Trade on the Tigris
Trade on the Tigris Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components & Setup
Government Track and Religion Track (Composed of three pieces each.) Assemble these tracks as shown, leaving enough space between the tracks to place stacks of cards.
Over 240 Development Cards Separate these into 14 stacks based on the backs of the cards. Shuffle each stack separately and place them between the Government and Religion Tracks, next to the number and category on the track which corresponds to the back of the card (as shown in the diagram). Whenever one of these is discarded, place it on the bottom of the corresponding stack.
6 Government Markers For each player, place the Government Marker that corresponds to their Player Mat onto the "Start" space of the Government Track. Return any that are left over to the box.
Whenever you are told to resolve the move-towards-Dictatorship or move-towards-Democracy icons, move your Government Marker one space towards the corresponding end of the track for each such symbol.
6 Religion Markers For each player, place the Religion Marker that corresponds to their Player Mat onto the "Start" space of the Religion Track. Return any that are left over to the box.
Whenever you are told to resolve the move-towards-Marduk or move-towards-Ashur icons, move your Religion Marker one space towards the corresponding end of the track for each such symbol.
6 Player Mats Place 1 of these in front of each player. These include information about the turn structure and cards, as well as warehouse slots where you can store Goods Cards, and an area to store tokens you acquire during the game.
Return any unused Player Mats to the box, they will not be used this game.
30 Starting Worker Development Cards Place 5 of these in front of each player, next to their Player Mat. Return any that are left over to the box. Whenever one of these is discarded, return it to the box.
6 Starting Merchant Development Cards Place 1 of these in front of each player, next to their Starting Worker Development Cards. Return any that are left over to the box. Whenever one of these is discarded, return it to the box.
Lots of Barbarian Tokens Give each player 3 to place on their Player Mat. Place the rest in a general supply pile beside the Religion Track.
How many Barbarian Tokens you have is always public knowledge, and they should be clearly displayed on your Player Mat.
Lots of Culture Tokens Give each player 3 to place on their Player Mat. Place the rest in a general supply pile beside the Government Track.
How many Culture Tokens you have is always public knowledge, and they should be clearly displayed on your Player Mat.
Lots of Point Tokens Place these in a general supply between the Culture and Barbarian Tokens. These come in several denominations; you should make change as needed during the game.
How many points you have is not public knowledge.
Note: There is not intended to be a limit to any tokens. If you run out during the course of the game, use a suitable substitute.
50 Special Trade Cards # Place these in a stack beside the Government Track. These cards are produced by certain development cards and are numbered so they are easy to find. These numbers are not necessarily sequential.
49 Imported Goods Cards There are 5 "disaster" cards with harmful effects in this stack. Separate these 5 cards out and set them aside. Shuffle the rest of the Imported Goods Cards, and place them in a stack between the Basic Goods Cards and the Special Trade Cards. During the first Civic Phase, you will shuffle the disaster cards back into the stack. If the stack ever runs out of cards, take any Imported Goods Cards from the discard pile and re-shuffle them to form a new stack.
Is this your first time playing? The 5 "disaster" cards in the Imported Goods stack represent the dangers inherent in obtaining things from far-off lands, and are something you should be cautious of if choosing to trade for Imported Goods – but there are enough uncertainties for new merchants on the Tigris. Return these 5 cards to the box if it's your first time playing.
70 Basic Goods Cards Shuffle these and place them in a face-down stack beside the Religion Track.
If this stack ever runs out of cards, take any Basic Goods Cards which have been discarded and reshuffle them to form a new stack.
Round Track Place this near the Religion Track.
Round Marker Place this on the "1" space of the Round Track.
Phases of a Turn
Development, Production, Trade, Mercantile, Civic
Basic Good Types
Barley, Clay, Fish, Flax, Goats — values: 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8
Import Good Types
Bronze, Lapis Lazuli, Silver — values: 1, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11
Spices — values: 0, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12
Deception & Disaster from Imported Goods
Lexicon
- Point token
- Barbarian token
- Culture token
- Starting Worker card
- Basic Trade card
- Import Trade card
- Import with Disaster card
- Special Trade card (i.e. #25)
- Ashur Development
- Marduk Development
- Education Development
- Justice Development
- Military Development
- Move towards Marduk
- Move towards Ashur
- Move towards Dictatorship
- Move towards Democracy
Damage — Turn card sideways. It does not produce next turn.
