London Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• City Cards
• Card Symbols
• Action Cards
• Borough Cards
• Loans
• The Development Board
  • Drawing and Discarding Cards
• Setup
• How to Play
• Developing Your City
• Buying Land
• Paupers
• Running Your City
• Drawing Three Cards
• Game End
  • Prestige Lost Due to Poverty

Contents

• Development board
• 101 City cards
• 20 Borough cards
• 4 Score trackers
• 48 Coin tokens
• 12 Loan tokens
• 44 Poverty tokens (30 x 1 Poverty, 10 x 5 Poverty, 4 x 15 Poverty)

City Cards

These cards represent the guilds, businesses and buildings you will develop in your section of the city. Knowing how to make best use of your city cards is key to winning the game. Each card has a cost to play, and a benefit to be gained from playing it – usually on a later turn than when it is played. London has an unusual mechanic for these cards – first you will build your city, playing cards to your building area; then you will run your city, activating as many of your previously played as you wish.

Each card has a basic type, denoted by its colour. Brown cards relate to economic activity, blue cards reflect science and culture and pink cards relate to politics. There are also a number of grey cards, paupers, which will be a continual source of poverty unless you can find work for them. The four types of cards are also differentiated by the roundel in the bottom corners of each card.

City cards have two main benefits to you – the prestige they grant you at the end of the game, and/or the effect which happens when you run your city. Some cards may also have an ongoing effect, which is active whenever the card is showing. If a card has an ongoing effect, it will be described above the card's artwork, rather than below it.

Each city card is laid out as follows:

1. Card name.
2. The set to which this card belongs (A, B or C).
3. Some cards have an additional cost, which must be paid when they are added to your display.
4. The main area of the card is its activated ability – the benefit you get when you run your city.
5. The left roundel indicates the activation cost, which must be paid in order to activate the card. This will require you to spend money or discard a card from your hand.
6. The prestige this card grants at the end of the game.
7. The right roundel indicates whether or not the card flips face-down after it is activated.
8. Some cards have an ongoing ability, which comes into effect as soon as you add the card to your display.

Card Symbols

The city and borough cards contain a number of symbols, which are detailed here. These either gain or lose resources, or are an effect of activating your city cards when you run your city.

• Gain prestige immediately
• Gain prestige at the end of the game
• Spend money
• Gain money
• Gain one poverty
• Alleviate one poverty
• Spend an additional card to activate
• Flip this card after activation

Action Cards

There are four cards in the city deck which are played directly from your hand and do not require you to spend another card to play them. These cards contains the word 'action' in their ongoing ability box and do not have an activated ability box.

Borough Cards

The larger cards represent an opportunity to purchase land in one of 20 boroughs in London. Land is expensive, but highly valuable. Every time you buy a piece of land it will immediately grant you prestige; alleviate poverty; and open up new opportunities, allowing you to draw cards. Some boroughs may also have an ongoing ability, or an effect when you run your city.

Each card also has a relationship to the River Thames. Every card is either north or south of the river, while some border it. Generally cards in north London are worth more prestige, while cards in south London alleviate more poverty.

Each borough card is laid out as follows:

1. Borough name.
2. The location of this borough (north or south). River-adjacent and non-river-adjacent boroughs have different versions of this symbol.
3. Some boroughs have an optional ability. Each optional ability specifies when it can be used.
4. The cost to buy this borough.
5. Each borough grants an immediate benefit listed here. This borough allows you to draw 2 cards, gain 2 prestige immediately and lose 1 poverty.
6. Some boroughs have an active ability, which must happen every time you run your city. These can be positive or negative – in this case you will gain 2 poverty every time you run your city while Wandsworth is your topmost borough card.

Every time you buy a new borough card it replaces your most recent borough. You must overlay the cards so that the left-hand edge denoting the location of the old borough is still visible. The card may still generate prestige through city card effects, but only the abilities of your top card will ever be in play.

Loans

If you are ever required to pay a cost you cannot afford, you must take a loan, though you may choose to take one at any point. For each loan you take, you receive £10 from the supply and a loan token. Every £10 worth of loans you have taken will generate poverty every time you run your city.

To get rid of a £10 loan, you must pay £15 at the start of your turn. Return the loan and the money to the supply. At the end of the game you must repay each loan you have taken, if you can. You lose seven prestige for each loan you cannot repay.

