Ulm Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Object of the Game
  • Note regarding the instructions
• Set-up
• Course of the Game
  • The Cathedral area and its actions
• The Cards
  • 2 tiles = 1 card
  • 1 card as a privilege
  • This is how the cards are used
• The Danube
• Interim Scorings, End of the Game, and Final Scoring
  • During the game
  • At the end of the game
  • Card scoring
  • Winning the game
• The Ulm Chronicle

Game Components

• 1 gameboard
• 1 Cathedral (to be assembled)
• 12 Tower tiles (markers showing the rounds)
• 1 Oath Charter (starting player marker)
• 50 Action tiles
• 4 barges in player colors
• 52 seals in player colors
• 12 family crests in player colors
• 33 cards (English)
• 12 city coats of arms
• 8 Descendant tiles
• 26 coins
• 30 Ulm Sparrows
• 1 cloth bag
• 1 set of instructions in 2 parts: the basic rulebook, and the Ulm Chronicle with additional information on the game components and the theme

Object of the Game

Try to accumulate the most victory points through activities in different areas of city life in Ulm. Each round, you have three actions.

The game ends after 10 rounds.

Note regarding the instructions

The instructions have been divided into two booklets in order to help you get started with the game more quickly.

This booklet presents the basic concept and the most important rules of the game.

The enclosed second booklet, the Ulm Chronicle, explains the details of the individual game elements, such as the cards, city coats of arms, etc. You can read about them as needed while you are playing the game. Besides this, there you will find some historic data and terms regarding the city's history.

Set-up

Place the gameboard in the middle of the table.

1. Shuffle the 33 cards face down, and form a draw pile that you put on the card space.
2. Randomly choose 4 of the 8 Descendant tiles and put them face up on the Descendant spaces in the Oath House quarter.
3. Assemble the Cathedral and place it on the Cathedral space of the gameboard.
4. Shuffle the city coats of arms, face down, and form a stack that you put on the coats-of-arms space.
5. Randomly distribute 1 brown, 2 turquoise, 2 orange, 2 white, and 2 gray Action tiles in the inner 3-x-3 grid of the Cathedral area.
6. Put one Action tile of each color in the loading docks.
7. Then throw the remaining Action tiles into the bag.
8. Place the coins and the Ulm Sparrows next to the gameboard as a face-up supply.
9. Each player gets 1 barge, 13 seals, 3 family crests in his player color, 2 coins and 2 Ulm Sparrows as well as an Action tile drawn from the bag. Then he
   • a) places his barge on the first Danube space;
   • b) puts 1 seal as a counter on space 5 of the scoring track;
   • c) lays down his remaining things in front of him as his personal supply.
10. The most reliable player becomes the starting player. He places the Oath Charter in front of him. Then he takes 10 of the 12 Tower tiles, stacks them (for the basic game, with the front – the side with the symbols – facing down), and places this stack of Tower tiles on the designated place on the Oath Charter. The remaining 2 Tower tiles are put back into the box.

Note: The basic game is played without the special function on the front of the Tower tiles. (The symbols of the individual Tower tiles are explained in the Ulm Chronicle.)

Course of the Game

The game has one simple basic rule: Push 1 Action tile into the Cathedral area and carry out the 3 associated actions!

The game is played over 10 rounds. Each round proceeds in the following way:

At the beginning of the round, the starting player takes one Tower tile – as a counter for the round – from the Oath Charter and puts it on the Cathedral (with the symbol facing down in the basic game). This way, the Cathedral tower gets taller and taller over the game.

After that, the active player's turn proceeds as follows:

1. Draw 1 Action tile from the bag and push it anywhere into the 3-x-3 grid of the Cathedral area. (A tile may be pushed in from any of the four sides, into any row or column.)
2. Carry out the 3 actions of the row you have chosen in any order you wish. The Action tiles in the inner 3-x-3 grid of the Cathedral determine the 3 possible actions; the 4th Action tile – the one that has been pushed out – doesn't give you any action.
3. Once you have acquired cards during the course of the game, you may play 1 hand card per round (at any time during your turn).

1. and 2. are always carried out by the player, but he may resign from using certain actions. 3. is optional.

Then you pass the bag with the Action tiles to the next player.

The Cathedral area and its actions

There are 5 different Action tiles, and the corresponding actions can be combined in any way, depending on how the disposition in the Cathedral area allows it. You always activate and execute only the 3 actions of the row into which you have just pushed in an Action tile.

Money action (gray tile): Take 1 coin from the general supply.