Barbarian Attack — Rounds 2-5, in the Civic Phase after resolving Development Card abilities, player(s) with the most (or tied for most) Barbarian Tokens suffer a Barbarian Attack.
Golden Age — After Barbarian Attacks resolve, player(s) with the most (or tied for most) Culture Tokens have a Golden Age.
Anatomy of a Trade Card
A Trade Card shows the Good, the Value, the Type of Good (Basic or Import), and a Secondary Effect.
Anatomy of a Development Card
A Development Card shows the Development Types, the Development Name, the Level, a First Effect, a Second Effect, and — for cards that produce one — the Associated Special Trade Card.
Gameplay Overview
Trade on the Tigris is played over 5 rounds. At the end of 5 rounds, the player with the most Point Tokens wins!
Each round has 5 phases, and each phase can be played simultaneously by all players. All players must complete the current phase before moving on to the next one.
Resolve the phases in the following order:
Development Phase, Production Phase, Trade Phase, Mercantile Phase, Civic Phase
- Development Phase — Draw 2 Development cards from the Government stack and 2 from the Religion card stack that correspond to your position on those tracks. Choose 1 to keep and 1 to discard of each type.
- Production Phase — Draw Goods Cards and Special Trade Cards as specified by your Development Card abilities.
- Trade Phase — Trade Cards and Tokens with other players for 5 minutes.
- Mercantile Phase — Turn in sets of Goods and Special Trade Cards to gain Point Tokens and adjust your markers on the Government and Religion Tracks.
- Civic Phase — Resolve Civic Phase abilities. If you have the most Barbarian Tokens, you will suffer a Barbarian Attack and lose points. If you have the most Culture Tokens, you will have a Golden Age and get an extra development card.
Development Phase
Draw Cards
At the start of each Development Phase, draw 2 Development Cards from the stack which corresponds to the current position of your Religion Marker on the Religion Track.
Also draw 2 Development Cards from the stack which corresponds to the current position of your Government Marker on the Government Track.
You may choose to draw cards from a lower numbered stack. If there are no more cards in the stack corresponding to your current position, you must draw from a lower numbered stack.
Extremists — Please note that if you are at either extreme end of the Religion or Government Track, you are drawing from the "I" stack, because you are considered to be an extremist rather than a strong functioning example of that particular philosophical structure.
Example: If your Religion Marker is in zone III of the Ashur side of the Religion Track, you draw 2 cards from the Ashur III stack. You may instead choose to draw your cards from either the II or I Ashur stacks or the 0 Religion stack.
If your Government Marker is in zone II of the Dictatorship side of the Government Track, you draw 2 cards from the Dictatorship II stack. You may instead choose to draw your cards from either the I Dictatorship stack or the 0 Government stack.
After drawing your 4 development cards, keep 1 religion and 1 government development card. Your other 2 drawn cards are discarded.
Then you resolve the 'Immediate' abilities from your development cards, such as from Polytheism.
Choose Cards
Secretly choose 1 religion development card and 1 government development card to keep, and 1 of each to discard.
Once all players have chosen which cards to keep, reveal which 2 cards each player is keeping simultaneously.
All discarded cards will be shuffled without revealing them and placed on the bottom of their corresponding stacks.
Resolve Cards
Announce and describe the abilities of the developments you have chosen. If you have a Development Card with an "Immediate" ability, resolve that ability now.
Timing — Generally speaking, development card abilities are resolved simultaneously. In the rare situation where abilities need to be resolved in a set order, randomly select which order players will go in to resolve their conflicting abilities.
Understanding Development Cards
Abilities
Development cards provide abilities, which are described on the cards. Some of these abilities happen only once, as soon as you acquire and reveal the card. Most abilities happen during a specific phase, as indicated in the text and by the pattern/color of box around the ability.
