Venezia Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Setup
• Game Flow
• Phase 1: Planning
  • Play cards
  • Distribute Pigeons
• Phase 2: Piazza San Marco
  • Place Pigeons on the Piazza
  • Place Tourists
  • Place Pigeon Hunter
  • Remove Encountered Pigeons
  • Move Pigeons
  • Pigeon Pliers
  • New Generation
• Phase 3: The Districts
  • The action card "Family Meeting" (not in the 1st round)
  • Reinforce Home District
  • Carry Out Actions (not in round 1)
  • Uncover District Card and Place Pigeons
• Phase 4: Scoring
  • District Scoring
  • Scoring San Giorgio Maggiore
  • Scoring San Michele
  • Chasing Away Pigeons
  • New Pigeons Into the Reserve
  • Start Player Rotates
• End of Game
• Variants
• Action Cards

Equipment

• Game board
• 1 Black Pawn (placed by the Robber Bird)
• 6 gray cubes (Pigeon Priests; these are jokers)
• 3 orange cubes (tourists)
• 2 black cubes (pigeon hunters)
• 1 scoring marker in each of 4 colors
• 40 cubes in each of 4 colors (pigeons)
• 1 flat square in each of 4 colors (home district marker)
• 4 sets of 3 mats (A, B, and reference cards)
• 4 sets of cards, each set consisting of: 1 Piazza San Marco, 1 Ruse, 8 action cards, 8 District cards

Setup

• Before the first game, carefully mount both arrows on the spinner card as indicated in the diagram on page 3 of the German rules.
• Set out the game board.
• Each player selects a game character and takes the corresponding set of cards. Each player also places a set of three mats (A, B, and the reference) in front of himself. In addition, each player takes 12 pigeons (little cubes), his scoring marker (the large pawn), and 1 home district marker (the flat square). The remaining pigeons remain in the box.
• The scoring markers start at the edge of the board before the space with the "1".
• The youngest player starts, taking the Start Player card and placing it up in front of himself. He then chooses one of the seven districts (San Giorgio Maggiore may also be chosen) to be his home district and places his home district marker there. The other players do the same in clockwise order. No two players can have the same home district.

Game Flow

VENEZIA is played in several rounds, each consisting of four phases. Each phase is completed before moving onto the next phase. The start player begins, followed by the other players in clockwise order.

• Phase 1: Planning
• Phase 2: Piazza San Marco
• Phase 3: The Districts
• Phase 4: Scoring

Phase 1: Planning

Play cards

All players simultaneously place up to 5 cards face down on their respective "A" mats.

The first card must be either "Piazza San Marco" or "Ruse". If a player wishes to place pigeons on the Piazza San Marco, he must play the "Piazza San Marco" card; otherwise, he should play "Ruse" (which looks just like the "Piazza San Marco" card, but with a red line through it).

Next, each player must decide if he wants to play an action card. If so, he places this on the second space of his mat.

NOTE: No action cards can be played in the first round!

Next come up to three district cards, representing the districts in which the player would like to place pigeons this round. The corresponding district cards are placed in the rightmost three spaces on mat "A".

Distribute Pigeons

Each player takes as many pigeons as he wishes from his reserve (the right half of mat "B") and distributes them as he sees fit on the face-down cards on his mat "A" (naturally, not on the action card).

Players start with 12 pigeons in their reserves. In later rounds, players must draw more pigeons from the supply.

Each player may have no more than 10 pigeons on the Piazza San Marco.

Phase 2: Piazza San Marco

Place Pigeons on the Piazza

Beginning with the start player, each player uncovers his first card, either "Piazza San Marco" or "Ruse", and transfers his pigeons from that card onto the board.

• If he played "Ruse", the player may transfer his pigeons as he wishes from that card to the district cards on his mat "A".
• If he played "Piazza San Marco", the player may transfer his pigeons as he wishes from that card to the empty spaces of the Piazza San Marco. Only one pigeon is allowed per space.

Place Tourists

Once all pigeons from the first cards have been placed, two tourists are placed on the Piazza. Both arrows are spun to determine where each tourist gets placed: the number indicates the column, the letter the row. Place the first tourist at the indicated intersection, and spin both arrows again to place the second tourist.

If a pigeon is already in the space in which the tourist is placed, the tourist is simply put underneath the pigeon.

Place Pigeon Hunter

The pigeon hunter Marcus Eliminato is placed using this same procedure.

Remove Encountered Pigeons

If the pigeon hunter's space contains a pigeon, the pigeon is removed from the Piazza and placed in the cemetery island San Michele on the game board. Likewise, any pigeons on adjacent spaces (diagonally and orthogonally) are similarly removed.

Move Pigeons

Pigeons on the Piazza may move in order to get closer to the tourists and therefore reproduce.

Each pigeon may now be moved once, in one of two ways: jumping or walking.

