Traders of Osaka Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Objective
• Components
• Preparation
• A Card's Various Functions
• Playing the Game
  • A. Buy Goods
    • Advancing Ships
  • B. Take Coins
  • C. Reserve Cards
• Reservation Effects
• Refresh the Market and the Farm
• Payment
  • 1. Scoring
    • Bonus from Achievement Tokens
  • 2. Acquire Achievement Tokens
  • 3. Sunk by the Black Tide
    • Insurance
  • 4. Return the Ships
• The End of the Game
• Victory
• 4-Player Game Round Example
• Credits

Game Objective

You are traders who must sell as many goods as possible in Edo to earn Victory Points (VPs). At the end of the game, the trader with the most VPs wins the game.

Components

• 1 Game board, showing the sea route from Osaka to Edo, passing through Oshima, Anori, and Enshunada.
• 4 Ships (1 each in red, blue, green, and yellow).
• 108 Cards, 27 per color (red, blue, yellow, and green):
  • 11 × "2"s
  • 9 × "3"s
  • 7 × "5"s
• 48 Achievement tokens, 12 per color (red, blue, green, and yellow).
• 4 Trader pieces (1 each in white, pink, grey, and tan).
• 4 Reservation pieces (1 each in white, pink, grey, and tan).

The game board also has spaces for the Market, the Farm, the draw pile, and the discard pile.

Preparation

1. Place the game board in the center of the table.

2. Shuffle all cards and place them face down on the designated space of the board to make a draw pile.

3. Sort the Achievement tokens by color and set them aside as a supply.

4. Place all 4 ships in Osaka (on the board).

5. Draw 5 cards from the draw pile and place them face up in a straight line to the right of the Market. Draw 3 cards from the draw pile and place them face up in a straight line to the right of the Farm.

6. Each player selects a color and takes the Reservation and Trader pieces in that color.

7. Each player draws and reveals cards from the draw pile, one card at a time, until the sum of their cards' values is 8 or higher. These cards make up a player's initial hand. After this, the cards in your hand are kept secret from the other players, but anyone may ask how many cards you have.

   The player who drew the smallest total value of cards is the start player. In case of a tie, the player with the fewest cards is the start player. If there is still a tie, decide randomly among the tied players.

   Example: Start player has the lowest value and fewest cards — 5 + 5 = 10 (2 cards), 2 + 2 + 5 = 9 (3 cards), 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 (4 cards), 5 + 3 = 8 (2 cards) is the start player.

8. Beginning with the start player, and going clockwise, each player takes one Achievement token of their choice.

A Card's Various Functions

• A. Value – How many coins this card is worth when played from your hand to buy goods.
• B. Goods type – The type of goods this card represents when bought from the market.
• C. Insurance Icons – How many goods of that card color may be insured when discarded from your hand.

Playing the Game

Beginning with the start player and continuing in clockwise order, players take turns doing a variety of actions. On your turn, select one of the three actions below. After completing your action, the next player in clockwise order takes their turn.

• A. Buy Goods
• B. Take Coins
• C. Reserve Cards

A. Buy Goods

Spend coins (cards) from your hand to buy all goods (cards) in the Market (except other players' reserved goods).

The sum of your coins must equal to or exceed the value of all the goods in the Market (not counting goods reserved by other players).

Cards used for buying go into the discard pile face up. No 'change' is made if you overpay.

Goods (cards) bought are placed face up in front of you. Sort them by color for convenience. Goods in front of you become your merchandise. You may have any number of merchandise.

Example: This hand is worth (2+2+3+5=) 12 coins. You discard these cards to buy goods.

IMPORTANT: WHEN GOODS ARE BOUGHT, CORRESPONDING SHIPS MUST ADVANCE.

Advancing Ships

When a player buys goods, the ships corresponding to each bought good's color must advance one or two steps.

If only one good was bought for a given color, the corresponding ship advances one step. If two or more goods were bought for that color, the corresponding ship advances two steps.

Whenever a ship reaches Edo, a payment for the corresponding goods occurs (see Payment, below).

Example: 2 yellow goods bought — the Yellow ship advances 2 steps. 1 red good bought — the Red ship advances 1 step.

Example: 3 blue goods bought — the Blue ship advances 2 steps. 1 green good bought — the Green ship advances 1 step and reaches Edo — a payment for green goods occurs.

B. Take Coins

Take one card from the Market (except another player's reserved card) and add it to your hand. This card now represents coins that you may spend to buy goods.

There is no limit to a player's hand size.

Example: If Pink wants a coin, he can only take one of the unreserved cards.

C. Reserve Cards

If you have your Reservation piece in front of you, you can put it on a card in the Market or Farm to reserve that card.

You cannot reserve a card that is already reserved. You cannot reserve a card if you do not have your Reservation piece (i.e., you already reserved a card). If you buy your reserved good or take your reserved coin, take back your Reservation piece; this is the only way to get it back.

Reservation Effects

Reserved cards can only be bought or taken by the player that reserved the card in question. A player cannot buy or take another player's reserved card.

When buying goods: You must buy all unreserved goods (cards) and your reserved card. Other players' reserved cards remain in the Market.

Example: If Pink decides to buy goods, all of the unreserved goods must be bought. After buying, the only goods remaining in the Market are those reserved by other players.

When taking coins: You must choose one unreserved card or your reserved card.