Timing bands on a card: Immediately (Development Phase), Production, Trade, Mercantile, Civic, End of Game.
If an ability is optional, it will state you "may" use the ability. Otherwise abilities happen whether you want them to or not.
Abilities can only happen once per phase, unless specified otherwise. If you are told to discard, damage, take, or gain more of something than is currently available, do as much as you can. Remember there is not intended to be a limit to tokens in the general supply.
Development Types
Development cards also have icons at the top representing a type; Ashur, Marduk, Education, Justice, or Military.
These icons do nothing by themselves, but some abilities may ask you to count or compare how many icons you have of a particular type to assess the strength of the ability.
Example: You have the "Scientific Community" development, which lets you draw a Basic Trade Good card every Production Phase. Also at the end of the game it gives you 1 Point Token for every Education icon on your Development cards.
At the end of the game, you also have Stone Sculptors and Seleucus of Seleucia. Scientific Community would give you 4 Point Tokens; 1 from the Education icon on Scientific Community, 1 from the icon on Stone Sculptors, and 2 from Seleucus of Seleucia because it has 2 Education icons.
- Stone Sculptors — Immediately: Discard 1 Development card. Civic: Gain 1 Point Token per Education icon you have.
- Seleucus of Seleucia — Civic: Gain 2 Point Tokens. Any player without at least 1 Education icon are not considered when determining who has a Golden Age. They cannot count as having the most Culture Tokens.
Production Phase
Resolve Production Abilities
Resolve all Development Card Production abilities now.
Most frequently they will instruct you to draw a Basic Good Card or Import Good Card.
If the Basic or Import Goods stack runs out while drawing cards, shuffle the discards of that type to form a new stack.
Some cards will list a specific numbered Special Trade Card for you to draw (#). Take the listed card from wherever it is currently and add it to your hand with your Goods Cards.
Warehouse
If you have any cards stored in your warehouse slots from a previous turn, add those cards to your hand now.
Proceed to Trade Phase
Once all players have drawn all the cards they are entitled to, proceed to the Trade Phase.
Example: All players start the game with 5 Starting Workers and 1 Starting Merchant. This allows each player to draw 5 Basic Goods and 1 Import Good in Round 1.
- Starting Worker — Immediately: Gain 1 Basic Good.
- Starting Merchant — Immediately: Gain 1 Import Good.
Trade Phase
Timer
We recommend that you use a 5 minute timer to limit the length of this phase. You could use a sand timer, egg timer, stopwatch, or cell phone to track this. It may not take your group all 5 minutes to complete this phase every time, but we still recommend setting that as a limit. However, this is optional – you do not have to use a time limit if you do not want to.
As soon as the timer begins (or as soon as you enter this Phase, if you are not using a timer), players may begin freely trading cards and Tokens.
You may trade
Basic Goods Cards, Imported Goods Cards, Special Trade Cards, Culture Tokens, Barbarian Tokens, and Point Tokens
You may NOT trade
Development Cards
Trading Etiquette
Discuss the trade you would like to perform with the other player(s).
Once two or more players have agreed, transfer the agreed upon cards and tokens between the players.
You may not show the other players your Goods Cards, they will only see them once the trade is completed.
You may trade for something, and then trade it off to another player.
You may make as many trades during the Trade Phase as you would like and are able to within the time limit.
You must tell the truth about the top portion of the Goods Cards you are trading unless a card says otherwise.
You may lie about the bottom portion of the Goods Cards you are trading.
Fair Trade
Trades do not have to be "even". For example, you could trade 2 Basic Goods cards for 3 Culture Tokens and 3 Import Goods Cards. You can even give someone something in exchange for nothing, as long as they agree to that "trade".
Example: You cannot say to an opponent that you are going to trade 2 Goats then give them 2 Barley instead.
Though you can choose to not tell the truth about the bottom part of the cards; which could have undesirable effects.
For example, you might tell an opponent that your 2 Goat cards will help advance towards Democracy, but they actually move towards Dictatorship and have Prosperity which will gain them a Barbarian token.
