Ostia Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
  • A. Main Board Setup
  • B. Player Setup
• Goal of the Game
• Rewards and Victory Points
• Gameplay
  • Turn Flow
• 1. Selection Phase
• 2. Production Phase
  • Resource area
• 3. Action Phase
  • Actions and sections
• Action
  • A. Move
    • Movement Rules
    • Tile Actions & Effects during movement
    • Route Restrictions
  • B. Shipbuild
  • C. Order
  • D. Build
  • E. Trade
  • F. Administration
  • Free Action
• End Game
• Final Score Calculation
• Reference
  • Icon Types
  • Building Spots' Effects
• Tiles
  • Initial Trading Ports
  • Trading Ports
  • Transits
  • Discoveries
  • Destinations
• Credits

Components

• Main board x 1
• Ostia Port Board x 4
• Construction/Shipbuilding Track Board x 4
• Destination Tiles x 4
• Initial Placement Cards x 6
• Order Cards x 34
• Initial Trading Port Tiles x 4
• Trading Port Tiles x 16
• Building Tokens x 48 (4 x 12 types)
• Ponta Ship Tokens x 12 (3 x 4 colors)
• Corbita Ship Tokens x 56 (14 x 4 colors)
• Discovery Tiles x 20
• Transit Tiles x 12
• Construction Discs x 28 (7 x 4 colors)
• Reward Cubes x 4 (1 x 4 colors)
• Resource Cubes: value 1 (small) x 65, value 3 (big) x 30
• Amphora Tokens x 35
• First Player Token x 1

Setup

A. Main Board Setup

1. Place the main board in the center of the table.
2. Place an equal amount of building tiles as the number of players in each building space on the main board (respectively besides each trading port). Return any unused tokens back to the box.
3. Shuffle all initial trading port tiles and randomly place them face up in the corresponding space on the main board.
4. Shuffle all trading port tiles and randomly place them face up in the corresponding space on the main board. Return any unused trading port tiles back to the box.
5. Place the four discovery tiles marked with a reward icon face up in each corresponding space on the main board (i.e. spaces which fit a single circular token).
6. Shuffle the remaining discovery tiles and randomly place them face up in the corresponding space on the main board. However, as indicated by the icons, some spaces are only filled at certain player counts: 8 tiles in 2-player games, 12 tiles in 3-player games, and 16 tiles in 4-player games. When playing with 3 players or less, return the unused discovery tiles back to the box.
7. Shuffle the transit tiles and randomly place them face up, in the corresponding space on the main board.
8. Shuffle the destination tiles and randomly place them face up, in the corresponding space on the main board.
9. Prepare 7 amphora tokens for each player (e.g. 21 tokens for 3 players) and place them in the "common supply" (near the game board, within reach of all players). Excess amphora tokens might be required later in the game, but they should be put back to the box for now to avoid them getting mixed up with the common supply.
10. Divide all the resource cubes into those of value 1 (small) and value 3 (big), then place them in the common supply.
11. Shuffle all the order cards and place them in a face down pile beside the main board. Draw the top four cards from the pile and place them face up next to the pile. This is called the "Order Row".

B. Player Setup

12. Each player chooses one color. Take one Ostia Port board, one construction/shipbuilding track board, 14 corbita tokens, 3 ponta tokens, 7 construction discs and 1 reward cube, all corresponding to their player color. Return all unused colors back to the box.

13. The hexagon on the Ostia Port board divided into six sections, each of which is divided into a sea area and a resource area. Place one corbita token in each of the six sections.

14. Each player takes one random initial placement card. Place one additional corbita token in each of the three sea areas indicated on the card received. Then return all of the initial placement cards back to the box.

15. Place two value 1 (small) resource cubes from the common supply in each of the 5 resource areas (permit, wood, wheat, stone, gold).

    IMPORTANT: The resource area on the top left has no specific resource. Thus, no resource cube will be placed there throughout the game, see page 5.