Refresh the Market and the Farm

The Market and Farm must be refreshed whenever one of these two situations occurs:

• A player buys goods from the Market, or
• At the beginning of a player's turn either the Market is empty or it contains only cards reserved by other players.

1. To refresh the Market and Farm, first move all cards in the Farm to the Market. (Note: Reservation pieces remain on reserved cards.)
2. Next, draw 2 cards from the draw pile and add them to the Market.
3. Then, draw 3 cards from the draw pile and place them in the Farm.

After refreshing, continue your turn.

If the draw pile is exhausted, shuffle the discard pile to make a new face down draw pile.

Payment

WHEN ONE OR MORE SHIPS ARRIVE AT EDO, A PAYMENT OCCURS.

1. Scoring

All players must sell all their merchandise (bought goods in front of them) of the corresponding color and score Victory Points (VPs).

If two or more ships arrived at Edo at the same time, a separate payment occurs for each of them.

Each player's goods of the same kind of merchandise form a set. The price of the merchandise is the highest card value in the set. Multiply this price by the number of cards in the set. This total is then rounded up to the nearest 5 or 10 to determine the total value of your merchandise.

For every five points, take one card from the set as a VP. The cards you take as VPs must be those of the lowest value in the corresponding set. Place these VPs face down under your Trader piece (keep how many VPs you have secret). Discard the remaining goods in the set.

DURING PAYMENT, ALL CORRESPONDING MERCHANDISE (INSURED OR NOT) OF ALL PLAYERS MUST BE SOLD.

Example 1: Payment for red and yellow — Pink's merchandise. The red merchandise's 15 (price 5×3 cards) means three 5s. Pink takes 3 face down cards (VPs). The yellow merchandise's 2 (price 2×1 card) rounds up to 5. Pink takes 1 card. Pink scores a total of 4 VPs (3+1).

Bonus from Achievement Tokens

During payment, your Achievement tokens of the same type as the sold set increase that set's value. Simply add the number of Achievement tokens of that color you have to the value of the highest card you are selling.

As a result of this bonus, it is possible that the number of cards in your set is insufficient to track your VPs. In this case, take cards from the draw pile to make up for any missing VP.

Achievement tokens are never lost or spent.

Example 2: Payment for green — Pink's merchandise. Pink has 2 green Achievement tokens. Price 7 (5 for the card + 2 tokens) × 3 cards in set = 21. This rounds up to 25, which means five 5s. Pink takes 5 face down cards (VPs): 3 from the set and 2 from the draw pile.

2. Acquire Achievement Tokens

After scoring, for each payment that scored you VPs, get 1 Achievement token of the corresponding color.

If a shortage of Achievement tokens occurs, use some other substitute.

3. Sunk by the Black Tide

During payment, any ships on an Enshunada space (waves) are sunk by the raging waves of the Kuroshio Current (Black Tide).

All players must discard all merchandise of the same color (that are not insured – see Insurance, below) as the sunk ships.

Example: Green payment (green ship arrives at Edo). The red and blue ships are on Enshunada spaces, so they must be sunk.

Insurance

You may use cards with Insurance icons to insure goods of the same color as the card to protect those goods from sinking.

Value '2' cards have 2 Insurance icons. Value '3' cards have 1 Insurance icon.

Starting with the active player (the player who moved the ship[s] to Edo) and proceeding clockwise, each player may insure as many goods as they can. To insure a good, a player must discard a card with one or more Insurance icons from their hand; for each Insurance icon depicted on a discarded card, a player may insure one good of the same color as the discarded card.

To mark that a good has been insured, rotate it 90 degrees. This good can never be lost to sinking.

During payment, insured goods are sold as normal.

Example: The blue and red ships are sunk. The player discards these three cards (from their hand, shown alongside their at-risk merchandise) to insure four goods.

4. Return the Ships

Ships at Edo go back to Osaka. Sunk ships go back to Anori (the space with an anchor icon).

The End of the Game

After Step 2 of a payment (Acquire Achievement tokens), the game ends immediately if at least one player has 8 or more Achievement tokens.

Victory

The player who has the most VPs under their Trader piece wins. (Remaining merchandise and cards in hand have no value.)

In case of a tie, the player with the greater number of Achievement tokens wins. If there is still a tie, all tied players win.

4-Player Game Round Example

Turn order: Grey, White, Pink, Tan

Grey's turn — She needs 18 coins to buy goods, but she does not have enough coins. She takes a value 5 blue coin and adds it to her hand.

White's turn — He wants to buy the reserved red goods, but he does not have enough coins. He reserves the value 5 red card.

Pink's turn — He has enough coins to buy goods, but he doesn't want to advance the Yellow ship at this time, so he takes a value 3 yellow coin.

Tan's turn — The sum of the values of the remaining goods in the Market is only 5. She discards a value 5 card from her hand and buys all the goods in the Market except the card reserved by White. The Yellow ship advances 2 spaces towards Edo!

Credits

English Edition © 2016 F2Z Entertainment Inc.

F2Z Entertainment Inc. 31 rue de la Coopérative Rigaud QC J0P 1P0 Canada www.zmangames.com

Designed: Susumu Kawasaki Illustration: Atha Kanaani Graphic Design: Philippe Guérin and Marie-Eve Joly Licensed from Japon Brand and Susumu Kawasaki © July 2006 Special thanks to Adam Marostica