performing this action, but then must discard it instead; you may not replace Crew you already have.

Import

With this action, players have the opportunity to take cards from Ships in the Open Sea and store them in their Harbor as Crew and/or Goods. Goods grant credit bonuses at the end of the game and also count towards the tier level required to place Contracts (see page 13).

When you perform the Import action, perform the following steps:

1. The leading player chooses any Ship in the Open Sea to bid on. All other players who followed the leader's Import action (by playing an Import card or by having an Import action in their Crew) may also bid.
2. All players involved in the bidding secretly place any amount of credits (including zero) in their hand, revealing them simultaneously. The highest bidder wins and pays their bid to the bank. All others keep their bids. If there is a tie, the leading player decides who wins from the tied players.
3. The winner of the bid takes 2 cards from the chosen Ship and places them as either Crew or Goods (at most 1 card can be placed as Crew).
4. If cards were taken from a Ship by someone other than the Ship's owner, the owner of the Ship takes 2 credits from the bank.
5. If the Ship now has no cards on it, the Ship immediately returns to its owner's Harbor.

IMPORTANT: Crew and Goods limits apply as normal; any cards taken in excess of your limit are discarded. Note however that you must take cards if able and can only discard cards if both limits have been reached, or you have already placed 1 Crew card and cannot place the other card as Goods because of your Goods limit.

MULTIPLE IMPORT ACTIONS: The Import action is resolved in a different way to other actions. Instead of the players taking turns to perform the action(s), a number of bidding rounds are held equal to the highest number of actions declared by any one player.

For example: If PLAYER 1 declares 2 actions, PLAYER 2 declares 1 action, and PLAYER 3 declares 3 actions, there are 3 bidding rounds.

In each bidding round, the leader always decides which Ship is bid on, even if they are not involved in the bidding. The same Ship can be selected more than once in subsequent bidding rounds. Only the players who declared a number of actions equal to or higher than the number of the bidding round are involved in the bidding.

For example: PLAYER 1 leads by declaring an Import action, and has 1 additional Import card in their Crew (2 total actions). PLAYER 2 follows by playing an Import card from their hand, but they have no Import Crew (1 total action). PLAYER 3 chooses to draw instead of follow, but has 3 Import Crew (3 total actions). Therefore, there are 3 bidding rounds (the most actions taken by any one player): In round 1, PLAYER 1 chooses their own Ship to bid on, and all three players bid. PLAYER 2 wins, paying the bid to the bank and takes 2 cards from the Ship. PLAYER 1 earns 2 credits in compensation. In round 2, PLAYER 1 chooses their own Ship again, only PLAYER 1 and PLAYER 3 can bid on this Ship (PLAYER 2 was only performing 1 action). The bids are tied and PLAYER 1 chooses to win the bid themselves. They pay their bid to the bank and take the 2 remaining cards. The Ship then returns to their Harbor. In round 3, PLAYER 1 picks PLAYER 2's Ship. PLAYER 3 is the only player in the bidding and so takes 2 cards for free. Even though the winning bid was zero, PLAYER 2 still gets 2 credits in compensation.

Contract

With this action, you place a card under a Ship as a Contract. When you later fulfill this Contract, the Power of the card will come into effect and if it is tucked under your Harbor, your Crew and Goods capacity will increase.

Each time you perform this action, choose a card from your hand and slide it under a Ship in your Harbor, ensuring that the load requirement (shown in the bottom-left of the Contract) is visible. Ships can have multiple contracts on them, as long as the total load requirement (the number of Containers needed to fulfill the Contracts) does not exceed 6.

This ship now has 2 Contracts. The load requirement is 4. It could have a 3rd Contract, as long as that Contract only requires 2 Containers.

TIER LEVEL REQUIREMENTS: In order to place a card as a Contract, you must meet its Tier Level Requirement, as depicted by the number and color of filled-in circles in the top-right of the card. Each Good in your Harbor counts as having 1 Tier Level of its matching type. Additionally, your Harbor itself counts as 1 Tier Level in its color.

HAWAIIAN SALT is a Tier 2 Agriculture card. To play it as a Contract, you must have at least 2 Agriculture cards in the Goods area of your Harbor. If you had the yellow Harbor, you would be able to Contract this card with only 1 Agriculture Good.