• Jumping: A pigeon may make a series of jumps over adjacent pigeons. Diagonal and orthogonal jumps are permitted. You may jump your own pigeon or opponent's pigeons, but only one at a time; you may not jump over several pigeons at once. You may also jump over a tourist. With each jump, you must land on an empty space or on a tourist.
• Walking: A pigeon can walk one space in any direction, onto an empty space or a tourist.

You may never enter the pigeon hunter's space (or the eight adjacent spaces). [Translator's note: it's unclear to me whether or not you're allowed to jump over a space adjacent to the hunter.]

Pigeon Pliers

Take hostile pigeons into the pliers.

If, at the end of a player's movement, an opponent's pigeon is sandwiched between two of his own, the surrounded pigeon is removed from the Piazza to the island of San Michele. This only occurs at the end of the surrounding player's movement phase.

Example (page 5 of the German rules): red has just ended his movement. The yellow and blue pigeons, sandwiched between two reds, are removed. The red pigeon sandwiched between two greens is not removed. If the greens still surround the red at the end of the green player's movement, then the red pigeon will be removed.

New Generation

After a player has moved his pigeons on the Piazza, he sees whether and how many children his pigeons have this round.

• For each pigeon adjacent to a tourist, the player gains two new pigeons.
• For each pigeon on the same space as a tourist, the player gains five pigeons.

The player draws the appropriate number of pigeons from the supply and places them onto his nest (the left half of mat "B"). Each player is limited to the number of pieces supplied with the game. Pigeons on the Piazza remain there.

Phase 3: The Districts

All players reveal their action cards. If several players play the same action card, only the player with the lowest score gets to exercise that action. If there is a tie for lowest score among these players, none exercise the action. Players not exercising the action may take their action card back into their hand for later use.

The action card "Family Meeting" (not in the 1st round)

This card is executed first, if it was played. All players move all pigeons from their nests to one district. The player of the card chooses the district (the same one is used for all players).

Reinforce Home District

Beginning with the start player, each player may reinforce his home district with any number of pigeons from his nest.

Note: If the Family Meeting card was played, this won't be possible because the nests of all players were just emptied.

Carry Out Actions (not in round 1)

The text on the action cards is clear, but here are some additional notes:

• "District" does not include San Giorgio Maggiore.
• The start player executes his action card first (if he played one).
• The played card is removed from the game.
• Other players follow clockwise.

Uncover District Card and Place Pigeons

Now players reveal their district cards and transfer the pigeons from them to the corresponding districts.

There is no limit on the number of pigeons of each player which can occupy each district, San Giorgio Maggiore, or San Michele.

Phase 4: Scoring

District Scoring

• For having the majority of pigeons in a neutral district or the player's home district, a player earns 3 points and advances his scoring marker accordingly.
• For having the majority of pigeons in another player's home district, a player advances his scoring marker 6 points.
• If there is no majority in a district, nobody scores for that district.

Scoring San Giorgio Maggiore

The player with the most pigeons in San Giorgio Maggiore gets no victory points for it, but may instead retrieve an action card he previously played.

Scoring San Michele

The player with the most pigeons on the cemetery island may move up to 2 of his pigeons from there to his reserve (right half of mat "B").

Chasing Away Pigeons

Even a pigeon paradise like Venice has its insidiousness. The city administration chases away all pigeons in the district (or San Giorgio Maggiore) containing the most pigeons. The cemetery island San Michele is not considered. In case of a tie, all tied districts are cleared. All players' pigeons are returned to their respective reserves; gray pigeons are returned to the edge of the board.

New Pigeons Into the Reserve

All pigeons in a player's nest are now moved into the player's reserve. These are the pigeons available to the player in the next round.

Both tourists and the pigeon hunter are removed from Piazza San Marco, but players' pigeons remain there.

Start Player Rotates

The start player's card passes clockwise.

End of Game

The game ends in Phase 4: Scoring if:

• One or several players have reached 50 victory points. The player with most points wins; or
• A player has a majority in 5 of the 7 districts. That player wins.

Variants

The following variants can be used singly or combined. The remaining game rules are retained.

• The players can make the game harder by using both pigeon hunters.
• The game can be made easier by using three tourists.
• Both action cards "Instructions from the Vatican" and "Feud" can also be used on San Giorgio Maggiore.

Action Cards

• Instructions from the Vatican: Add or move three gray pigeons into districts. In this scoring round only, all gray pigeons on the board count as yours.
• Family Meeting: All pigeons from the nests of all players are placed in the district of your choice.
• Feud: In each district any other pigeon may be removed. The pigeons come back into the supply.
• Poison in the Fodder: Remove up to three pigeons from the Piazza San Marco. The pigeons go to San Michele.
• San Michele: All of your own pigeons currently on San Michele are moved immediately to your reserve.
• Robbery Bird: The robbery bird is set in a district or San Giorgio Maggiore. There is no scoring there.
• Purge: All pigeons of one color are removed from one district of your choice. The pigeons return to the supply.
• Hostile Takeover: Replace all other pigeons in the district of your choice with your own pigeons from your nest and reserve. If you have insufficient pigeons, all opposing pigeons not yet replaced are nevertheless removed.