Yinzi
Yinzi Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Components
- Set Up
- General Concepts and Mechanisms
- Sequence of Play and Actions
- The Rural Market
- Game End and Final Scoring
- Credits
Components
Each Yínzi copy contains:
- 1 game board
- 4 player boards
- 20 route tiles
- 18 ship tiles
- 38 crop tiles (5 each of tea, salt, cotton, sugarcane, ramie, bamboo; 4 each of potatoes and corn)
- 8 urban market tiles
- 16 factory tiles (4 each of paper, porcelain, silk, refined sugar in four player colors)
- 26 silver bag tiles
- 56 copper coins
- 14 cubes representing wood
- 8 cubes representing stone
- 16 misfortune tiles
- 48 action cards (12 each in four player colors)
- 48 workers (12 each in four player colors)
- 60 goods cubes (15 each in four player colors)
- 80 discs (20 each in four player colors)
- 8 cylinders (2 each in four player colors)
- 32 commodity square pieces (8 each in four player colors)
- 8 play aids (4 each in English and German)
- 1 pad for final scoring
- 1 six-sided die
- 2 rules booklets (1 each in English and German)
The Game Board
Most of the central part of Yínzi's game board is covered by four provinces around the Yangtze River on its last 200 km before reaching the China Sea: Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Huguang. Each province has various square Plantation spaces and its own Urban Market. Additionally, all provinces have access to a general Rural Market.
The top left corner shows the Player Order Box, which includes the Crop Track and Bonus Track.
Directly below is the Advancements Box, which is divided into four sections, from left to right and top to bottom: Diplomacy, Economy, Emperor's Undertakings, and War & Routes.
On the far right of the board the players find spaces for ships at the coast plus various boxes for victory points earned by transferring goods to ships.
The bottom right corner shows the Copper-to-Silver Exchange Track. On its left side are the two Migrants Boxes.
Centered at the top of the game board is the Boat Track.
On the bottom of the game board is the Emperor's Undertakings Area. Located to its left is the Resources Box, and above it is the Commodities Box.
Finally, to the left of the Commodities Box is the War & Routes Area.
The Player Boards
Each player board has spaces for the five available fortune actions: from left to right these are Construct Boats, Plant Crops, Sell at Urban Market, Develop Factories and Choose Advancements. At the bottom of the action spaces is space for the worker tokens.
In addition, each player board has a space for taxes as well.
Ship Tiles
There are 18 tiles representing ships in Yínzi. Two each are Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish ships (these are all called European ships); four each are Japanese, Korean, and Brunei ships (these are all called East ships).
Crop Tiles, Factories, Misfortune Tiles, Money, and Urban Markets
Other cardboard components are crop tiles (of various types), 16 factories in four player colors, misfortune tiles, copper coins, silver bags, and urban market tiles.
Resources & the Die
Wooden cubes represent resources: brown for wood and grey for stone. The die is used to determine the copper-to-silver ratio, representing a fluctuating economy.
Route Tiles
The 20 Route tiles in Yínzi allow players to sell goods, score points and determine the current war level.
Six tiles also have a natural disaster symbol: 2 each for drought, flood, and wildfire.
Final Scoring Pad
To keep final scoring easy, the game contains a scoring pad. One sheet is needed per game.
Player Components
Besides the player boards Yínzi contains for each player a deck of 12 action cards, and the following wooden parts: 12 workers, 15 goods cubes, 20 discs, 2 cylinders, 8 commodity squares, and a play aid.
Set Up
A. Take the game board and place it roughly in the center of the table.
B. Take the eight urban market tiles, shuffle them face down and then randomly put one – face up - on each of the urban market spaces of the four provinces. Return the other four tiles to the box.
C. Place the die on the "2" spot of the copper-to-silver-exchange track.
D. Prepare the crop tiles. Take the four potato tiles and four corn tiles and put them aside.
In a 3-player-game, remove and put back to the game box one crop tile of each the following types: tea, salt, cotton, sugarcane, ramie and bamboo. In a 2-player-game remove two crop tiles of these five types.