16. Place one construction disc in each square in the construction track.

17. Place one ship token in each square in the shipbuilding track. Place ponta ship tokens in squares 3, 5 and 7 from the bottom and corbita ship tokens in the other squares as indicated by the icons.

18. Take a corbita ship token from the bottom square of the shipbuilding track and place it at the Ostia starting box on the left side of the main board.

19. Place the reward cubes in the square marked 0 on the reward track on the right side of the main board.

20. Choose a starting player randomly. That player receives the first player token (this will not change throughout the game).

21. In counter-clockwise order, starting with the player to the right of the first player, each player takes a construction disc from the bottom square of his construction track and places it on an initial trading port tile on the main board where no other construction discs have been placed. Each player takes a building token from the building space on that initial trading port tile and places it in the initial building spot on their Ostia Port board.

Goal of the Game

Aim to get the most victory points at the end of the game.

Rewards and Victory Points

Before we go to the explanation of how to play the game, let's learn about the relationship between rewards and victory points.

The table on the right side of the main board tracks player's rewards.

You have many opportunities to earn rewards during the game. Each time you gain a reward, advance your reward cube one space on the reward track (the leftmost column of the table).

At the end of the game, you earn victory points from your building icons, ship icons and amphora tokens based on your reward cube's position.

In other words, the more rewards you earn during the game, the more victory points you can get for each of these icons and tokens.

Example: At the end of the game, A has 7 building icons, 4 ship icons and 5 amphora tokens; if they have 4 rewards (their reward cube is on the fourth space of the reward track), it means that each building and ship icon is worth 7 victory points (VP) and each amphora token is worth 5 victory points. Therefore, A has a total of 102 victory points (7 buildings x 7 VP + 4 ships x 7 VP + 5 Amphora x 5 VP). If A had 10 rewards, their total VP will increase to 150 (7 buildings x 10 VP + 4 ships x 10 VP + 5 Amphora x 8 VP).

The maximum number of rewards that you can have are 12. If your reward cube is already on the twelfth space, you do not gain additional rewards.

Gameplay

You and other players take turns in clockwise order, starting with the first player. You will do this until the end of the game is triggered, see page 11.

Turn Flow

On your turn, you must perform all three phases in order.

1. Selection Phase
2. Production Phase
3. Action Phase

1. Selection Phase

Choose one of the six sections on your Ostia Port board which contain at least one ship token (corbita or ponta) on the sea area.

2. Production Phase

Count the number of ship tokens on the sea area of the selected section. During this phase, each ponta token counts as two ship tokens.

Take as many resource cubes from the common supply as the total number of your ship tokens and place them on the resource area of the same section.

There is no limit to the number of resource cubes in the common supply. In the rare case that the cubes run out, you may substitute them with appropriate ones. At any time during the game, you can freely exchange 3 cubes of value 1 to 1 cube of value 3.

Resource area

Each of the six sections on the Ostia Port board contains a sea area and a resource area.

One type of resource is allocated to each resource area (in clockwise order from 12 o'clock: permit, wood, wheat, stone, and gold).

The total value of the resource cubes on each resource area shows how many of that respective resource you have.

Example: A has a total value of 3 resource cubes in the wood resource area and a total value of 8 resource cubes in the stone resource area. This means that A has 3 woods and 8 stones.

During the production phase, you will receive the type of resource corresponding to the selected section. The number of resources you received is equal to the number of ship tokens on the sea area in the same section (remember that each ponta counts as two tokens).

When you are required to pay with a particular resource, return the resource cubes from the corresponding resource area to the common supply.

Note: The resource area on the top left has no resource type, and no resource cubes are placed there throughout the game. If you choose this section during "1. Selection Phase", you will not get any resource cubes in the "2. Production Phase", regardless of the number of ship tokens placed on that sea area.

3. Action Phase

Take all the ship tokens from the sea area of the section you selected in "1. Selection Phase".