Note: Some cards from the expansions have Tier Level Requirements depicting two or more colors.

MULTIPLE CONTRACT ACTIONS: If you perform this action more than once on your turn (by having Contract Crew), each additional action can be used to place another Contract card. Alternatively, if you do not meet the Tier Level Requirement to place a Contract, you may use your additional actions to skip Tiers to help you meet the requirement; each action counts as 1 temporary Tier Level for placing a Contract.

For example: You want to place Rolls Royce as a Contract on your Ship, a Luxury card with a Tier Level Requirement of 2. You only have Tier 1 in Luxury so if you only had 1 action this turn, you would not be able to place it. However, since you have 1 Contract Crew card and are the leading player, you get to perform 2 Contract actions. You use your second action to meet the missing Tier requirement.

You can use multiple actions to replace multiple missing Tier Levels.

For example: You could place a Tier Level 3 Technology Contract without having any Tier in Technology by performing 4 Contract actions: 1 to place the card, and 3 to meet the missing Tier levels.

DISCARDING UNFULFILLED CONTRACTS: At any point when you are the leading player, you may discard any unfulfilled Contracts from one of your Ships. Place any discarded Contracts in the discard pile. Any Containers that were on the Ship remain there.

Load

With this action, you place cards from your hand to Ships in your Harbor in order to try and fulfill a Contract.

Each time you perform this action, choose a card from your hand and place it below a Ship in your Harbor. There must be an unmet matching load requirement on a Contract on the Ship. The placed card is now a Container on the Ship; ignore all other information on the card. You may load multiple Containers on your turn, one per action performed.

For example: You are performing 2 Load actions. You first Load an Illegal Container onto your Ship, which together with the already loaded Illegal Container, meets the Illegal load requirement; you cannot load any further Illegal Containers. You then load a Technology Container for your second action.

FULFILLING CONTRACTS: When the correct number and type of Containers have been loaded onto a Ship to meet the requirements of all Contracts on that Ship, those contracts are fulfilled immediately.

For example: You load a second Agriculture Container onto your Ship. Your contract is now fulfilled.

When this happens, perform the following steps:

1. Take credits from the bank based on the number of Containers loaded on the Ship:
   • 2 Containers: 6 credits
   • 3-4 Containers: 10 credits
   • 5-6 Containers: 14 credits
2. Tuck the Contracts under the fulfilled Contracts section of your Harbor. Any immediate powers on them (gray circle with number 1 inside) are resolved immediately. All contract powers are explained on page 24
3. Move the Ship to the Open Sea, along with the Containers that fulfilled the Contracts.
4. Take 1 card from the draw deck and place it face up on the Supply Island.

Remember: The maximum number of Crew and Goods you can have is determined by the number of fulfilled Contracts you have (you start the game with 1 fulfilled Contract printed on your Harbor).

Pirate

With this action, you take a Container from a Ship in the Open Sea or from the Supply Island and load it onto your Ship.

Each time you perform this action, choose either a Container on any Ship in the Open Sea, or a card from the Supply Island and load it onto one of your Ships in your Harbor. Like when using the Load action, there must be an unmet matching load requirement on the Ship. If you are unable to load the Container, discard it instead.

Remember, the leading player performs all of their Pirate actions before moving clockwise to the next player, who will then perform all of their Pirate actions, and so on.

AN EMPTY SHIP: If the last Container is removed off a Ship at sea, that Ship immediately returns to the owner's Harbor. Unlike with the Import action, the owner of the Ship does not receive any credits as compensation.

FULFILLING CONTRACTS: If your Contracts are fulfilled due to a Pirate action, follow the same steps as described under the Load action (page 15).

End of the Game

The game ends if any of the following conditions are met:

• A player has 50 or more physical credits in their supply.
• There are no cards remaining in both the draw deck and the discard pile.
• A special condition from a fulfilled Contract is met (as shown on the card's power).

When any of these conditions are met, finish the current player's turn, and then proceed to scoring.