Shuffle all other crop tiles face down and randomly place one tile, from left to right – face up – on each space of the crop track in the player order box. Place the remaining crop tiles face down near the player order box on the table.
Note: The four potato and four corn tiles are only added and shuffled together with the other crop tiles when the first European ship arrives at the coast of China.
E. Take all East ship tiles and shuffle them. In a 2- or 3-player-game remove two randomly chosen East ship tiles from the game and put them back into the game box.
Then, fill the coastal ship boxes with one face up ship according to the number of players.
Afterwards, shuffle the European ship tiles together with the remaining East ship tiles. Place them in stacks of roughly the same numbers next to the coastal ship boxes to the right of the game board. Place the top ship tile of each stack face up – thus, the players always know the next ship to "dock" at the coast.
F. Place all wood and stone cubes onto the Resources box of the game board.
G. Place all copper coins, silver bags, and misfortune tiles in three piles near the game board.
H. Each player chooses a color and takes a player board, a play aid, a deck of 12 action cards, and 12 workers, 15 goods cubes, 20 discs, 2 cylinders, and 8 commodity squares.
I. First, in a 2- or 3-player-game, return all factory tiles of colors not chosen by the players to the game box.
Shuffle all factory tiles and randomly place one factory tile per player face up near the game board. Place the stack of remaining factory tiles in a face down draw stack next to these face up tiles.
J. Shuffle the route tiles, and separate them in five stacks of four tiles each. Randomly choose a number of stacks equal to the number of players plus one. Place the first stack face down on the space for the discard pile (bottom slot), and the other stacks face down on the spaces according to the number of players. Except the discard pile, turn the topmost tiles of the other stacks face up.
K. Each player receives 4 copper coins from the supply and puts them next to their player board.
L. Now, each player shuffles their action cards and puts them face down next to their player board.
M. Each player takes one of their cylinders and puts it on the number "1" space of the boat track.
N. Randomly determine the first provisional turn order. Place one cylinder of each player on the provisional turn order track below the bonus track.
O. Finally, in reverse turn order:
- Each player selects a factory tile from the face up factory tiles and places it on the board. The tile has to fit into the square grid of the province chosen. Afterwards they place a disc of their color on the factory tile. When all players have completed this step, draw one factory tile per player and place them face up next to the game board.
- Each player selects either one stone or one wood cube from the Resources area.
General Concepts and Mechanisms
Yínzi uses two general concepts, which are very special, thus players need to understand them before starting to play the game.
Colored personal components vs. publicly available components: During the game, the player colors are used both for personal components "owned" and commanded by the players, and publicly available components, which every player may access and use for their plans.
Personal components are the workers, all discs marking victory points, the ownership of factories and emissaries, commodities and goods cubes "planted" on fields and crop tiles of the four provinces or delivered to ships or route tiles.
Publicly available components are the goods cubes delivered to the rural market representing food and goods cubes delivered to the urban markets representing "raw materials". Before being built the factories are also publicly available and the color represents the color of "raw materials" needed for their production.
Defined goods vs. raw material: As long as the players have goods cubes "planted" on the fields of the four provinces, these represent the type of goods as defined by the illustration on the slots or crop tiles. In addition, the demand on urban markets defines the demand for certain goods. The players can only deliver these goods to an urban market.
As soon as a goods cube is delivered to an urban market, it loses its defined status and is just considered a raw material.
Factories have demand for raw materials. As explained before they only "care" about the color of these raw materials.
When choosing a factory, players should keep the following in mind:
- which commodities are in demand by ships docking next at the coast;
- which colored raw materials are available on the urban markets;
- prefering factories using their own player color raw materials, thus being less dependend on goods sales of the other players to the urban markets.
Besides these two concepts, the mechanisms of Yinzi are also a little bit different.
During each of the game rounds, the players conduct six actions. With help of their action cards, the players choose three out of five fortune actions. They place these cards atop of the actions shown on their player board, thus they can only trigger a certain action once per round. Additionally, these action cards also give players an amount of workers, which they place as groups below the chosen fortune actions.
Instead of playing action cards, the players also can choose three out of five workforce actions. They take a group of workers, and place them on a chosen action on the game board, again triggering a certain action only once per round.