Place those ship tokens one by one on each sea area starting from the section adjacent (in a clockwise direction) to the original section until all ship tokens have been placed.

Note:

• If you take 7 or more ships, continue adding the ships in a clockwise order. This means some areas will have 2 or more ships added during this process.
• Even though ponta ship tokens count as two ships in "2. Production Phase", in this phase, both ponta and corbita tokens are considered as one ship token each. If you have both corbita and ponta tokens in your hand, you can choose which type of ship token you want to place in each area.

You may then perform the action corresponding to the section where the final ship token was placed.

The execution of all actions are optional. You might even be unable to perform any action at all if you do not have the required resources or do not meet the requirements.

When the action has been resolved, your turn is over and the next player in clockwise order may take their turn.

Actions and sections

There are six actions in this game and each section in the Ostia Port board corresponds to one of those actions.

The action corresponding to each section will mainly consume the type of resource generated by that section.

Example: The second section contains the shipbuild action and the resource corresponding to that section is wood. Thus, the shipbuild action is performed by spending wood resources. This will be explained in detail later.

• This circle icon is depicting the resource type of the cubes placed in this area.
• These cubes placed in this area are showing how many woods you have.
• This square icon is depicting the action that can be done in this area.

It is important to note that usually, the section that was activated in the "2. Production Phase" will be different to the section activated for its action in "3. Action Phase". In order to carry out your actions efficiently, you will need to plan carefully over several turns.

Action

A. Move

When you perform a move action, you can move your corbita tokens on the main board towards any of the destinations along the connected route.

First, declare the number of steps to be moved. Then, pay as many permits as required corresponding to the number of steps.

To move 1/2/3/4/5/6 steps, you must pay 0/2/4/6/10/15 permits respectively as shown in the move action section. You cannot move more than 6 steps with 1 move action.

After paying for the permit, take the corresponding number of steps to complete the movement.

Movement Rules

• Each corbita token on the main board moves along the connected white line, starting from the starting point to any one of the destination tiles. Corbita tokens cannot go backwards toward the starting point.
• It costs one step each to move along the white line to the next initial trading port tile, trading port tile, transit tile, or destination tile.
• If you have two or more of your corbita tokens on the main board (see below for how to increase the number of ship tokens), you may divide the movement you take between them (for example, you can use 6 steps to move 3 of your corbita tokens by 2 steps each).
• As there is no token limit in any initial trading port tile, trading port tile, transit tile, or destination tile, you may stop at or pass through tiles occupied by other corbita tokens.

Tile Actions & Effects during movement

• For each white line passed during a move, if one or more discovery tiles remain in the corresponding space, choose and take one of them. If the tile shows an instant benefit, you immediately gain that benefit. If it's a wild animal icon or the exotic animal icons you keep it for the final score calculation.
• If the move causes your corbita token to stop on a new transit tile, you receive the benefit shown there at the end of your action. But, merely passing through a transit tile does not earn you any benefit.
• When your corbita token reaches a new destination tile, place it on the top half of the tile if there are no other corbita token on that tile yet. Otherwise, place it on the bottom half of the tile. If the tile on which you placed the corbita token shows the end-of-game benefit, you receive the victory point at the end of the game. If the tile shows an instant benefit, you immediately gain that benefit.
• Initial trading port tiles and trading port tiles does not provide any particular effect or benefit during movement.

Route Restrictions

• Each of your corbita tokens must always go to a different destination tile. For example, if your first corbita token chooses a route that goes to Armenia, your second and subsequent corbita tokens are restricted to choose a route that does not go to Armenia.
• Note that the route to the right of the starting point eventually splits in two. This route may contain up to two corbita tokens of the same player, but each of them must take a different direction when the route splits.

B. Shipbuild

When you perform a shipbuild action, you can strengthen your fleet by building new corbita and ponta ships.