Scoring

Each player gains credits as follows:

• 2 credits for each Container that has been loaded onto a Contract and still not yet fulfilled.
• 1 credit for each Technology, Agriculture, Consumer, and Luxury Good.
• 2 credits for each Illegal Good.
• 10 credits if you have at least 1 of each type of Good.
• 6 credits if you have more Technology Goods than any other player.
• 6 credits if you have more Agriculture Goods than any other player.
• 6 credits if you have more Consumer Goods than any other player.
• 8 credits if you have more Luxury Goods than any other player.
• Lose 6 credits if you have more Illegal Goods than any other player.
• Credits according to Contracts that score at the end of the game.

In case of a tie for the most of a Good type, divide the credits between the number of tied players (rounding up). In case of a tie for the most Illegal Goods, divide the penalty between the tied players and also round up. For example: 3 players tie for the most Luxury goods, each gains 3 credits from the bank.

The player with the most credits is then declared the winner! If there is a tie, players share the victory.

Capital Expansion

This expansion adds another action and new Contracts that have different rules for their Tier Level Requirements.

SETUP: The gray player's Ships may now be used in games with fewer than 6 players. The player who plays gray receives 2 extra credits at the start of the game. The gray Harbor counts as 1 Tier for playing Capital Contracts. During Setup, if a Capital card is placed onto a Ship at sea, discard it and replace it with another card from the draw deck.

BARTER ACTION: The new Barter action allows you to swap 1 card from your hand with one from the Supply Island each time you perform the action. If you are the leader and choose this action, only you will perform it and then play passes to the next player; other players cannot follow the action or draw cards.

If you have a Barter card in your Crew, you can follow any declared action with a Barter action (irrespective of the leader's declared action). As usual, you can still choose to draw cards and then follow with the Barter action for each Barter card in your crew. If you perform a Barter action, you may not do any other type of action on that turn.

Note: Two matching cards may not be used as a wild for a Barter action. You may however, use two Barter cards as a wild to lead or follow any other action.

CAPITAL GOODS: Capital goods count as 1 good of the same type as your leftmost non-Capital good.

For example: Your leftmost non-Capital good is Technology. Your Capital goods therefore count as Technology goods, so you have 3 Technology goods.

TIER LEVEL REQUIREMENT: In order to play a Capital card as a Contract, you must meet its Tier requirement as usual. However, Capital cards have Tier requirements ranging from 0-9. Each good you have in your Goods area counts as 1 towards this requirement (the gray player's Harbor also adds 1 towards this requirement). You can use additional contract actions to skip Tier requirements as usual.

RAINBOW LOAD: If a Capital card has a multicolored load requirement, any color of Container can be used to fulfill the requirement.

GRAY CONTAINERS: Gray containers count as a wild Container color, meaning they can fulfill any load requirement color. However, they cannot be loaded or pirated; you must use powers of some cards to get them on your Ship.

OTHER RULES: Capital cards may be discarded at any time from your hand. Do not draw new cards to replace them until you use a draw action. When you fulfill a Capital Contract, take credits as usual based on the number of loaded Containers on the Ship. Powers on Capital Contracts follow the same rules as for the base game.

Tokyo Expansion

The city of Tokyo is thriving with fresh innovation and unique subcultures. To take advantage of the global demand for their amazing products and passions, visit the Port of Tokyo and contract Japanese goods!

SETUP: Follow all of the rules of the base game, but flip the Supply Island over to the Port of Tokyo side. When placing cards on the Port of Tokyo, place them in their respective columns based on the Tier Level Requirement of the card.

Whenever a card or rule references the Supply Island, you use the Port of Tokyo instead.

SUPPLY ACTION: When using the Supply action, if selling a card for 4 credits, place the card in its respective column based on its Tier level. When taking a card for your Crew, you may take any card from the Port of Tokyo regardless of the column it is in.

CONTRACT ACTION: When performing the Contract action, any player may contract a card from the Port of Tokyo instead of from their hand. To do so, they must pay the credits stated at the top of the column the card is in, as well as meeting the Tier Level Requirement as normal.

Flag Expansion

Cards from this expansion have two color Containers on them and represent two different Contracts.

CONTRACTING: When you Contract one of these cards, choose which way up to play the card based on which of the Contracts you want to play. Only this Contract is active; the other has no effect. They have no Tier Level Requirement.

LOADING: To load one of these cards, you must pay 2 credits. If you are unable to pay, you cannot load the card. When you load one of these cards, you choose which of the two container types the card will count as. Rotate the card so that the chosen color is at the top (closest to the ship).