Sequence of Play and Actions
Yínzi is played over the course of four rounds. This is easy to track as all players play three of their 12 cards per round.
A round in Yínzi consists of the following phases:
A. Choose a Bonus and the Position in Turn Order B. Play Fortune Actions and Workforce Actions C. Feed Workers D. Resolution: War Glories; Natural Disasters; Routes; Emperor Undertakings; Taxation E. Late Shipping F. Administration: Determine Copper/Silver Ratio; Manage Workers; Draw New Cards
A. Choose a Bonus and the Position in Turn Order
In provisional turn order each player chooses a bonus and – this is optional – purchases the associated crop tile in the same column of the chosen bonus by paying the indicated costs (1, 2 or 3 copper coins) to the bank. To mark their choice, each player moves their turn order cylinder to the appropriate bonus space. These chosen spaces will determine the new turn order in effect from now, from left to right.
Each round, each bonus can only be chosen by a single player. The players keep the cylinders on the bonus slots until the end of the round. At that time they are moved down (keeping the sequence) to form a new provisional turn order.
The different bonuses are from left to right:
- Free Advancement: The player immediately places one of their discs on any unoccupied space of the advancements box. For details on the different advancements, please check chapter Choose Advancements.
- Better Sales: Each time during this round, when the player sells a goods cube to any Urban or Rural Market, they get an additional payment of 1 copper coin for each good sold. For details on selling goods cubes, please check chapter Sell at Urban Market or chapter The Rural Market.
- Fed Workers: When it is time to Feed Workers, the player does not need to feed them. For details, please check chapter Feed Workers.
- No Taxes: When it is time to pay taxes, the player does not need to pay taxes. For details, please check chapter Taxation.
- Boat Upgrade: The player immediately advances the cylinder on the boat track by one spot for free. For details, please check chapter Construct Boats below.
- Factory Upgrade: The player immediately puts another of their discs on top of the existing one(s) for free. For details, please check chapter Develop Factories.
If a player purchases the associated crop tile above the chosen bonus, that player immediately puts it on the board together with two cubes of their color. For details, please check chapter Plant Crops.
After all players have chosen a bonus, move the remaining crop tiles above the bonus space to the left, closing any gaps. Draw new crop tiles randomly and place them on the empty crop spaces from left to right.
Example: Marion is first in provisional turn order and she chooses the Feed Workers bonus. She moves her cylinder to that box bonus and she decides to acquire the tea crop tile above that box. She pays one copper coin and moves that crop tile to an empty field on Jiangxi placing two cubes on the newly placed tea.
B. Play Fortune Actions and Workforce Actions
Each player now draws the top three action cards from their deck.
In turn order each player always decides to use either a …
I. Fortune Action by playing one action card. This is mandatory as the first action of the round and at any time the player has no workers on their player board; or
II. Workforce Action by moving a group of workers from the bottom of the player board onto the game board.
Additionally, the players may sell or buy goods at the Rural Market. For details, please check chapter The Rural Market.
This phase ends, after all players played their six actions – three Fortune actions and three Workforce actions.
Note: To help players visualizing where to play, all fortune and workforce actions' areas on the game board are marked with an icon. Additionally, all the workforce actions are on the bottom of the board, from left to right and top to bottom: war & routes, commodities, resources, emperor undertakings, shipping. The workforce action boxes limits are "cloud" shaped. Migration boxes are in the same board zone and use the same shape because it uses workers but migration it's not an action. For details, please check chapter Workforce Actions.
I. Fortune Actions
To conduct a fortune action, the active player chooses an action card from their hand and places it above the selected action on their player mat.
Important: A player may select a single fortune action only once per round.
Immediately, before performing the action, the player puts a number of their workers (as depicted on the played card) on the worker space of that fortune action at the bottom of their player board.
The player conducts the chosen action as many times as the fortune value of the card shows.
If the player cannot or does not want to conduct an action the number of times allowed by an action card they skip those extra times.
The player may increase the number of times they can conduct a single fortune action once by taxing their people. To conduct the action an additional time the player places one of their discs on the tax space of their player board. Thus, the maximum number of times a player can conduct a fortune action is four (three times with a "3" action card plus one by taxing their people.)