The Development Board

The development board contains two rows for discarded city cards. These rows will be empty at the start of the game but will fill up as players develop their cities. With two players, only the first three spaces of each row are available for use. With three players the first four spaces are available, and with four players all five spaces are available for use.

The board also contains a point tracker to measure prestige, and a summary of how poverty will affect prestige at the end of the game.

Drawing and Discarding Cards

Whenever you draw one or more city cards you may either take any card on the development board or the top card of the city deck. If you are drawing multiple cards, you may choose to draw from a combination of the two, and may draw cards one at a time before deciding where to draw from next.

Whenever you discard a card you must place it onto an available space in the top row of the development board (some spaces are only available if playing with three or four players). If there are no available spaces in the top row, you may place them in the bottom row.

If you have to discard a card and the entire board is full, remove all cards on the bottom row from the game. Move all cards in the top row to the bottom row, and then continue to discard as normal.

Setup

Place the board in the middle of the table. Each player chooses a score tracker and places it on the '0' space on the board. Place the coin, poverty and loan tokens next to the board as a supply. Each player takes £5 and places it in front of them as part of their building display. The items in your building display are public information and may not be kept secret. This includes coins, loans, poverty tokens, boroughs and building stacks – however covered cards or face-down cards within those stacks remain hidden until the end of the game.

Separate the building cards into three decks, based on the letter printed above the title of the card – A, B or C. Shuffle each deck separately, then place the C deck face-down. Place the B deck face-down on top of C, and finally the A deck face-down on top of B, creating the city deck. Deal each player 6 cards from the deck.

Find the three starter boroughs with a different-coloured name (City, Westminster, and Southwark & Bermondsey) and place them face-up beside the board. Shuffle the rest of the borough cards, and place them face-down to form the borough deck. The player who set the game up becomes the first player.

How to Play

The object of the game is to have the most prestige when the city cards run out. During the game players will take turns in clockwise order. During your turn you must first draw one city card, then you must take one of the following actions:

1. Develop your city
2. Buy land
3. Run your city
4. Draw three more city cards

Finally, if you have more than nine cards in your hand you must discard any excess cards at the end of your turn.

Developing Your City

When you develop your city you play one or more city cards from your hand to the table in front of you, one at a time. These cards are added to your building display face-up.

To add a card to your building display, you must first discard a card of the same colour from your hand. You must also pay the additional cost of the card, if it has one. If you cannot afford the additional cost, and do not wish to take a loan, you may not play that card. If you have no cards in hand that you can legally play you may not take the develop city action.

When you add a card to your building display, you may either place it on top of another face-up or face-down city card in the display, or on its own. Each pile of cards is called a stack. A card cannot be placed on top of another card that was placed in the same turn.

If a card has an ongoing ability it comes into effect as soon as it is placed in the building display, and ceases to be in effect as soon as the card is flipped face-down or is covered by another card. This means that an ongoing ability may be used in the same turn that the card is played. Any other abilities will only come into play when you run your city on a later turn.

Note: action cards will have a separate ability which does not relate to your building display. Those cards can still only be played when you choose the develop action.

Example of development: You have four cards in hand when you choose to develop. With your blue cards you could discard Vauxhall Gardens to build a Hospital. As the Hospital has an additional cost of £2, you would have to pay that money to the supply. You could also discard the Hospital to build the Gardens, saving your money. With your brown cards you could discard the Huguenots to play the Vintners, or play the Huguenots for its action ability, keeping the Vintners and drawing two new cards. Perhaps that will give you more options? Any cards you discard will become available for the other players, so choose carefully.

Buying Land

When you buy land you must choose a borough card from the three face-up cards in the middle of the table, pay its cost and add it to your building display. If you already own one or more borough cards you must place the new one on top of it so that only the title of the previous card is visible. Replace the borough card you have just bought with a new one from the deck.

As soon as you have purchased a borough you gain the immediate benefit directly below the cost – drawing cards, moving your prestige tracker up a number of spaces and removing the number of poverty indicated. If you have fewer poverty tokens than the borough removes, simply remove all your current poverty.

If the borough card has an ongoing ability it is immediately available as soon as it added to your display. As soon as another borough is placed on top of it, it is no longer available.

