Palermo
Palermo Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Equipment
- Game board
- 40 city tiles
- 5 pawns
- 5 police stones
- 5 scoring markers
- 5 turn-movement cards
- 55 chips in 5 colors
Preparation
Assemble the game board in the middle of the table. Distribute the city tiles around the table.
Each player chooses a color and receives a pawn, a police stone, a scoring marker, a turn-movement card and chips in that color.
- With 3 players, each receives 11 chips.
- With 4 players, each receives 8 chips.
- With 5 players, each receives 7 chips.
Unused chips are put aside, out of the game.
Play
The game is played in two phases:
- Building the city
- Collecting income
Phase 1: Building the city
In this phase, the players build "their town," but each player, being head of a Sicilian family, would naturally like to place his businesses as close together as possible.
The youngest player begins. He places the Start/Finish tile (depicting four automobiles) on any space on the board he wishes. Then he chooses a house tile and lays it on the board. There is a white circle above the doorway on each house tile, representing a business. To show that this is "his" business, the player puts a chip of his color on the white circle.
Then, in clockwise order, all players take turns laying house tiles in accordance with the rules and marking the businesses with chips. It is always each player's choice which type of house tile to lay on the board, whether it has one, two or three roof sections.
Rules for laying of tiles
- A new house must be placed so that it joins an already laid house and becomes part of an intact building. (See figure 6 on page 5 of the German rules.) Diagonal joining of roofs is not permitted.
- If rule 1 cannot be fulfilled (for example, if no free spaces are available to join roofs together), then the player may lay the tile on any free space on the board.
- Each house entrance (i.e. each chip) must be accessible from the street spaces. Entrances cannot be sealed off by placement of roofs.
Once the players have placed all their chips, remaining empty spaces on the board are filled with street tiles.
- With 3 players, 2 empty spaces are filled.
- With 4 players, 3 empty spaces are filled.
- With 5 players, there will be no empty spaces.
Phase 2: Collecting income
Place the scoring markers on the Start space of the scoring track. All pawns will begin on the Start/Finish tile. Each player, as he takes his turn, may choose which space to begin on.
Players consult their turn-movement cards at the start of each turn.
To begin, each player has 3 points to use, meaning he can move his pawn up to 3 spaces. As soon as his pawn visits one of his businesses and collects income from it, he gains one point. So, after visiting one business he will have 4 points, after two businesses, he will have 5 points, and so on.
For an overall view of how points are tallied, chips from businesses visited are placed on the turn-movement card. After a player arrives at one of his doorways, its chip is removed from the board and placed on the next free space of his turn-movement card.
The new, higher number of points is valid immediately, starting with the player's next turn.
Rules for movement
- For each point a player moves one street space horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. A pawn must use all movement points unless it stops at one of its businesses.
- A player may move over occupied spaces whether they contain pawns or police stones, but only one pawn may occupy a space. If a player's pawn would end its move on another pawn, it must remain back one space if it cannot move in another direction. When a police stone occupies the space, however, a pawn may land on it.
- There are special rules for movement on the bypass streets (around the perimeter of the buildings). They can serve as fast connections from one corner to another, as follows:
- a. You can move from space to space, one at a time, on the bypass streets.
- b. Or, you can go from any space on a bypass street in one move (and using only one point) to a neighboring corner.
- c. From a corner on a bypass street, you can move along the spaces one at a time.
- d. Or, you can jump in one move to the next corner.
Taking income
When a player's pawn arrives at the doorway of one of his businesses, it may stop there so he can take its chip and receive income.
The amount received is the same as the number of unused points the player has left on that turn. The leftover points are scored by moving his scoring marker along the scoring track.
Note: If a player's marker goes all the way around the scoring track, turn it over to the side showing a 1, indicating it has gone around once.
If a player uses all his points on a turn to arrive at one of his businesses, he still takes its chip and puts it on his turn-movement card, but receives no income for it. His turn-movement points still increase by one.
Police stones
Each player has one police stone in his color, which only he can move. With this he can get in the way of other player's pawns. If an opponent moves his pawn over a police stone not in his color, he loses one movement point.
He must do this for each police stone of a different color he moves over.
If he stops on a police stone, he will pay twice: Once on this turn and once at the start of his next turn.
He can pass or land on his own police stone without penalty.
If a player's pawn ends its move on the same space as a police stone of a different color, the police stone is blocked and cannot move on its owner's next turn.
Note: To land by exact count on another player's police stone, a player's pawn must land there on its next-to-last movement point; his last movement point is paid as the usual penalty. If his last movement point would land him exactly on the police stone, he must remain back one space.
Rules for placement of police stones
- A player can move his police stone on each turn or let it stay put.
- A player must move his police stone before moving his pawn. If he forgets, the police stone stays put.
- A police stone can be placed on any street space, as long as no other pawns or police stones are already there.
- If a pawn rests on top of a police stone, the police stone may not move.
- Two police stones may not occupy neighboring spaces, but they can be placed together diagonally.
Ending the game
The game ends when all players have collected all their chips and returned to the Start/Finish tile.
If a player reaches the Start/Finish tile with movement points left over, his scoring marker advances that many spaces.
A player that has returned to the Start/Finish tile may still move his police stone on his turn.
For each round that a player waits for his opponents to return to the Start/Finish tile, he scores bonus points:
- With 3 players, score 5 points.
- With 4 players, score 4 points.
- With 5 players, score 3 points.
Once the last player reaches the Start/Finish tile, the game is over. The player with the highest score wins.