You can build new ships starting from the bottom most available ship on the shipbuilding track by paying the amount of wood indicated on the corresponding space where the ship token is. You may build multiple ship tokens in one action, as long as you have enough wood.

Additionally, if you build a ship token that has a reward icon in the corresponding tier of the shipbuilding track, you immediately gain rewards as much as the indicated icons.

If there are no more ship tokens left on your shipbuilding track, you are no longer able to build any more ships.

The shipbuild action itself is different based on the type of ship tokens you are building.

(1) Corbita

Take a corbita token from the bottom of the shipbuilding track and pay the corresponding wood costs. Then, immediately place it in any sea area on your Ostia Port board. From now on, this corbita token is treated the same as the 9 corbita tokens you placed during setup.

(2) Ponta

Take a ponta token from the bottom of the shipbuilding track and pay the corresponding wood costs. Then, immediately use it to replace a corbita in any sea area on your Ostia Port board. The corbita token removed from the sea area is placed on the main board at the starting point.

However, this sequence of actions can only be performed if none of your corbita tokens are in the coastal area (the area to the left of the white dotted line) on the main board. If you have a corbita token in the coastal area and the bottom most ship token in your shipbuilding track is a ponta token, you cannot perform the shipbuild action.

C. Order

The order action allows you to supply food to the citizens and nobles, earning victory points and resources.

When you do this order action, take the steps below.

1. Choose a card from the Order Row near the main board, and pay the amount of wheat indicated in the upper left corner. Depending on the card, additional resources other than wheat may be shown in the upper left corner. You may or may not pay for those additional resources.
2. Take the order card and place it in your hand.
3. From the common supply, take as many darker color amphora tokens as shown in the upper right corner of the order card and place them on the amphora token space on your Ostia Port board. If you paid for the additional resources, you also get the additional amphora tokens shown in lighter color in the upper right corner.
4. You immediately gain as many resources as indicated in the center of that order card.

As long as you have enough wheat, you may repeat (1) through (4) as many times as you like in one action. However, the Order Row is not immediately replenished, so the maximum number of order cards you can get in one action are four.

At the end of the action, replenish the Order Row by drawing order card(s) from the deck until there are four face up cards in there.

The nobleman icon and the noblewoman icon in the bottom of the acquired order cards are used for the final score calculation.

D. Build

When you perform a build action, you can establish a base for yourself in the initial trading port tile or trading port tile on the main board and place building tokens on the Ostia Port board.

You can remove construction discs starting from the bottom most available disc on the construction track by paying the amount of stone indicated on the corresponding space where the construction disc is. You can remove multiple construction discs in one action, as long as you have enough stone. Additionally, if you remove a construction disc with a reward icon in the corresponding tier of the construction track, you will immediately gain rewards as much as the indicated icons.

If there are no more construction discs left on your construction track, you are no longer able to perform any more build actions.

Each removed construction disc is placed on top of any initial trading port tile or any trading port tile in the main board. However, for each tile, both of the following two conditions must be met:

• It doesn't have a Construction disc of the same color placed in there.
• One or more of your corbita tokens are placed on, or has already passed through, the trading port.

If there are no initial trading port tiles or trading port tiles on the main board that meets the requirements, no build action can be performed.

With that said, any player who arrives at Palmyra is considered to have also passed through Damascus.

If the tile on which you placed the construction disc shows an instant benefit, you will immediately gain the indicated benefits. If there is a trade action icon or an end-of-game icon, you will get those effects at the respective time.

Each time you place a construction disc, take one building token from the building space corresponding to that tile and place it on any empty building spot on your Ostia Port board. This will enhance the functionality of your Ostia Port board, such as allowing you to produce more resources, perform actions more efficiently, and gain instant benefits.

Information about the effects of each building type can be found on page 13.

E. Trade

When performing a trade action, you can obtain resources by using the trading port which already has one of your constructed buildings on.

On the main board, check the initial trading port tiles and the trading port tiles which have trade action effects and construction discs on top of those tiles.

