Pay Dirt Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Objective
• Sequence of Play
• 1) Auction
• 2) Work
• 3) Events
• 4) Income
• End of Game

Components

• 4 Player Boards
• 1 Game Board with a thermometer
• 18 Equipment tiles (6 Excavators, 6 Loaders, and 6 Wash Plants)
• 18 Specialist tiles
• 18 Claim tiles (12 regular and 6 layered)
• 4 starting Claim tiles
• 14 Upgrade tiles
• 44 Ore tiles (20 poor — worth 2, 3, or 4 nuggets; 12 medium — worth 3, 4, or 5 nuggets; 12 rich — worth 4, 5, or 6 nuggets)
• 50 Money tokens (30 worth $1,000 and 20 worth $3,000)
• 48 Wear markers
• 25 Gold Nuggets
• 30 Gold Bars (each counts as 5 nuggets)
• 40 Worker pieces (10 of each of 4 colors)
• 1 First Player marker
• 1 Auction marker (used to mark tile types that are unavailable)
• 1 Temperature marker
• 30 Event cards
• This rulebook

Setup

Place the game board in the center of the table and set the temperature marker to +15°C.

Shuffle the ore tiles and arrange them in stacks next to the board, by type, face down (if a stack runs out during the game, form a new stack from the ore tiles in the discard pile).

Shuffle the equipment, specialist, and claim tiles, form them into separate stacks, and place them on the corresponding spaces of the game board, face down. All of them are used in the auctions.

Shuffle the upgrade tiles and place their stack on the corresponding space of the game board, face down. Reveal 5 tiles and lay them out in a row to the right of the game board.

Shuffle the event cards and place them in a separate stack next to the game board, face down (if the stack runs out during the game, form a new stack from the event cards in the discard pile).

Place the nuggets, bars, workers, and wear markers in separate piles next to the game board (all of them, except the workers, are considered unlimited — if there are not enough of them during the game, substitute something else for them).

Each player takes a player board, 5 workers of their color, a starting claim tile with 3 poor ore tiles on it, and $9,000.

Determine the first player.

Objective

Players aim to mine the greatest amount of gold. To capture the uncertainty of extracting gold from ore, players may not look at the face of an ore tile until it has been fully processed. If a tile is accidentally turned face up ahead of time, it should be replaced.

Sequence of Play

The game consists of rounds, each of which has 4 phases: Auction, Work, Events, and Income. If the temperature reaches 0°C or lower, the following round becomes the last round of the game.

1) Auction

Bidding. The first player chooses one of the face-up tiles available for auction on the table (equipment, specialist, or claim tiles) and offers a sum for it no less than the amount shown on the tile. Other players, in clockwise order, may offer a higher amount or pass. Once a player passes, they may no longer bid on that tile. Players may not offer a sum greater than the cash they have on hand. The player who offers the highest amount buys the tile and marks the stack of that type with the auction marker — that type may not be chosen for the next auction.

Continuing. The player to the left of the first player (or the first player themselves), who has not yet won an auction this round, chooses the next tile and starts bidding on it. A player may not choose a tile of the same type that was just auctioned. A player may decline their right to start the bidding, in which case the next player starts it instead. A player who does not have enough cash even for a tile's minimum price may not start an auction for it.

Ending. Bidding continues until a number of tiles equal to the number of players has been sold, or until players no longer have enough cash to continue bidding, or all players have declined to start a new auction. It is possible that not every player buys something at auction.

Using purchases. Players place their purchased tiles in their play area:

• Claims are placed to the left of the player board, and the corresponding ore tiles are placed on them immediately (they may not be looked at). Each player may have no more than 3 claims; if a player would place a fourth claim, they must discard one of their existing claims along with the ore tiles on it.
• Specialists are placed to the right of the player board. The player adds to their supply the number of workers indicated, if the specialist grants any. A player may immediately use the ability of a specialist they have just bought.
• Equipment is placed on the corresponding space of the player board, replacing any existing equipment of the same type. The wear markers on the old equipment are discarded, and the ore tiles are placed on the most similar space or the leftmost free space (for example, ore lying on the right space is placed on the right space, ore lying on the left space is placed on the left space, ore lying in the center is placed in the center of the new equipment, and if the new equipment has no center, on the left space if it is free; it may be necessary to return an ore tile to the previous equipment or to the claim).
• If a player does not need the equipment they bought, they may scrap it for parts: the player discards the new equipment along with the wear markers already present on the equipment of the same service life on their board.