End of Trading
Once the time limit expires, all discussion about trades must stop. If the time limit expires in the middle of a trade, the trade can only completed if both parties are clear about what is being offered and wish to finalize the trade (for example, if both players are holding out the items to be traded to each other). The players may choose to complete such a trade or not, but they cannot alter what they are offering after the time expires.
Warehouse
After the time limit expires (or all players have made all the trades that they would like to), you may store up to 3 Goods cards face-down in the three slots below your player mat. The stored cards may be used or traded in a future round. You may not store a card with a Disaster on any part of the card.
Keep in mind that Special Trade Cards will get pulled out of your warehouse by their respective development cards, so you may store them in order to avoid playing them, but you won't have them after the production phase next round.
Proceed to Mercantile Phase
Once all players have chosen which cards they are storing or not storing, proceed to the Mercantile Phase.
Special Trade Cards — Special Trade Cards are double sided, so what they provide is always public knowledge. In fact you often want to specifically advertise their abilities!
Is this your first time playing? If this is any player's first game, you may want to say that you also cannot lie about what is on the bottom of cards you are trading.
You may choose to say nothing, but you cannot say something that is not true, unless a card you have says otherwise.
Mercantile Phase
Reveal
Reveal all Basic Goods Cards, Import Goods Cards, and Special Trade Cards which are in your hand now.
Do not reveal or resolve cards stored in your warehouse.
Resolve
Resolve what is printed on each of your cards. Then turn them in by placing them in discard piles next to their corresponding card stacks.
You must resolve everything that is printed on the cards you reveal, and you cannot choose to hold back any cards not stored in your warehouse.
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For each type of Goods that you reveal (Barley, Flax, Clay, Fish, Goats, Bronze, Silver, Lapis Lazuli, and Spices), gain Point Tokens based on how many cards of that type of Good you have. The number of Point Tokens you can gain are shown in a scale along the right side of the card. If you turn in more of one type of good than there are boxes in the scale, you only gain the top amount. Having extra goods beyond that does not gain you additional benefit.
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For each Point Token, Culture Token, or Barbarian Token icon on cards you reveal, take 1 token of that type.
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For every card with a Marduk icon, move your Religion Marker one space towards the extreme end of the Marduk side of the Religion Track. For every card with an Ashur icon, move your Religion Marker one space towards the extreme end of the Ashur side of the Religion Track.
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Similarly, for every card with a Democracy icon, move your Government Marker one space towards the extreme end of the Democracy side of the Government Track. For every card with a Dictatorship icon, move your Government Marker one space towards the extreme end of the Dictatorship side of the Government Track. If you would move past the end of a track, stop on the last space of the track.
If you gain lots of symbols for a particular track at the same time, you should combine them to determine the result, and move the number of spaces in the direction of the symbol you had more of equal to the difference between the two.
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Some cards have disasters printed on the lower part of the card, which resolve now. Follow the instructions printed on the cards.
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Special Trade Cards and Development Cards with Mercantile phase abilities also resolve during this phase, as described on the cards.
'Ignore' abilities — Some Special Trade Cards and Development Cards state that you should "Ignore" certain things, which means that the specified thing does not affect you (whether positively or negatively) this turn.
'Not for Producer' — All Special Trade Cards say "* Not for producer *" on the bottom. If you have the Development Card which produced the Special Trade Card during the Produce Phase, you can NOT use the ability printed on that particular Special Trade Card. You may reveal the card, but it has no effect.
If you received a Special Trade Card in a trade, and do not have the Development card that produced it, you can resolve its ability as normal.
Proceed to Civic Phase
After resolving all of your cards and Mercantile Phase abilities, place all the Goods Cards that were revealed this turn into face-up discard piles beside their corresponding stacks (do not discard cards stored in your warehouse). Then proceed to the Civic Phase.
Helpful Tip — First, group your cards based on their Goods type and collect your Point Tokens.
Then regroup your cards based on the information at the bottom, and move your Religion and Government Markers as appropriate.
You will save time by collecting all your points at once, and then doing all your track movements.