Each of these effects can be activated as many times as desired, (though some effects have a limited number of activations in one action).

Each trade action requires gold to activate.

F. Administration

There is no corresponding resource for the administration action. Instead, it can be used to efficiently perform the other actions described so far.

When executing an Administration action, the following two steps must be carried out in an orderly manner.

1. Optional Action Step

You may choose any one of the following actions: A. move action, B. shipbuild action, C. order action, D. build action, then execute it according to the normal rules.

E. Trade action cannot be executed in this step.

2. Administration Action Step

Take all of the ship tokens from the sea area in the section corresponding to the administration action.

Place these tokens one by one on the sea area in each section the same way as at the beginning of the "3. Action Phase", starting from the section adjacent (in a clockwise direction) to the original section until all ship tokens have been placed.

Once placed, the action corresponding to the section where the last ship was placed can be executed according to the normal rules.

If the last ship was placed in the sea area of the section corresponding to the administration action again, then another administration action may be taken.

Free Action

You may pay 3 gold to the common supply to acquire 1 resource of your choice, other than gold. This can be done as many times as you wish during the Action Phase of your turn.

End Game

The end game is triggered when one or more of the following conditions are met:

• Any player's reward cube reaches the 12th square of the reward track.
• 3 or more corbita tokens from any one player reaches the destination tile.
• All corbita and ponta tokens are removed from any player's shipbuilding track.
• All construction discs have been removed from any player's construction track.
• All amphora tokens are taken from the common supply.

When any of those conditions have been met, the game continues until the player to the right of the first player completes their turn. Then the game ends. If the player to the right of the first player was the one who triggered the end game condition, the game ends at the end of that turn.

Note:

• If you want your fourth corbita token to reach the destination tile, you must do so in the same turn when your third corbita token reaches a destination tile.
• If you run out of amphora tokens in the common supply and need to get more amphora tokens, use the extra amphora tokens that you put back in the box during setup. If you also run out of these, use a suitable substitute.

Final Score Calculation

After the game ends, you and other players need to check how many buildings, ships, amphora tokens, wild animals, exotic animals, noblemen and noblewomen they have.

• Building Icons/Ship Icons... Count the icons that were revealed on your construction/shipbuilding track. If you have placed a construction disc on a trading port tile that has an end-of-game effect icon, that icon is also counted.

  Note: The shipbuilding track has corbita icons and ponta icons, but these are not differentiated and are counted as one ship icon each.

• Amphora tokens... Count the number of tokens on your Amphora token space.

• Wild Animal icons/Exotic Animal icons... In addition to those shown on the discovery tiles you own, if you have placed a construction disc on a trading port tile with an end-of-game effect icon, that icon is also counted.

• Nobleman Icon/Noblewoman Icon... Count the total number of icons shown at the bottom of your completed order cards.

Each player then earns victory points from each of the following:

1. Building icons, ship icons, and amphora tokens

Refer to the position of your reward cube on the reward track and score victory points from your building icons, ship icons and amphora tokens (see page 4).

2. Destination tiles

You gain victory points from the end-of-game effect in the destination tiles on the main board where your corbita tokens has reached. Destination tiles are divided into upper and lower sides, you can only gain the effect on the side where your corbita token is placed (see page 16).

3. Trading port tiles

You gain victory points from the trading port tiles on the main board that have an end-of-game effect which your construction discs are placed (except tiles that only shows icons such as Ship icons, Amphora icons, etc.).

4. Set of icons

A set is counted for each 4 different icons: one wild animal icon, one exotic animal icon, one nobleman icon, and one noblewoman icon. For each set you have, you gain 8 victory points.

The player with the most total victory points wins the game! In the event of a tie, these players share the victory.