Example of buying land: These three boroughs are available when you choose to buy land. You cannot afford Hammersmith and do not wish to take a loan, so must decide between the others. Would you prefer Lewisham's effective poverty removal or Southwark & Bermondsey's powerful ability? Either way, you will cover up your existing borough, leaving only the left-hand column visible.

Paupers

There are eleven pauper cards in the deck. These cards cannot be added to a building display or discarded to play a card (unless a city or borough card ability explicitly says otherwise). They can only be discarded through card abilities, in order to activate cards already in your city (see below), or when you end your turn over the hand limit of nine cards.

Running Your City

When you run your city, you will activate city cards in your building display, one at a time, in any order. Once you have activated as many cards as you wish, you will accumulate poverty. Activating a face-up card in your display has three steps:

1. Pay the activation cost, if there is one. The cost will either be an amount of coin paid to the supply or one card of any colour discarded from your hand. If you can't pay the cost you may not activate the card.
2. Carry out the activation effect in full. In any order, resolve any text effects and symbols. If you do not have any poverty at this moment, you do not benefit from any 'remove poverty' symbols.
3. If the card has a flip symbol, flip it face-down. The stack of cards remains, but that card can no longer be activated.

Only face-up cards may be activated, and each card may only be activated once during the same turn. If your topmost borough card has an activation effect it must be activated during this action. This can be before or after any of the cards in the building display. A borough card is never flipped.

Once you have finished activating cards in your building display, you receive a number of poverty tokens from the supply. The player receives one poverty token for each:

• Stack in your building display (whether it was activated or not)
• £10 of loans in your building display
• Card in your hand

Example of running your city, part 1: This is your building display when you decide to run your city. You can activate the face-up city cards in any order you wish. Your hospital gives you some good flexibility here, allowing you to re-use another city card on a later turn. As you already have some money, perhaps prestige is more important. To activate the West India Docks you must spend a card. You discard a pauper from your hand, then gain £7 before flipping the Docks. Next you activate the Town Houses, giving you two immediate prestige (one for each face-up blue city card). This card would normally flip, but you choose to use your Hospital's ability, and flip that card instead. You cannot use the Town Houses again this turn, but as it is still face-up you may use it again on a later turn. Now you activate your Steamboats. Two of your boroughs border the river, as indicated on the left-most side of the borough cards, so you gain £4 and flip the Steamboats. Finally you must take Southwark & Bermondsey's ongoing ability, and add one poverty.

Example of running your city, part 2: This is your building display after you have run your city. You are now flush with cash, but you cannot repay your loan until the start of your next turn. You will gain poverty as follows: one for each stack in your display (four), one for the loan token, and one for each card in hand (two), for a total of seven. Added to your existing four you now have eleven poverty. This is getting really out of hand! Perhaps you should do something about that on a later turn…

Drawing Three Cards

When you take this action, you must draw exactly three cards. As always, you may draw in any combination from the deck or the development board. If there are fewer than three cards available, simply take all the remaining cards.

Game End

If the city deck is empty at the end of any player's turn, each other player takes one final turn. Once these turns have been taken, the game ends. To calculate your final score, take the following steps in order as a group (if everyone is familiar with the game, this can be done individually):

1. Take one poverty token for each card left in your hand, and remove those cards from the game.
2. Count up the total end of game prestige of all the city cards in your display, including cards which are face-down or which have been built over. Move your score tracker up a number of spaces equal to this value.
3. Pay back as many loans as possible, paying £15 for each £10 loan repaid.
4. Move your score tracker up one space for each full £3 remaining in your display.
5. Move your score tracker down seven spaces for each unpaid loan.
6. Compare your total poverty tokens. The player with the fewest poverty tokens returns all of them to the supply. All other players return that same number of tokens to the supply.
7. Check the poverty table on the development board, and move your score tracker down the number of spaces indicated.

The player with the most prestige wins. If there is a tie, the tied player with the least poverty wins. If there is still a tie, the tied player with the most borough cards wins. If there is still a tie, the tied player with the city card worth the most prestige wins.

Prestige Lost Due to Poverty

Poverty	1–2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	each point over 10
Prestige lost	-1	-2	-3	-5	-7	-9	-11	-13	-15	-3