Example: Marion chooses a value "2" action card depicting 2 workers to perform the Construct Boat fortune action. Before performing the action, she places the two workers on the space below that action. Marion wants to use the Construct Boats action three times, so she taxes her people by placing a disc on the taxes space of her player board.
The players can choose between five fortune actions:
- Construct Boats
- Develop Factories
- Plant Crops
- Choose Advancements
- Sell at Urban Market
Construct Boats
With the acquisition of larger and better boats, family merchants are able to reach more distant markets and respond to the growing demand for goods and commodities.
The player takes one wood cube from their personal supply, puts it on the resources area of the game board and advances the cylinder on the boat track by one spot.
Note: When advancing the cylinder on the boat track, some steps will increase the boat transportation capability, other steps will not.
The position of a player's cylinder on the boat track determines their boat transportation capacity.
- The player's boat transport capacity is equal to the number of the boat track space where the player's cylinder is located.
- The transport capacity is never reduced when used.
- Any single wooden goods cube or commodity square piece that the player moves across borders marked with a boat symbol between areas on the game board needs one boat transportation for each of these symbols. The game board has a boat symbol on each border between provinces and on the sea cost border of Nanzhili and Zhejiang.
The player may need their boat transportation capacity for the following actions:
- Sell at Urban Market (moving goods to urban markets)
- Produce Commodities (moving goods from urban markets to factories)
- Supply Ships (moving commodities or goods to ships at the coast, even during "late shipping")
Exceptions: The player can sell goods to the rural market or deliver commodities or goods to route tiles without boat transportation.
Example: Marion places three wood cubes back on the resources area and advances her cylinder three steps. She increases her boat transportation capacity from 2 to 4.
Plant Crops
Some of the player's relatives are dedicated peasants seeking to take advantage of recent innovations and improvements in agriculture.
The player produces goods on the fields. There are several ways to do so:
- In any of the four provinces the player puts one of their cubes on one field not occupied by cubes or a factory. This does not cost anything. A player has to use a field with a goods symbol already shown on the board (cabbage, fruit, wheat and salt) or a field with a crop tile previously placed but actually having no cubes on it (tea, salt, cotton, sugarcane, ramie, bamboo, potato, corn).
- In any province the player puts two of their cubes on one rice field not occupied by cubes or a factory. This does not cost anything. A player has to use a field with a rice symbol already shown on the board.
- No matter if they conduct this action one, two, three, or four times, the player may use one of these conducted actions (they are not forced to do so) to take any one crop tile from any space on the crop track, paying the respective cost (1, 2 or 3 copper coins). Afterwards they place the tile in any unoccupied square (not occupied with cubes or a factory) in any province and put two cubes on it (instead of one). The player can replace ("overbuild") a crop tile without a cube with another crop tile and, in this case, of course, places two cubes on the new crop tile. An empty crop tile, if used again no longer produces two cubes, only one. Exception: Fields or crop tiles with salt can never be "overbuild" with a crop tile or a factory.
Purchasing a crop tile is not an action; this is part of the Plant Crops action. Afterwards move the crop tiles on the track to the left, closing any gaps, and place a randomly drawn new crop tile on the rightmost space of the track.
Example: Marion uses a "3" action card and buys a bamboo crop tile from the crop track, paying 2 copper coins. In Zhejiang, she places two cubes on rice, and one cube on fruit. In Jiangxi, Marion places two cubes on the newly placed bamboo.
Sell at Urban Market
The player may sell their growing agricultural production to the urban markets.
The player sells a single goods cube from their fields to an urban market. Depending on the urban market tiles, the following goods may be sold to urban markets: ramie, sugarcane, cotton, tea, salt, bamboo.
For each goods cube sold the player takes 2 copper coins from the bank. Each slot may only host a single cube at any one time.
Note: If the chosen urban market has an empty slot depicting a copper coin orthogonally adjacent to a slot with the icon of the goods the player is selling, this specific goods is worth an additional copper. The player places the goods cube on top of the coin icon, disabling the extra income on further sales. Later, if the coin slot is empty again, extra income is again possible. In the rare case, that the two neighboring slots are filled with a cube the player cannot sell goods to this coin slot.