Clear-away action (white tile): Take the pushed-out Action tile(s) (1 to 3) from any one side of the Cathedral area and put it/them down in front of you. If there are 2 white Action tiles among the 3 activated Action tiles, you may clear away the tiles from 2 outer rows of the Cathedral area, etc.

Example: Stephen activated a white Action tile. He may now either take the turquoise tile (A) or the orange and the white tiles (B).

Card action (brown tile):

• a) In order to buy a card, you throw any 2 Action tiles from your personal supply back into the bag and take the topmost card from the draw pile. For 2 tiles of the same color, you may have a look at the two top cards, choose one of them and put the other face up on the discard pile.
• b) Instead of buying a card, you may instead play an additional hand card (you are allowed to play one hand card per round anyway without activating an Action tile).

River action (turquoise tile): Move your barge forward 1 unoccupied space on the Danube. Spaces that contain other players' barges are skipped and not included in the count.

Example: 1 River action for Joan. Example: 1 River action for Stephen.

Seal action (orange tile): Pay 2 coins into the general supply and place one of your seals on an unoccupied space in one of the two city quarters (north or south of the Danube) between which your barge currently is. Then you get the corresponding privilege of that quarter (as shown on the gameboard) as a bonus.

Example: Stephen places a seal in the quarter north of the Danube and receives the respective privilege (here: he chooses 1 out of 2 city coats of arms).

The meaning of the individual privileges can be looked up in the Ulm Chronicle, if necessary.

Example with 3 exemplary actions: Albert pushes a turquoise Action tile into the row that currently contains one turquoise, one orange, and one gray Action tile. With this, the gray Action tile is pushed out of the Cathedral area; consequently, Albert cannot use this action. Instead, the River action (twice) and the Seal action (once) are available to him. To begin with, Albert uses the first River action, moving his barge to the other side of the bridge. There he uses the Seal action: He pays two coins into the general supply and places one of his seals in the Town Hall quarter. For this, he gets the topmost card from the pile as a privilege, and chooses a coin as another privilege of this quarter. After that, he uses the second River action to jump over the red barge in front of him.

Another example with 3 different actions: Joan pushes a gray Action tile into the row that currently contains one brown and two white Action tiles. One of the white Action tiles is pushed out. Because of the other white tile, Joan may use the Clear-away action. She chooses the upper outer row of the Cathedral area to collect two brown tiles. Then she uses the Card action to acquire a card by throwing these two tiles back into the bag. Since both tiles are of the same color, Joan may take the two topmost cards from the pile, look at them and keep one. She puts the other card face up on the discard pile. Finally, she carries out the Money action, taking one coin from the general supply. Joan can choose to play the just-acquired card immediately, but she can also keep it in her hand and play it later on.

Note: You should consider that you need to push in your Action tile in such a way that you can make use of as many of the three actions as possible in a rewarding way. It could happen that – especially with the Card action and the Seal action – you don't have the resources required (tiles or money) and thus can't carry out the action; in this case, the action goes to waste.

Rows that have already been pushed (i.e., that contain 4 tiles) cannot be pushed further, back or forth.

These rows can be reactivated only when the Action tiles outside the inner 3-x-3 grid have been cleared away – e.g., when a player has used a Clear-away action to take the Action tiles from one outer row of the Cathedral area.

As long as pushed-out Action tiles have not been taken by anybody, with every turn there remain fewer shoving possibilities for the players.

If the situation arises that it is no longer possible to push in a tile, all pushed-out tiles are thrown back into the bag.

The Cards

You can acquire cards in two ways:

2 tiles = 1 card

You can acquire cards during the course of the game through the Card action. In order to be allowed to take the topmost card from the draw pile, you have to activate the Card action and give up 2 of your Action tiles. You throw these tiles back into the bag. If you give up 2 tiles of the same color, you draw the 2 topmost cards from the pile and choose 1 of them. The second card is put face up on the discard pile.

Example: Albert gives up 2 different tiles and takes 1 card from the draw pile.

1 card as a privilege

Besides this, you get a card as a privilege if you carry out a Seal action in the Town Hall quarter or Goose Tower quarter.

This is how the cards are used

All cards can give you one of two possible yields – depending on how they are played:

• a) If you put a card on the discard pile, you obtain the upper bonus of the card during the game.
• b) If you place a card in front of you, you obtain the lower bonus of the card at the end of the game.

(Example card – PATRICIAN: "Instead of drawing blindly, pick an Action tile of your choice from the bag." / "or at the end of the game: 1 victory point.")

All cards are played face up.

Any cards that players still hold in their hands at the end of the game remain unused and are put on the discard pile.

Normally, you may play 1 hand card per round. If you want to play additional hand cards on the same turn, you need to activate the corresponding number of Card actions in the Cathedral area. For each Card action, you may either play one hand card or buy another card from the draw pile.

