Middle Kingdom Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Components
• Setup
• Play
  • 1. Play Bid Cards
  • 2. Choose Dynasty Cards
    • The Zero Card
    • Goal Cards
    • Tied Bids
    • Other Goal Cards
  • 3. The Celestial Dragon's Help
  • 4. Reveal New Dynasty Cards
• Scoring
• Rules for Two Players
• Advanced Rules for Three Players

Overview

Each round, players bid to obtain Dynasty cards and control the Emperor, Heir, Palace, Market or Harvest. However, the gods, represented in the game by the Celestial Dragon, can upset even the most brilliant plans. The game ends with the death of the Emperor. The player with the most points wins.

Components

• 6 Goal cards (Emperor, Harvest, Market, Palace, Heir, Dragon).
• 62 Dynasty cards (9 Officials, 1 Philosopher, 15 Peasants, 15 Merchants, 12 Nobles, 10 Generals).
• 40 bid cards (including the 0 cards).
• 18 victory point tokens.
• 2 reference cards and these rules.

How to read the Goal cards: The upper right corner shows the number of victory points the card is worth at the end of the game. The upper left corner shows the criteria for obtaining the card. The text at the bottom gives the card's effects.

Setup

• Give each player a set of bid cards (numbered 1 to 7 plus a zero). Set the remaining bid cards aside.
• Lay out the Goal cards and the reference cards.
• Shuffle the Dynasty deck. Depending on the number of players (3, 4 or 5 players), lay out 2, 3 or 4 cards face up.

Play

(The 2-player game is described in detail at the end of the rules.)

The game consists of rounds; each round is divided into 4 phases:

1. Play bid cards.
2. Choose Dynasty cards, enlisting the support of particular classes of the population.
3. The Celestial Dragon's help.
4. Reveal new Dynasty cards.

1. Play Bid Cards

Each player, except the one with the Palace, secretly chooses a card from their hand and places it face down. The chosen cards are revealed simultaneously, and the special abilities (effects) of the Palace, Harvest and Emperor cards, if players have them, are resolved in the following order:

• The player who owns the Palace chooses and reveals their bid after all other players have revealed theirs.
• The player with the Harvest card, having played a zero card and holding three or fewer cards in hand, may discard the zero card and play one of those cards from their hand.
• The Emperor card automatically (but not in the 2-player game) adds 0.5 to its owner's bid.

Example: Steve controls the Emperor, Michael has the Harvest (and three cards in hand), Paul owns the Palace, and Holger and Zev have no Goal cards! Everyone except Paul makes and simultaneously reveals their bid. Zev chose 7, Steve 6, Michael played 0, Holger also chose 7. After that Paul chose and played 3. Then Michael discarded the 0 and chose 4 from the cards remaining in his hand. Then Steve added 0.5 to his bid. So the bids are: Zev and Holger 7, Steve 6.5, Michael 4 and Paul 3.

2. Choose Dynasty Cards

All players, except those whose bids tied or were 0, choose one of the face-up Dynasty cards in descending order of their bids. They then set their bid cards aside, face up — this is so that players can see which bid cards have already been played, so that players can try to avoid ties during the first phase. If there are no Dynasty cards left, the player gets nothing and simply discards their bid card. Dynasty cards are placed in front of the players who received them, in stacks by type. Stack them so that it is clear how many cards are in each stack.

Example: In a 4-player game, 3 Dynasty cards are face up. The players' bids are 7, 6, 3 and 1. The player who bid 7 chooses a Dynasty card first, then the player with 6 and the player with 3. The player who bid 1 gets nothing. In the example for the previous phase, 4 Dynasty cards were in play. Zev and Holger tied, so neither of them got to choose a Dynasty card. Steve chose first, Michael second, Paul third. One Dynasty card was left unchosen.

The Zero Card

The zero card by itself has no value during the bidding phase and does not allow you to obtain a Dynasty card. It has a value of zero when played during a tie, and a stack containing it allows you to choose a Dynasty card under the rules described in the Tied Bids section. After playing this card, at the end of the round take all of your previously discarded bid cards back into your hand, even if you used the Harvest card and chose a second card this round.

Goal Cards

If a player owns two or more Dynasty cards of the same type, they must take the corresponding Goal card. Two Generals give the Emperor card, two Nobles (regardless of their value) the Heir, 2 Officials, possibly together with the Philosopher, give the Palace, 2 Merchants the Market, 2 Peasants the Harvest. If any player gathers more Dynasty cards of one type than the player who owns the corresponding Goal card, they immediately take that Goal card. Passing the Heir or the Market to another player can affect the card selection in the round. Passing the Palace, Harvest or Emperor cannot, since their effects are resolved before cards are chosen.

Tied Bids

If two or more players make the same bid, there is a tie, unless one of them uses the 0.5 bonus from the Emperor card. Such players do not take part in choosing Dynasty cards. Their bid cards are not set aside, however; they stay with the players to be used in the next round, forming stacks. Bid stacks tie only if they contain two identical cards played in the same order. If the total of a stack equals the value of a single bid, the player with the stack gets to choose a Dynasty card first. If the cards in stacks with the same total lie in a different order, the player whose top card has the higher value chooses first. After choosing a Dynasty card, the stacks are discarded.