Boat transportation: To sell to the urban market of the same province where the goods came from a player does not need boat transportation. To sell cubes to an urban market in a different province the player needs 1 boat transportation capacity for each cube per crossed province border. For details, please check chapter Construct Boats.
Example: Angelika uses a "3" action card. She decides to sell one salt on the urban market of Jiangxi (in the same province) and 2 sugarcanes of the neighboring province Huguang, because the urban market of Jiangxi has sugarcane demand for 3 coins. She places the first sugarcane on the coin symbol, disabling that additional payment. She needs to have at least a boat transportation of 2 (2 cubes x 1 border) and she receives 7 copper coins (2 for salt + 3 for the first sugarcane + 2 for the second sugarcane).
Develop Factories
Some of the player's relatives left the camp and are now craftsmen in the cities.
The player builds a new factory or upgrades an existing one.
- To build a new factory the player takes one stone cube from their personal supply and returns it to the resource area of the game board. They then pick one of the face up factory tiles and put it in any province. They mark the factory by placing one of their discs on top of the factory tile. The spaces in the province all must be empty fields (no fields or crop tiles with cubes, and never a salt mine). If needed, remove empty crop tiles lying on the slots of the newly build factory and return them to the game box (so that the factory lies flat on the game board). Afterwards, draw a new factory tile and place it face up next to the other tiles.
- To upgrade one of their factories the player puts another of their discs on top of the existing one(s). A factory of level I may be upgraded to level II by paying 3 copper coins to the bank; a factory of level II may be upgraded to level III by paying 5 copper coins to the bank.
Level III is the maximum factory level. The level of the factory will be equal to the number of discs on it.
Example: Angelika uses a "3" action card. She builds a new factory, upgrades that factory to level II, and upgrades another of her own factories to level III. She pays one stone and 8 copper coins (3 for the level II and 5 for the level III).
Choose Advancements
The player will take advantage of advances made during the Ming Dynasty in areas such as diplomacy, economics or construction.
The player places one of their discs on any unoccupied space of the advancements box. If they place more than one disc, the discs all must go to different parts of the box (Diplomacy, Economy, Emperor's Undertakings, or War & Routes). Each slot may only host a single disc at any one time.
At any time during their turn, but not in the same turn they placed the disc, or in the related phases of the game, a player may take one or more of their discs from the advancements area and use the respective bonus(es). If a player does not use the advancements, at the end of the game, they may get victory points for their discs.
The Emperor's Undertaking and War & Routes advancement areas have some bonuses that can only be used when conducting that specific action or later in the resolution phase. It is easy to determine when these advances may be applied because there is no possibility to use them at any other time.
DIPLOMACY: A disc in a slot represents a player's emissary who will follow a commodity or goods of that player, which is supplied to a ship of the same "country" as the diplomacy slot. The player may add that disc on their turn to a ship, or when the ship sets sails (even in late shipping) if the player has any cube or commodity on the corresponding ship. When the ship sets sails, the disc moves to the foreign market. At the end of the game a disc on the foreign market will be worth 1 additional victory point.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Brunei ship.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Portuguese ship.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Korean ship.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Spanish ship.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Japanese ship.
- Emissary: The player moves the disc on a Dutch ship.
ECONOMY: The player may remove their disc to receive a benefit when needed. When spending goods, resources or copper coins, the player does not take the matching cubes, tokens or tiles, but spends virtual units of the appropriate type.
- Free rice: The player spends 2 rice. They do not need boat transportation capacity.
- Free wood: The player spends 1 wood.
- Free stone: The player spends 1 stone.
- Free raw material: When conducting the Produce Commodities action, the player spends 1 raw material. They do not need boat transportation capacity since this virtual raw material is considered to be in the same region of the producing factory.
- Free boat transportation capacity: The player spends 1 extra boat transportation capacity. This additional capacity is temporary, the player does not mark this on the boat track.
- Free copper coins: The player spends 2 copper coins.
