The City
The City Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Deck
110 cards, representing developments that can be built. Developments' costs, attributes, incomes, and victory points vary.
A sample card shows: cost in the upper left corner, name in the upper right, attributes below the cost, income (each turn), and victory points (each turn). The sample card, "Cineplex," has cost 4, a car attribute, a shopping cart attribute, income of 2 (each turn), and victory points of 1 (each turn).
Income consists of card draws. Each card can be used in two ways: it can either be built as a development face up in front of a player or it can be discarded face down, spent as one wealth towards building another development.
Some developments, such as Schools, require that other cards, such as Housing Tracts, be present in your tableau before you can build them.
Unless a card, such as Mall, states "Limit: 1 per player", a player can have several of a given development in their tableau. Note that cards, such as Townhouse Row, which provide a discount do not increase this discount if several copies of that card are in a player's tableau.
Construction Gang. A player who builds a Construction Gang may, each round, place face down and build two developments of cost 4 or less (before any discounts) sequentially (including on the round in which the Construction Gang itself is built). The first development built can affect the placement or cost of the second development. A General Contractor cannot be placed as one of two developments.
Surveying. A player who does not build instead announces this, draws five cards from the deck, adds them to his or her hand, and then discards four cards (gaining one card). A player with a Construction Gang who surveys cannot build any developments that round. A player who surveys still scores victory points and collects income normally.
Setup
Pen and paper will be needed to keep score.
Set out as many General Contractor cards face up as there are players, removing the rest. Choose a dealer. Shuffle the deck. Deal seven cards face down to each player. The remaining cards form the draw pile.
Each player picks up their hand of cards and examines them, selecting five cards to keep and discarding two cards face down (forming the discard pile). Begin play.
Play
Play consists of 7-9 rounds, each consisting of two parts:
First, each player simultaneously chooses a development from their cards, or a face up General Contractor, to build and places it face down in front of them. Once all players have done so, players reveal and add their new development to their tableau of face up cards in front of them, discarding cards face down equal to their cost.
Keep the face down discard pile a bit "messy", so that it is not confused with the draw pile.
A player who can't or doesn't wish to build immediately surveys for developments to build in future rounds (see above).
Second, players score and then draw income for cards in their tableaus. If any player has 50 or more points, the game ends. If not, players discard down to 12 cards in hand.
Building a Development
Each development has a cost displayed in the upper left corner, ranging from 0-11. To pay for a development, discard cards face down from your hand equal to this number.
Some developments, such as a Townhouse Row, provide a discount towards building certain developments. Discard fewer cards from your hand as indicated when paying for a development. All discounts are cumulative. A development's cost may not be reduced below 0.
Scoring Victory Points
A development lists how many victory points it scores each round next to the victory points symbol. Add a player's victory points to their previous total and record it.
Some developments, such as Freeway Interchange, score a variable number of victory points depending on the number of developments in your tableau that list an attribute (car, shopping cart, or fountain) below its cost. If an attribute is listed more than once, such as on Amusement Park, count it the number of times it is listed.
If a development, such as Central Park, scores variable points for an attribute that it itself has, then count the attributes on that card as well when determining its score.
Some developments, such as Luxury Homes, score extra victory points for every other one of them in your tableau.
Some developments, such as Subway System, score victory points for each specified symbol in two player's tableaus; yours, plus one other player's tableau (of your choice).
Receiving Income
Each development lists its income next to the money symbol. Total each player's income and draw cards equal to this number (start with the player with the highest VP total if the deck is close to running out). Reshuffle the discard pile to form a new deck when the deck is exhausted.
Some developments, such as Malls, produce a variable income depending on specific cards in play or the number of developments in your tableau that list an attribute (car, shopping cart, or fountain) below its cost, determined in the same manner as variable victory points are scored (see above).
Ending the Game / New Round
If any player has 50 or more points, then the game is over.
(very rare) If not enough cards exist to provide every player's income (after shuffling the discard pile when the deck is exhausted), then the game is over and no player receives any income.
The player with the highest score wins. If several players are tied for highest score, the player among them with the most cards in hand (before discarding) is the winner. If players are still tied, all tied players share equally in the win.
Otherwise, players with more than 12 cards in hand must discard down to 12 cards. Begin another round of play.
Etiquette
Players may not show, trade, nor give away their cards in hand.
Players must reveal how many cards they hold when asked.
Credits
Playtesting and Advice: William Attia, Jim Boyce, Sunshine Buchler, David desJardins, Kirsten Haupt, Dave Helmbold, Jay Heyman, Brian Howard, Wei-Hwa Huang, Chris Lopez, Charles Patrick, Mary and Ravindra Prasad, Larry Rosenberg, Ron Sapolsky, Steve Thomas, Daniel Tregear, Markus Welbourne, and Don Woods.
Game Design and Rules: Tom Lehmann
Original Graphics: Wei-Hwa Huang
Rules © 2004, 2005, 2010 Tom Lehmann