Example: After you reveal these 3 Barley cards you would gain 2 Point Tokens, because the 3rd box from the bottom in the scale has the number "2" in it.
If you had revealed 5 Barley cards, you would gain 6 Point Tokens, because the 5th box from the bottom has the number "6" in it.
Then you gain 1 Point Token and 1 Barbarian from Prosperity.
Also you move your religion marker 1 space towards Marduk and your government marker 1 space toward Democracy.
Example: After you reveal a set of goods cards carrying a mix of Ashur and Marduk symbols, you can combine the 5 Ashur symbols and 3 Marduk symbols, then end up moving 2 spaces towards the Ashur end of the track. (5 Ashur - 3 Marduk)
Civic Phase
Resolve
Resolve all of your Development Card with Civic phase abilities now. Often the abilities in this phase affect other players.
If this is the first round of the game, shuffle the "disaster" cards you set aside at the beginning of the game into the Imported Goods stack, advance the Round Marker 1 space on the Round Track, and begin the next round starting with the Development Phase.
If this is round 2, 3, 4, or 5, check for Barbarian attacks and Golden Ages as described below before moving on to the next round.
Barbarian Attack
After resolving Development Card abilities, count your Barbarian Tokens. If you have the most (or are tied for having the most) among all players, you suffer a Barbarian Attack and must discard Point Tokens equal to your Barbarian Tokens. Then discard Barbarian Tokens until you only have 2 left.
Golden Age
Now count your Culture Tokens. If you have the most (or are tied for having the most) amongst all players, your society is having a Golden Age this round and immediately receives a free Development Card or Point Tokens depending on what round it is:
- If you have a Golden Age in round 2: Choose ANY "I" Development Card stack, draw the top 2 cards from it, and choose 1 to keep and 1 to discard.
- If you have a Golden Age in round 3: Choose ANY "II" Development Card stack, draw the top 2 cards from it, and choose 1 to keep and 1 to discard.
- If you have a Golden Age in round 4: Choose ANY "III" Development Card stack, draw the top 2 cards from it, and choose 1 to keep and 1 to discard.
- If you have a Golden Age in round 5: Gain 7 value in Point Tokens.
Then, if your society just had a Golden Age this round, discard Culture Tokens until you only have 2 left.
Proceed to Next Round or End of Game
After the Civic Phase of round 5, the game is over and you should proceed to Final Scoring. If it is not round 5, advance the Round Marker 1 space on the Round Track and begin the next round, starting with the Development Phase.
Example: You have the "Inquisition" Development card, during the Production Phase it causes you to gain Special Trade Card #48, which provides protection from the Inquisition's Civic Phase ability. You trade that card to another player during the Trade Phase.
- Inquisition — Production: Gain #48. Civic: [reveal your Ashur icons]. Each opponent loses 1 Point Token per Ashur icon they have.
- #48 "I Expected the Inquisition!" Special Trade Card — Ignore the effects of the 'Inquisition' development card.
During the Civic Phase, you move your religion marker 2 spaces towards the extreme end of the Marduk side of the Religion Track.
Then you count how many Ashur icons other players have on their Developments.
The player that you traded card #48 to has several, but that doesn't matter this round since card #48 allows them to ignore this ability.
One of the other players has no cards with the Ashur icon so also suffers no loss of Point Tokens.
However, the 4th player has three Ashur icons, and so loses 3 Point Tokens from your Inquisition's Civic Phase ability.
End of Game
Final Scoring
After the 5th round of the game, look at your position on the Government and Religion Tracks and gain the value shown above each in Point Tokens.
If you have Development Cards which do something at "End of Game" (such as gaining Point Tokens for meeting certain conditions), those resolve now.
Then reveal all your Point Tokens and total their value.
The player with the highest total value in Point Tokens, wins!
Ties
If there is a tie for most Points, any tied player that suffered a Barbarian Attack during the last round loses the tie. If there is still a tie, the tied player with the fewest Barbarian Tokens wins the tie. If still tied, the tied player with the most Culture Tokens wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players simultaneously rejoice and complain about their shared victory.
