Lübeck Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Overview
• Setup
• Sequence of Play
  • Forming the Card Layout
  • Choosing Card Piles
  • Actions
  • Starting a Trading Voyage in Lübeck
  • Card Actions
  • Special Cards
  • Passing
  • Discarding a Card
  • After the Round
• End of the Game

Game Components

• 1 game board (Spielplan)
• 6 Koggen (cog ships / trading ships)
• 60 cards (Spielkarten)
• 15 game figures (Spielfiguren), 3 in each of 5 player colours
• 1 compass tile (Kompassplättchen)

Overview

The goal is to earn the most income by playing goods cards. Before each round, card piles (consisting of 2 or more cards each) are laid out face up, and each player in turn selects one of them. The goods cards show the city in which they may be played and the amount of income. If a player is in the harbour of a city where he owns a goods card, or can move a cog there in one move, he may play the card and receive the income. Players are eager to take the most valuable goods cards, but beware: at the end of each round a player may keep at most three cards in hand. A player who has more cards in hand and cannot bring any of his goods to the correct destination harbour must throw the goods overboard, that is, the card is discarded, and instead of income there are losses...

Setup

• Punch out the cogs and compass tiles from the punch board.

• Place the game board in the middle.

• Place the cogs on the cog area of the game board, as follows:

  • with 3 players, 4 cogs
  • with 4 players, 5 cogs
  • with 5 players, all 6 cogs

  Return the remaining cogs to the box.

• Each player chooses a colour and receives the three figures of that colour. One figure of each player is placed on space 0 of the score track on the outer edge of the game board. The other two figures are placed in front of the player on the table (in reserve).

• The eldest player begins and receives the compass tile as start player. After each round the start player tile is passed on to the next player (clockwise).

• The cards are shuffled well. The start player takes the face-down card deck and deals 3 cards face down to each player. Players may pick up and look at their cards.

• The start player lays out the card layout for the first round (see below).

Sequence of Play

The game is played in rounds. Each round proceeds as follows:

1. Form the card layout (Kartenauslage bilden)
2. Choose card piles (Kartenpäckchen wählen)
3. Actions (Aktionen)

Forming the Card Layout

• The start player lays out the card layout as follows.

• Before each round, cards are laid out in piles. Before the first round, the following number of piles are laid out according to the number of players, each pile consisting of 2 cards:

  • 5 piles with 3 players
  • 6 piles with 4 players
  • 7 piles with 5 players

  Each pile consists of 2 cards.

• From the second round onward the card layout is formed as follows:

  • All piles that were not taken remain in place.
  • The start player first lays out enough single cards so that again (according to the number of players) 5, 6 or 7 card piles are laid out.
  • Then each card pile is supplemented with one further card.

(Example: with 3 players, every player in the previous round took one of the 5 laid-out card piles, so 2 remain. Beside these, 3 single cards are now laid out, so that again 5 card piles are laid out, 2 with 2 cards and 3 with 1 card. Then each card pile is supplemented with one further card. The layout in the example now comprises 2 piles of 3 cards and 3 piles of 2 cards.)

Image caption: layout for 3 players, 5 card piles.

Choosing Card Piles

• Beginning with the start player, each player (one after another, clockwise) chooses one card pile and takes its cards into hand.
• The last player who takes a pile (to the right of the start player) determines which player makes the first action: either himself or any other player of his choice.

Actions

• The player chosen begins with the actions. In general:
  • The player whose turn it is performs one action, then the next player is up.
  • Actions are taken in turn around the table until all players have passed (so within one round a player usually gets several turns).

The following actions are possible:

• Start a trading voyage in Lübeck (Handelsfahrt in Lübeck starten)
• Card actions (Kartenaktionen)
• Pass (Passen)
• Discard a card (Karte abwerfen)

Starting a Trading Voyage in Lübeck

There are two ways to start a trading voyage in Lübeck:

• Option 1: Take an empty cog from the game board and place it on or next to the Lübeck coat of arms, and place one of your own game figures from the reserve on the cog. (For this action at least one free cog and one of your own free game figures must be available.)
• Option 2: If a cog with one or more game figures is already in Lübeck, you may also place your figure from the supply onto it.

Important: A figure may stand alone or together with other figures on a cog. A cog does not belong to a particular player. Access may not be denied to a figure.

