Tang Garden: Golden Age Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Decoration Cards
• Special Garden Tiles
• Lantern Tokens
• Scenarios
  • 一 Scenario: Tang Court
  • 二 Scenario: Spring Festival
  • 三 Scenario: Pear Garden
  • 四 Scenario: Longji and Yuhuan
  • 五 Scenario: Renovation
  • 六 Scenario: Chang'An
  • Craft Scenario
• Characters

Components

• 1 Game Rulebook
• 16 Garden Tiles
• 15 Decoration Cards
• 10 Decorations
• 8 Character Cards
• 8 Character Miniatures
• 1 Scenario Die
• 3 Large Landscape Tiles
• 3 Small Landscape Tiles
• 8 Lantern Tokens

Decoration Cards

Butterfly: Refresh an exhausted lantern (0 coins).

Duck: Advance forward twice on your player board. Once as specified and once following your preference (0 coins).

Bonsai Tree: Gain 7 coins, lose 1 coin for each Bonsai Tree, Ninfea and Sancai Vase played by any player.

Ninfea: Gain 7 coins, lose 1 coin for each Bonsai Tree, Ninfea and Sancai Vase played by any player.

Sancai Vase: Gain 7 coins, lose 1 coin for each Bonsai Tree, Ninfea and Sancai Vase played by any player.

Example: Viola has 2 Ninfeas and 1 Sancai Vase in front of her, Michele has 1 Bonsai Tree in front of him and Katia has 1 Sancai Vase. At the end of the game, each Bonsai Tree, Ninfea and Sancai Vase gives 2 coins (7 coins minus 1 coin for each Bonsai Tree, Ninfea and Sancai Vase in the game).

Special Garden Tiles

Bamboo Garden: The edge does not need to match to the edges of adjacent tiles when placed. Additionally, all edges of the Bamboo Garden enclose terrains. When placed gain one coin + one coin for each adjacent terrain, regardless of their type.

Lantern Tokens

In Golden Age there are two additional types of Lantern tokens:

• Draw 5 Garden tiles either from a pile with face-up tiles, or face-down tiles and place one in the garden returning the other 4 back to the pile in the preferred order.
• Exchange your active Character with one in the display.

Scenarios

• Roll the die to select a random scenario to play.
• The following scenarios have been tested, but the rules can be mixed and matched. To create your own set-up follow the instructions and advice in the Craft Scenario section.
• Whichever scenario you choose, you can always add 3 small and 3 big Landscape tiles from Golden Age extension.

一 Scenario: Tang Court

• Tiles: Draw 15 tiles per type among all of the available, discard the other tiles without looking at them.
• Decorations: Add Butterfly and Duck.
• Characters: Add Nobleman, Princess, Emissary and Literate.
• Landscapes: Follow the base game rules.
• Lanterns: Each player secretly chooses which 4 lanterns to use among the 6 available. Then everyone reveals them by placing them on their playerboard.

二 Scenario: Spring Festival

• Tiles: Draw 15 tiles per type among all of the available, discard the other tiles without looking at them.
• Decorations: Remove Peonies and Lotus from the game, and add Butterfly, Duck, Sancai Vase, Bonsai and Ninfea.
• Characters: Remove Empress, Student and Merchant from the game, and add Nobleman, Princess, Emissary, Literate, Musician, Tao Priest, Geomancer and Gardener.
• Landscapes: Randomly place the tokens in their original spots disregarding their type (big or small).
• Lanterns: Use all 4 base game lanterns.
• Special Rules: All characters gain 1 coin for each Village icon in their active Landscape. More than one Lantern can be used per turn (except repeated Lanterns).

三 Scenario: Pear Garden

• Tiles: Draw 15 tiles per type among all of the available, put the remaining 16 tiles in a common pile, shuffle them and remove 1 from the game. Place the pile aside and draw three tiles from it placing them face-up: these tiles will be the market.
• Decorations: Add all of the Golden Age decorations to the base ones.
• Characters: Add all of the Golden Age characters to the base ones. Show 4 characters in the display.
• Landscapes: Place 8 big and 4 small Landscape tokens on the board following the scheme in the image (*).
• Lanterns: Use all 4 base game lanterns.
• Special Rules: Buy a specific tile from the market, paying 1 coin if there are 3 tiles, 0 coins if there are 2 tiles remaining, and immediately refill the market tiles when there is only 1 tile remaining. If there are no tiles remaining in the pile next to the market, refilling is not an option any more. Remove the last tile in the market from the game.

四 Scenario: Longji and Yuhuan

• Tiles: Draw 15 tiles per type among all of the available, discard the other tiles without looking at them.
• Decorations: Remove Fish and Bird from the game, and add Butterfly, Duck, Sancai Vase, Bonsai and Ninfea.
• Characters: Remove Child, Poet and Officer from the game, and add Nobleman, Princess, Emissary, Literate, Musician, Tao Priest, Geomancer and Gardener.
• Landscapes: Follow the graphic reference (*).
• Lanterns: Use only the following 2 lanterns (the lantern icons are shown as images in the source, not named in its text).
• Special Rules: All Characters gain 1 coin for each animal icon on the active Landscape. Emperor and Lady each earn 3 coins if they face each other.