Reference

Icon Types

• Permit
• Wood
• Wheat
• Stone
• Gold
• Reward
• Move Action
• Shipbuild Action
• Orders Action
• Build Action
• Trade Action
• Administrative Action
• Building Icon
• Ship Icon (Corbita, Ponta)
• Amphora Token
• Wild Animal Icon
• Exotic Animal Icon
• Nobleman Icon
• Noblewoman Icon
• instant benefit
• Effect during trade action
• Effect at the end of the game
• can be done as many times as you want during your turn
• Gain

Other symbols:

• Arrow symbols: Pay for what's on the left/top, gain what's on the right/bottom accordingly.
• "x VP": For each icon (or pair of icons) shown on the top half, you get as many victory points as shown on the bottom half.
• Ship-in-distant-sea symbol: The number of your corbita tokens in the distant sea area on the main board (the area to the right of the white dotted line).

Building Spots' Effects

• This spot is an enhancement for Free Action. Going forward, every time you do Free Action, you can pay 2 gold to the common supply to acquire 1 resource of your choice, other than gold. This can be done as many times as you wish during the Action Phase of your turn.
• Immediately gain 1 reward.
• If you gain 1 or more permits or woods during the Production Phase, gain 1 additional matching resource.
• Initial Building Spot — This is the spot to place the building token that you will get during setup. This spot has no effect.
• When performing a build action, pay 1 less stone for each action (not each building).
• If you gain 1 or more wheats or stones during the Production Phase, gain 1 additional matching resource.
• When performing a shipbuild action, pay 1 less wood for each action (not each ship).
• When performing an orders action, pay 1 less wheat for each action (not each order card).

Tiles

Initial Trading Ports

Activation Timing	Effects
When performing trade action	Trade 1 gold to 1 stone (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 1 gold to 1 wheat (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 1 gold to 1 wood (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 1 gold to 1 permit (max 4 times)

Trading Ports

Activation Timing	Effects
Final Score Calculation	Count as 2 building icons
Final Score Calculation	Gain 2 additional victory points for each building icon
Final Score Calculation	Count as 2 ship icons
Final Score Calculation	Gain 2 additional victory points for each ship icon
Final Score Calculation	Count as 2 amphora tokens
Final Score Calculation	Gain 2 additional victory points for each amphora token
Final Score Calculation	Count as 1 wild animal icon and 1 exotic animal icon
Final Score Calculation	Gain 4 additional victory points for each set of icons
Final Score Calculation	Gain 5 victory points for each of your ships that already passed through the coastal area
Immediately	Gain 2 rewards
When performing trade action	Trade 2 gold to 3 woods (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 2 gold to 3 wheats (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 2 gold to 3 permits (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 2 gold to 3 stone (max 4 times)
When performing trade action	Trade 4 gold to 1 amphora token
When performing trade action	Trade 4 gold to 1 reward

Transits

Effects
Gain 2 gold when you stopped at this tile
Gain 2 stones when you stopped at this tile
Gain 2 wheats when you stopped at this tile
Gain 2 woods when you stopped at this tile

Discoveries

Total	Icons	Gain
6	Exotic Animal	2 gold
6	Wild Animal	2 gold
4	Wild and Exotic Animals	2 gold
4	-	1 reward

Destinations

Activation Timing	First	Others
Immediately	Gain 3 rewards	Gain 2 rewards
Final Score Calculation	Gain 3 additional victory points for each ship icon	Gain 2 additional victory points for each ship icon
Final Score Calculation	Gain 3 additional victory points for each amphora token	Gain 2 additional victory points for each amphora token
Final Score Calculation	Gain 3 additional victory points for each building icon	Gain 2 additional victory points for each building icon

Credits

• Game Design: TOTSUCA CHUO
• Box Illustration: URABE ROCINANTE
• Rule Writing: NUN
• Proofread: GRAM
• Translation: Partrick
• Worldview Setting: PUGA
• Game Development & Planning: TARO MATUYAMA

Published by uchibacoya Higashi-machi 1-29, Kurume-city, Fukuoka, Japan