EMPEROR UNDERTAKINGS: This part is thematically linked to the emperor governing the country. The bottom row bonuses may only be used when performing Emperor Undertakings action. For details, please check chapter Emperor Undertakings.
- Free salt: The player spends 1 salt. They do not need boat transportation capacity.
- Additional urban market sale: The player sells a goods cube from one of their fields to an urban market. They apply boat transportation capacity rules.
- Additional crops: The player conducts a single Plant Crops action using a crop tile from the crop track paying the cost.
- Same emperor undertakings: The player places their workers in a box already occupied by other player's workers (when performing the emperor undertakings action).
- Additional worker: The player uses this disc as an extra worker (when performing the emperor undertakings action).
- Eager immigrants: The player may recruit workers from the top migrant box too (when performing the emperor undertakings action).
WAR & ROUTES: This part is thematically linked to the emperor's wars against enemies of the country. The bottom row bonuses may only be used when resolving war glories. For details, please check chapter Resolution of War Glories.
- Free wheat: The player spends 1 wheat. They do not need boat transportation capacity.
- Personal route tile: The player selects a route tile from the discard pile. The war and natural disaster symbols on this tile have no effect. The player keeps the route tile face up in front of him. At any Routes resolution the player may satisfy the demand of the tile to turn it face down. For details, please check chapter Resolution of Routes.
- War copper coins: The player receives 1 copper coin for each of their workers in the war box.
- Veterans: After resolving war glories, the player leaves up to 2 workers in the war box (the player lays down the workers and places them to the side of the box). If the player conducts the War & Routes action during the next round, and adds new workers to this box, the player also adds the two laid down workers to the same slot. If the player does not place new workers, they will place these two laid down workers upright on the left-most empty slot of the war box at the very end of the resolution phase. Remember, even with this bonus a player can never use more than four workers in a single workforce action.
- Additional recruit: During the resolution phase the player uses this disc as an extra worker in the war box. They either add this disc to the same slot containing their workers, or place it on its own on the left-most empty slot of the war box. Eventually laid down workers will be upright at the next right slot or join the placed disc if they are from the same player.
- Weaker enemies: During the resolution phase, the player reduces the value of the enemy force by 2. This new enemy value is valid for all players.
II. Workforce Actions
Instead of conducting a fortune action the player may do a workforce action if they have workers in at least one space of their player board.
To do so, the player takes all workers from a single space of their player board and transfers them to a single workforce action box on the game board.
Important: A player may select a single workforce action only once per round. This is also true for the Emperor's Undertakings despite the four different action spaces.
The player conducts the chosen action at maximum as many times as the number of workers. If the player cannot or does not want to use some of the workers taken from the space of their player board, they must place one or two workers on the top space of the migration area; however, they have to conduct the chosen workforce action with at least one worker.
Exception: In the very rare case that a player cannot use at least one of their workers in their turn, they must send all their workers taken from the player board to the top space of the migration area. No action is conducted.
The player may increase the number of workers by taking one or more of their migrants from the bottom space of the migration area and adding them to the workers coming from the player board. However, they can never use more than four workers in a single workforce action.
During the same player turn, the player cannot send workers to the top space and employ workers from the bottom space of the migration area.
The player must feed migrants, like all other workers on the game board, during the Feed Workers phase.
The player can choose between five workforce actions:
- Take Resources
- Produce Commodities
- Supply Ships
- Emperor Undertakings
- War & Routes
Take Resources
The player needs wood and stone to build boats and factories.
For a set of one worker and one copper coin, the player takes either one wood or one stone cube from the resources area. They place the worker on the resources area, pay the copper coin to the bank, and place the chosen resource cube next to their player board.
Important: Resource cubes are limited, so players better be mindful, especially in a 4-player-game!
Example: Marion takes three workers from her player board, puts them on the resources box and acquires two wood cubes and one stone by paying three copper coins to the bank.
Produce Commodities
Refined sugar, paper, the already famous silk fabrics and magnificent porcelains are produced in the players' factories.
According to the level of the factories, for a set of a certain amount of workers and raw materials, the player produces a commodity. They put one commodity square wooden piece on the respective factory tile. The player can either use one or more of their own factories and/or level-II- or level-III-factories of other players, but in the same turn they cannot use the same factory twice. In addition, the factory level determines how many commodities it may hold.