Example: The bids are: Holger and Zev 6 each, Paul and Steve 4 each, Michael 3. Michael chooses a Dynasty card and discards his 3. The others have two ties. Next round: Zev chooses 0, Holger 2, Paul 4, Steve 1 and Michael 6. There are no ties. Paul chooses a Dynasty card first (4+4), followed by Holger (6+2), then Zev (6+0) and finally Michael (6). Steve with his bid stack of 4+1 gets nothing.

If the bid stacks also tie, then the players in turn, in the order in which the bids were laid, each draw a card from the Dynasty deck (if it has enough cards), reveal them, immediately place them in their corresponding Dynasty stacks (the Market's power may be used), discard their bid stacks and, finally, pass Goal cards to other players if necessary.

Other Goal Cards

The Celestial Dragon, Market and Heir cards can affect players' choice of Dynasty cards.

Celestial Dragon. Before choosing a Dynasty card, the player who owns the Celestial Dragon must exchange it for one of the face-up Dynasty cards available for selection, other than the Philosopher card. The Dragon also cannot be exchanged for a card of the class of which this player has the most representatives, unless only such types of Dynasty cards are available for exchange and selection this round.

Example: The player with the Celestial Dragon has the following Dynasty cards: 2 Merchants, 2 Nobles and 1 General. Available for selection are Noble, General and Peasant cards. So the player may exchange the Dragon card for the General or the Peasant, but not for the Noble.

Once the Dragon card has been exchanged and is in the row with the other Dynasty cards, it becomes available for selection. Any player who chooses the Celestial Dragon after the bidding phase gains 2 VP, but sets the Dragon card aside; it lies in the discard until it goes to one of the players (see below).

Market. If the player with the Market card chooses a Merchant, they may add it to their stack of Merchant cards (it counts as simply another card) or to any other stack containing at least one card, in which case this Merchant counts as two cards of that type.

Heir. If after bidding and selection any Dynasty cards remain face up on the table (because of ties or zero cards), the Heir allows its owner to choose one of them.

After this, discard the unchosen Dynasty cards.

3. The Celestial Dragon's Help

As soon as at least 4 Goal cards are held by players, summon the Celestial Dragon if possible. Give its card to the player with the fewest Goal cards (even if they have none at all). In case of a tie, give the card to the player with the fewest Dynasty cards. If there are still several, give the Dragon card to the one who held it most recently. If this is impossible, do not summon it.

4. Reveal New Dynasty Cards

Turn face up 2, 3 or 4 Dynasty cards from the deck (for 3, 4 and 5 players respectively). If there are not enough cards in the deck, the game is over.

Scoring

Give the Heir card to the player with the most General cards. If several players are tied for this, discard it.

Players count the VP on their Dynasty and Goal cards, as well as on tokens earned during the game, subtract points for any missing types of Dynasty cards, count points for Peasants, and the player owning the Philosopher card also gains a point for each of their Officials.

VP for cards and tokens: Some cards show the number of VP they are worth. These cards are: Heir (5), Palace (4), Market (3), Dragon (2), Philosopher (1), Nobles (2-4) and Generals (1). Each token is worth 2 VP.

Dynasty card types: Players who do not have at least one card of each Dynasty card type subtract 3 points for each missing type (the Philosopher counts as an Official for this purpose).

Peasants: The player with the fewest Peasants (including 0) discards all of them. All other players also discard that same number of Peasant cards. Players who still have Peasant cards after this score VP for them as follows:

Peasants	VP
1	2
2	5
3	8
4	14
5+	20

Philosopher: The player who owns the Philosopher card gains 1 VP for each Official they have collected during the game. All other Officials are worth 0.

Example: Zev ended the game with the Palace (+4 VP), the Philosopher (+1 VP), 3 Officials, 4 Peasants, 3 Nobles (+4+2+2 VP), 1 General (+1 VP) and 3 tokens worth 2 VP each (+6 VP). In total that is 20 VP. He has no Merchants (-3 VP), so he has 17 VP. Steve has the fewest Peasants at the end of the game (1), so all players must discard one Peasant card. Zev has 3 Peasants left, earning him +8 VP. Since Zev has the Philosopher, he gains VP for each of his Officials (+3 VP), and Zev's final score becomes 28 VP.

Victory: The player with the most VP wins! In case of a tie, the player with the most Dynasty cards wins. If the tie persists, several players win together.

Rules for Two Players

Play as described above, with some changes:

• Reveal 3 Dynasty cards for selection at setup and in each round thereafter.
• Each player makes 2 non-cumulative bids each round, except the player who owns the Palace card — they make one bid, and then a second one after all bid cards have been revealed. If the player with the Palace has a card from a tie in the previous round, that player indicates, before the bids are revealed, whether or not they will add their first bid card to the bid stack. A player who has only the 0 card in hand at the start of the round plays only that card, instead of two bids.
• The Emperor must announce which of the player's two bids receives the 0.5 bonus.
• Ideally, each player can choose two Dynasty cards per round — each in turn, in descending order of the bids made by the players.
• A player whose one card is 0 and whose second card results in a tie does not take that second card back.

Advanced Rules for Three Players

Play by the rules for two players, but reveal 5 Dynasty cards at setup and then each round.