PIRATING: These cards can be pirated from Ships as normal; they count as the color they were originally loaded as.

For Example: This card could only be Pirated as a yellow container, since it was originally loaded as a yellow container. It is required to keep the orientation of the container you are loading at the top.

Commodities Market

The Commodities Market adds supply and demand pricing to the game.

SETUP: Add the Optional Market card next to the Supply Island. Place 1 of each Goods Container on the "0" space for each Good. These are the Goods markers.

AQUIRING GOODS: When a Good is placed in a player's Goods area, move the corresponding Good marker one space up for each Good placed. The highest position is +2; any movement beyond that is ignored.

FULFILLING CONTRACTS: Whenever a Contract is fulfilled, apply the modifier indicated by the corresponding marker to the value of every Container of the fulfilled Contract to your payout. After payout, for each Container that was loaded on the Ship, move the corresponding Good marker one space down. The lowest position is -2; any movement beyond that is ignored.

For Example: You have a Contract with two mint and two blue Containers. You gain 10 credits for the fulfilled Contract as normal, but because mint is worth +1 credit each, you gain an extra 2. However, blue containers are worth -2 each, so you lose -4 credits for those. Your net total is 8 credits instead of the normal 10. The mint and blue Goods markers are moved down 2 spaces, but the blue marker is already at the bottom, and so it doesn't move farther.

Appendix - Contract Powers

Each card has a unique Contract name and power. These powers often override the standard rules of the game.

• Powers with this symbol can be used at any time, some of them even when the card is in your hand. Check the text on the card for full details. If the power allows you to play the card from your hand, you must still meet the Tier requirement to use it.
• This symbol means the power is resolved immediately upon the fulfillment of the Contract. The card is still added to the fulfilled Contracts area of your Harbor but has no further power.

Contracts without either of these icons are ongoing powers; their effects are always applied after the Contract is fulfilled.

Special Notes about Card Powers:

• All credits, unless specified otherwise, are paid to the bank.

• Unless otherwise stated, if a power requires you to pay credits and/or cards, and you do not have enough, you cannot resolve the power.

• If a player targeted by a card’s power cannot pay the credits or cards to the active player, they simply do not pay.

• 3D PRINTERS: When following the leading player’s action, you may play any action type (instead of the same action type) to perform the declared action, but you will still do the led action. This power may not be used when you are leading.

• AEROPONICS: Whenever one of your Ships in the Open Sea has only a single Container loaded (including during an Import action), the Ship must immediately return to Harbor, with that Container still loaded. This may interrupt other actions or happen mid action.

• THE ALGORITHM: You may add this card to either your Crew, or Load it onto an eligible Ship if you have capacity. If both options are not possible, add The Algorithm to your fulfilled Contracts instead.

• ALMONDS (immediate): After this Contract pays out: if you have 18 or less credits, take 8 credits from the bank; otherwise take 4 credits from the bank.

• AMMUNITION (immediate): All other players with any Illegal Goods pay you 2 credits.

• ANTIQUITIES (immediate): Search the draw deck and take one Illegal card of your choice and add it to your hand. Shuffle and replace the draw deck afterwards.

Alternative Ways to Play

The default rules of the game use cards as Containers and the container tokens are only used to represent credits. However, there are two variants presented here:

1. Whenever a card would be loaded as a Container on a ship, instead of placing the card with the Ship, discard the card and take a physical container from the supply of the matching color, placing it on that Ship.

   When performing the Pirate action, simply take the Container from one Ship and place it on your Ship.

   When performing the Import action, take the Containers from the Ship, return them to the supply and look through the discard pile one card at a time until you find a card matching the Container you took. Take that card from the discard pile and place it as your Crew / Goods. Leave the other cards in the discard pile in the same order.

   and

2. In addition to using the physical Containers as described above, you may also use them for your Crew and Goods. Any time a card would be added anywhere as a Container, Crew, or Good, discard that card and place a matching physical Container instead. To save even more table space, you can play with the crib Harbor cards, shown on the back of the fulfilled contract payout ship card.

Note: Capital expansion cards are grey and count as wild containers. When used, you must decide what color of Container they become and place the appropriate one.