Example: At the end of the game you have the following Development Cards: Starting Worker (×4), Starting Merchant, Polytheism, Ashurian Society, Expansion, Poetry, Venetian Prophet, Strength of the People, Tribalism, Hammurabi the Just, Fortification Technology, and Egalitarian Society.
Your Religion Marker is at the far end of the Ashur Track, so Polytheism's end-of-game ability provides no extra Point Tokens.
Ashurian Society provides 13 more Point Tokens. (8 for the 4 Ashur icons on your Developments; 2 for the 2 Education icons; and 3 for the 3 Justice icons.)
At the end of the game you only have 2 Culture Tokens, so are forced to discard 5 Point Tokens from Poetry.
Hammurabi the Just scores you another 3 points for your Justice icons.
Egalitarian Society gives you a further 6 Point Tokens from your Justice icons, as well as 1 more because while you have several Ashur, Marduk, and Education icons, you only have one Military icon, so you only have a single complete set of those 4 icons. All totaled your Developments provided 13 - 5 + 3 + 7 = 18 Point Tokens.
You add these to the 37 point tokens you accrued during the game, and your final score is 55.
Credits and Thanks
Game Design: Ryan Sturm, Geoff Engelstein
Illustration: Kristen Pauline
Graphic Design: Scott Hartman
Special thanks to the following dedicated playtesters for their feedback on multiple versions of the game: Mark Augustyniak, Joe Geerkin, Andrew LaFica, Paul Moukperian, Michael Lee, Rob Leveille, Philip Migas, Paul Paella, Andy Warta and Kevin Wojtaszczyk.
Special thanks also to one of our game design heroes Francis Tresham. The trading experience from his seminal game Civilization provided the inception for this design.
Finally, thanks to the listeners of the Ludology podcast, who followed and supported this project since its infancy.
© 2018 Tasty Minstrel Games LLC — www.PlayTMG.com
Common Terms
Box — Goods Cards have a scale along the side indicating how many points you gain for turning them in during the Mercantile Phase. These points are displayed in boxes on the scale. For example, if you turned in 3 Fish, you would gain the points printed in the 3rd box from the bottom in the scale. If you had an ability that said Fish are worth 1 more Box to you, turning in 3 Fish would get you the points shown in the 4th box from the bottom of the scale instead.
Damage — Turn the specified Development Card sideways. Its abilities are ignored by all players until the beginning of the Mercantile Phase next turn. This most frequently means it does not produce anything during the next Production Phase. At the beginning of the next Mercantile Phase, turn the card right-side-up again to show it is no longer damaged.
Discard — Return one of the indicated things that you have to the general supply or the bottom of the stack from which it came.
Gain — Acquire the appropriate thing (Token or Card) from the corresponding general supply pile or stack of cards. It belongs to you now.
End of Game — This ability is resolved during Final Scoring at the end of the game.
Ignore — do not perform the action you would normally perform for something you are ignoring. For example, if you are told to Ignore gaining Barbarian Tokens from trade cards, you would pretend as if all your trade cards had no Barbarian Tokens printed on them, but still resolve any other effects. If you are ignoring an effect that counts icons belonging to multiple players, it neither counts the icons you have, nor affects you with the resulting ability – its affect is applied as if you were not in the game.
Immediately — As soon as this card is gained and revealed, resolve this effect. You do not resolve "Immediately" effects when you take a card from someone else.
Is Neutral — This references the position of your Religion or Government Marker on the corresponding track. If your marker is on the space marked 'Start' or one of the spaces immediately adjacent to it, that marker is considered to be neutral. If you are told to move 'towards Start', that means you should move towards the marked space in the center of the Neutral area.
Take — Acquire the indicated thing directly from another player. They lose it, and it now belongs to you.
Common Icons
- Point token
- Barbarian token
- Culture token
- Starting Worker card
- Basic Trade card
- Import Trade card
- Import with Disaster card
- Special Trade card (i.e. #25)
- Move towards Marduk
- Move towards Ashur
- Move towards Dictatorship
- Move towards Democracy
Development Types: Ashur, Marduk, Education, Justice, Military