Card Actions

The most important and most frequent action is playing a card. There are goods cards and special cards. All played cards are placed on an open discard pile.

• Goods cards show a storehouse (Speicherhaus) as an illustration. In addition the name of a city and a value are printed on them.

A goods card may be played when:

• a cog with your own game figure is located in this city, or
• a cog with your own game figure is located in the city before it.

(The cog can then reach the destination city in one move along the line of the same colour.)

• In both cases the player immediately receives the value on the card, that is, he moves his figure on the score track forward by the corresponding number of spaces, thereby marking his current holdings.

(Example: The cog of the green player stands in Danzig. Green plays the card Riga with value 3 and moves with the cog along the orange line from Danzig to Riga. For the value 3 on the card, his game figure may now advance 3 spaces on the score track.)

Important: Every player who has a game figure on a cog may, by playing a goods card, move that cog to the next city.

Important: Cogs always move only in the direction of the arrows. They normally start in Lübeck and are moved along the lines in the direction of the arrows, e.g. from Stettin to Danzig, from Helsingborg either to Bergen or to Hamburg.

Special Cards

Special card Trading Voyage (Handelsfahrt): This exists for the cities Stettin, Danzig, Riga, Visby and Helsingborg. With this card one may begin a trading voyage in one of these cities instead of in Lübeck. The start of the voyage follows the same pattern as the start of a trading voyage in Lübeck, i.e. either start with a free cog (if available) or place one of your own game figures on a cog located in the city.

Special card Doubling (Verdoppelung): This exists for the cities Stettin, Danzig, Riga, Visby and Helsingborg. The card is played like a goods card, i.e. either in the respective city or moving into this city. The player places the card in front of himself. The card itself has no value, but doubles the value of all cards this player plays in the current round for this city. (Example: Player Red stands on a cog in Visby. He plays the doubling card for Helsingborg and moves with the cog to Helsingborg. After the other players have taken their actions and Red is up again, he plays the goods card Helsingborg 3 and receives 6 points instead of 3.)

• Note: The doubling card is only valid in the current round. It then goes to the discard pile.
• Note: The more fellow players stand on a cog, the greater the danger that a fellow player moves on with the cog, and then one cannot play goods cards for the city concerned and therefore cannot double points either.

Special card Pirates (Piraten): The trading voyage of a cog is ended. The player who plays this card takes any cog out of the game. The game figures go back to their respective players in the reserve. The empty cog is placed on the cog area of the game board. It is available again for a new trading voyage.

Special card Ship Change (Schiffswechsel): By playing the special card Ship Change, one may move one of one's own game figures from one cog to any other cog.

Passing

• A player may pass as soon as he has three cards or fewer in hand, even if he has not yet performed an action in the current round.
• A player who has passed places his cards face down in front of himself to show the other players that he has passed.
• A player who has passed once may not re-enter the current round, even if the situation changes so that an action would be possible or sensible for him.

Discarding a Card

• A player who has more than 3 cards in hand and cannot lay out any card normally (e.g. because he has only goods cards for cities he cannot reach) may not pass and must discard a card if necessary.
• A discarded card must be paid for, as follows:
  • for a goods card, the value printed on it
  • for a special card, 1 each
• Payment is made by moving the game figure back on the score track by the corresponding number of spaces.

After the Round

• Cogs that are located at the final stations Reval, London and Brügge are removed, that is, the game figures on them return to the players' reserves and the empty cog is placed back on the cog area of the game board.
• Each player may now still take his own figures back from cogs into the reserve. If a cog becomes empty as a result, it is placed back on the cog area and is available again in the next round.
• The start player tile is passed on to the next player (clockwise).

End of the Game

• The game is played until the card deck has been played through twice. The second pass begins as soon as, when laying out the cards, not enough cards remain in the deck. The cards discarded up to then (from the open discard pile) are shuffled and a new card deck is formed from them. As soon as this deck has been used up, the last round is announced.
• Last round: If cards are missing for the last round to form the card layout, the discard pile is shuffled once more and the card layout for the last round is supplemented with cards from this deck. After the last round has been played, the final scoring takes place: all cards a player still has in hand count as minus points. For each special card the game figure must be moved back 1 space, for each goods card as many spaces as the value stated on the card.
• The player who is furthest ahead on the score track after the final scoring is the winner of the game.