The individual (types of) cards are explained in more detail in the Ulm Chronicle.

The Danube

The river is navigable only in one direction. It is not possible to move backwards. A river space can't contain more than 1 barge. Other players' barges are jumped over.

Example: The red barge may move forward 1 space. There is the green barge. In front of this is the blue one. That means the red barge ends up on the space in front of the blue barge.

The river divides the gameboard into a northern and a southern part. If you want to carry out the Seal action, you can choose between a southern or a northern city quarter, namely, the two quarters between which your barge currently is.

Example: The owner of the blue barge can carry out a Seal action either in the Oath House quarter or the Garden quarter.

The last 4 river spaces provide additional privileges; you immediately receive such a privilege if your barge ends up on one of these river spaces through the use of an Action tile or a card (each move triggered by an Action tile is executed individually; if triggered by a card, you advance your barge the total of steps at once). At the end of the river, the rule that no more than 1 boat may be on a river space still applies. If you have already reached the end of the river, the River action is no longer of use.

The bridge across the Danube divides the reach of the river into two sections. For barges that haven't gone under the bridge by the end of the game, players get 1 minus point for each space that their barge is before the bridge. Barges that have passed the bridge give their owners 1 victory point per space.

Since opportunities for carrying out Seal action are limited in each quarter, it is important to plan your advancement on the Danube carefully.

Interim Scorings, End of the Game, and Final Scoring

You can score victory points during the game and at the end of the game.

During the game

~ Cards: It is possible to obtain victory points by playing cards onto the discard pile. What cards give you which points is shown on the cards themselves and in the Ulm Chronicle.

~ Seals: Seal actions in the Reichenauer Hof quarter give you immediate victory points.

~ City coats of arms: You get victory points when you acquire city coats of arms in the Leaning House quarter or in the Garden quarter. Each city coat of arms gives you immediate victory points.

City coats of arms with a golden rim make it possible to earn additional points during the course of the game – see the "City Coats of Arms" section in the Ulm Chronicle.

~ Descendants: Through the special ability of the City Guard, the owner of this tile can generate points when shoving an Action tile into the Cathedral area – see the section "The City Quarters and their Privileges" in the Ulm Chronicle.

At the end of the game

The game ends after 10 rounds; then the final scoring takes place. The following things are taken into account:

• ~ the number of Ulm Sparrows you have in front of you;
• ~ the position of your barge on the river;
• ~ the cards that you have lying face up in front of you (cards still in your hand are put on the discard pile without scoring).

Ulm Sparrows: For each Ulm Sparrow that you own, you score 1 victory point.

(For the use of the Ulm Sparrows as jokers during the game, see the Ulm Chronicle.)

River scoring (-1 / +1): Depending on how far you have advanced on the Danube, you get plus points or minus points. The bridge across the river is considered the dividing line. Players with barges that still are before the bridge at the end of the game get deducted 1 point for each space that their barge is before the bridge. Players with barges that have passed the bridge by the end of the game gain 1 victory point for each space their barge has reached after the bridge.

Example: The red barge is lying 2 spaces before the bridge; therefore, its owner gets a deduction of 2 points. The owner of the green barge, however, gains 5 victory points, since his barge is 5 spaces after the bridge.

Card scoring

Cathedral cards: 3 points per Cathedral card; if a Cathedral is complete, + 9 bonus points.

A complete three-part Cathedral (Steeple, Nave, Choir) is scored 18 points.

Trade cards: 3 points per Trade card; for a set of 3 Trade cards of one type (fustian, works of art, or commercial goods), + 6 bonus points; for a set of 3 different Trade cards, + 3 bonus points.

A set of 3 Commercial goods cards is scored 15 points in total.

1 x Fustian, 1 x Works of art and 1 x Commercial goods: This set is scored 12 points in total.

Chronicle cards: See card texts and explanations in the Ulm Chronicle.

Winning the game

The player with the most points wins.

In case of a tie, the player whose seals are represented in more city quarters than those of any other player wins. If there is still a tie, the players involved share victory.

The Ulm Chronicle

At this point, we advise you to just get started with the game and then, as needed or desired, look up the individual elements in the Ulm Chronicle.

The Ulm Chronicle to the game contains information on:

• ~ the city quarters and their privileges
• ~ the city coats of arms
• ~ the Ulm Sparrows
• ~ the loading docks
• ~ the cards
• ~ the Tower tiles (as a variant for advanced players)

In addition, the Ulm Chronicle provides a short history of the city and a small Ulm lexicon for all those who are interested.