2) Work

Assigning workers. Players place their workers on the equipment they will work on or repair this round, or send them into town to sell gold or buy upgrades. Players do this simultaneously, but in case of disputes, workers are placed in clockwise order, starting with the first player.

Using workers. Starting with the first player, players carry out the intended actions with their workers, returning used workers to their supply. A worker may be returned to the supply without carrying out any action.

• A worker working on equipment moves 1 ore tile to the next space.
• A worker repairing equipment may remove up to 2 wear markers from that equipment.
• A worker in town may sell up to 2 gold nuggets for $3,000 each.
• A worker in town may buy 1 available upgrade at its listed price and place it immediately on their player board, including replacing another upgrade (its wear markers are discarded). A player may have only 1 upgrade of each of the two kinds. A purchased upgrade may be used that same round. Upgrades are always bought in turn order, starting with the first player.

Using an upgrade. Each upgrade may be used only once per round, during the Work phase. No worker is required for this, but each use adds 1 wear marker to the upgrade. A fully worn upgrade cannot be used until it is repaired.

Wear markers. When an ore tile is placed on a piece of equipment for the first time (from a claim or from the preceding equipment in the work chain), add 1 wear marker to that equipment. If the number of wear markers equals the equipment's service life (shown on the tile by hammer icons; red icons indicate that the equipment cannot be repaired once fully worn, and in that case it must be removed from the game immediately), it can no longer accept a new ore tile. However, ore tiles already on the equipment may continue to be processed, since their effect on the equipment's wear has already been accounted for.

Moving ore tiles.

• Start: A worker may load any 1 ore tile from any claim the player owns (ore must be taken from layered claims in the order shown on the tile) onto the leftmost space of the first piece of equipment.
• Processing: A worker may move 1 ore tile that is on a piece of equipment to the next space to the right. No space may hold more than one ore tile, and ore may not jump over ore sitting on the space ahead of it. If the ore moves onto the next piece of equipment, that equipment gains 1 wear marker.
• Completion: When an ore tile reaches the rightmost space of the last piece of equipment, it turns into gold — the player reveals the tile and adds the indicated number of nuggets to their supply, and the ore tile is discarded. This conversion does not require a worker.

Note: Workers drag ore from left to right. So, to take ore from a claim onto the excavator, there must be a worker on the excavator. To move ore from the excavator to the loader, a worker is needed on the loader. A worker is also needed on the wash plant to take ore from the loader. As soon as ore reaches the last space of the wash plant, it automatically turns into gold.

3) Events

Mining for gold is hard work, and if trouble can happen, it does — fate, however, favors those who are behind. The player with the least gold draws a number of event cards equal to the number of players, looks at them, applies one of them to themselves, and passes the rest to the player with the next-lowest amount of gold. This continues until every player has had an event happen to them. In case of a tie in gold, cards go first to the player furthest clockwise from the first player. In the first round, the first player always draws their event card last.

A long-term event (round arrow icon) lasts until the start of the next Events phase; the player holds the card to the right of their player board.

An instant event (lightning bolt icon) takes effect immediately and is discarded after being resolved.

Events may affect claims, equipment, or specialists.

Some specialists can cancel the effect of corresponding events, including ones still in effect from the previous round.

Move the temperature marker down by the number of degrees shown on the event card drawn by the first player.

4) Income

Each player receives $2,000 from the bank. Add equipment, specialist, and claim tiles to the auction area so that there are 3 of each type available. Replenish the upgrade tiles to 5. The first player marker passes to the next player clockwise. The next round begins.

End of Game

When the temperature drops to 0°C or lower, the last round of the game begins. There is no Events phase or Income phase in this round. After the Work phase comes a Cleanup phase, in which any players who still have ore tiles on their equipment take part. Each such player reveals their rightmost ore tile and receives the indicated number of nuggets, minus the number of spaces remaining to the right of the space that ore was on (unless completing that ore's processing would require feeding it onto fully worn-out equipment). This is done only for the single rightmost ore tile on each player's equipment; all other ore still on equipment is discarded immediately without being revealed.

The winner is the player with the greatest amount of gold. In case of a tie, the amount of money on hand is used as a tiebreaker.