五 Scenario: Renovation

• Tiles: Randomly choose 8 Tao tiles (the garden tiles with the yin yang symbol on the back) with a wall and place them in a new configuration like in the image (*), the walls must always face towards the centre of the board. Follow the image to place the tokens correctly. Remove the central tile from the game. Use all of the remaining Tao tiles, and keep 15 tiles of the other types.
• Decorations: Use all decorations from the base game and Golden Age extension.
• Characters: Use all characters from the base game and Golden Age extension. Remove the Emperor and the Lady before dealing the cards. Deal two characters to every player at the beginning of the game, players will choose 1 of the two and remove the other one from the game. No starting level bonus is awarded, even if the icon is present. Mix all of the other characters and make them available, face-up, at the beginning of the game.
• Landscapes: Follow the base game rules.
• Lanterns: Use only the following 2 lanterns (the lantern icons are shown as images in the source, not named in its text).
• Special Rules: All the Characters are placed in the garden at the end of the game, starting from the first player and following clockwise. Always use the Character skill of the last chosen Character.

六 Scenario: Chang'An

• Tiles: Draw 15 tiles per type among all of the available, discard the other tiles without looking at them.
• Decorations: Add Sancai Vase, Bonsai, Ninfea.
• Characters: Add Tao Priest, Geomancer, Gardener, Musician. Reveal 3 characters in the display, in order to have more choice when influencing a new character.
• Landscapes: Follow the base game rules.
• Lanterns: Use the following 4 lanterns (the lantern icons are shown as images in the source, not named in its text).
• Special Rules: All characters gain 1 coin for each Village icon in their active Landscape. More than one Lantern can be used per turn except already used Lanterns.

Craft Scenario

• Tiles: Always use between 14 and 17 tiles per type, according to the desired game length.

• Decorations: Pavilions, Bridges and Trees must always be kept. The following sets must be added or removed together, and can never be separated:

  • Sancai Vase, Bonsai and Ninfea + Tao Priest
  • Peonies and Lotus + Empress, Emperor and Lady
  • Birds and Fish + Child

  Duck and Butterfly can be added or removed freely.

• Characters: Always keep the following Characters in the game: Sword Dancer, Monk, Emperor, Lady and Architect. Always keep a Merchant or Emissary, and a Child or Literate. Keep the total number of Characters to around 16 if possible.

• Lanterns: Make sure to play with all four Lanterns if you want to play with the Butterfly; if you want to play with all of the characters, make sure to include the "search for a character or landscape" lantern in the game. The Geomancer and the Officer give a good control on the tiles, you can avoid using the "5 tiles choice" lantern if you have both of them in the game.

• Landscape Tiles: You can always play with all of the Landscape tiles.

• Landscape Tokens: Always play with all 8 small and 8 big tokens on the map. Be aware that these tokens, together with the Garden tiles, control the length of the game and how far you can go with the three levels on your personal board. If you want to create your own configuration, try to keep equal distance between Landscape tokens and make sure that they are not too distant from the center of the board, especially in a 2-player game.

(*) Image reference on the next page.

Scenario layout diagrams (images in the source, captions transcribed): Pear Garden 2 players; Pear Garden 3/4 players; Longji and Yuhuan 2 players; Longji and Yuhuan 3/4 players; Renovation 2 players; Renovation 3/4 players. Diagram legend: big landscapes, small landscapes, tao tiles.

Characters

The character cards also show small x3 / x5 (Emissary) and x3 / x4 (Literate) icons next to the name. Their meaning is not explained in the source text, so they are not transcribed.

Emissary

• Character Skill: Use different Landscape tokens to refresh an exhausted Lantern.
• Sight Preference: Gain three coins for each side of the board with at least one Village icon on the active Landscape.

Gardener

• Character Skill: Gain one coin each time the player places a Tree decoration.
• Sight Preference: Gain two coins (maximum ten coins) for each Decoration in the Gardener's line of sight.

Geomancer

• Character Skill: During your turn, you may draw the first two cards from the Decorations deck or the first two Garden tiles from a hidden pile. You can decide to use one of the two Decorations or one of the two Garden tiles instead of the normal main action. Return the unused Decoration cards or Garden tiles to the top of their respective deck.
• Sight Preference: Gain 2/5/8 coins for 1/2/3 different terrain types in the Geomancer's line of sight.

Literate

• Character Skill: Gain one coin each time you place a different Decoration from the ones you already collected.
• Sight Preference: Gain three coins for each side of the board with at least one Animal icon on the active Landscape.

Musician

• Character Skill: Each time you match two footpath sides you gain both two coins and one track advancement of your choice on the player board.
• Sight Preference: Gain three coins for each Character in the Musician's line of sight.

Nobleman

• Character Skill: Gain two coins each time the player places a Garden tile with a wall.
• Sight Preference: Gain two coins for each different icon on the active Landscape.

Tao Priest

• Character Skill: Gain three coins each time the player places a Bonsai Tree, a Ninfea or a Sancai Vase on the garden board.
• Sight Preference: Gain twelve coins, and lose one coin for each different icon on the active Landscape.

Princess

• Character Skill: Gain two coins each time the player places a Landscape tile with two icons.
• Sight Preference: Gain four coins for each pair of identical icons on the active Landscape.