No more than a total of two commodities may be at a level-II-factory, and not more than a total of three commodities may be at a level-III-factory. It is possible that a factory has commodities that belong to other players only and not the owner.
Once storage is full, the factory cannot produce until commodities are supplied to ships or to route tiles.
Using their own factories:
- To produce a commodity in their level-I-factory (factory tile with a single player disc) the player needs two workers and one "raw material" of the color indicated on the factory tile.
- To produce a commodity in their level-II-factory (factory tile with two player discs) the player needs one worker and one "raw material" of the color indicated on the factory tile.
- To produce a commodity in their level-III-factory (factory tile with three player discs) the player needs one worker and one "raw material" of the color indicated on the factory tile. However, if two "raw material" cubes of the needed color are spent, the player produces two commodities at once, instead of one, with a single worker.
Outsourcing:
- In a different player's level-II-factory the player must pay the owner 3 copper coins. They also must use two workers and one "raw material" of the color indicated on the factory tile.
- In a different player's level-III-factory the player must pay the owner 1 silver bag. They also must use one worker and one "raw material" of the color indicated on the factory tile and only one commodity is produced.
The player takes the needed raw material cube for production from any spaces of any urban market. The color of the cube must match the color of the raw material shown on the factory.
Reminder: A cube on an urban market no longer represents the goods produced on the fields. It is now "raw material" used by the factories and any player can take such a cube. Only the color and, for boat transport, does the location matter!
To transport raw material cubes across borders to the factories, the player must use their boats. For details, please check chapter Construct Boats.
Example: Tanja takes two workers from her player board and one from the bottom migration box and allocates them to the commodities action box on the game board. She moves one red raw material cube from the urban market of Huguang to her porcelain level-II-factory built in Zhejiang to produce one porcelain. Then, Tanja moves a red raw material cube from the urban market of Nanzhili to Marion's paper level-II-factory built in that same province to produce one paper. She places one each of her commodity square pieces on both factories.
Tanja has a boat transport capacity of three, more than enough to move the raw material (two borders crossed by the first raw material) and she must pay 3 copper coins to Marion for using her factory.
Supply Ships
The player intends to maximize the profits by selling the products to the foreign ships that arrive at the coast.
For a worker, the player either sells one of their commodities to the ships at the coast, or a single tea cube or a pair of two salt cubes directly from the fields. For each of these deliveries, the player immediately gains 1 silver bag tile.
To transport a commodity or a goods cube across borders to the ships, the player must use their boats. For details, please check chapter Construct Boats.
Note: The sea coasts are borders, too.
Supplying commodities: To supply a commodity piece to a ship, the player needs a single worker and places that piece onto a ship at the coast in the slot that demands that kind of product. The player immediately takes one silver bag tile from the bank.
Shipping tea: To supply a tea cube to a ship, the player needs a single worker and takes one of their tea cubes directly from one of their tea fields. They put the cube in the respective tea slot of the chosen ship and immediately receive one silver bag tile from the bank.
Shipping salt: Instead of the demanded commodity or tea a player may also supply a pair of two salt cubes. For each pair of salt cubes the player needs a worker and takes the two cubes directly from one or two salt mines (fields or crops); these two salt cubes can come from different regions. They put the two cubes in any empty commodity or tea slot of a chosen ship and immediately receive one silver bag tile from the bank.
Note: Each slot may only host a single commodity, a tea cube or a pair of two cubes (salt or food from late shipping) at any one time.
Ships setting sail: When the ship's slots are all full the ship sets sail and the supplied commodities will be delivered to the foreign markets.
Each of the six foreign destinations has a slot that hosts three commodities at maximum. When a ship delivers to a destination and the respective box has already three stacked commodities, the player has to put the supplied commodity pieces in the general pool of that market, on the right of the three destination boxes. At the end of the game each commodity will be worth the victory points shown for the matching spaces.
Exception: In the case of a ship that carries two commodities to a destination box, which already holds two delivered commodities, all the commodities are delivered and that box will hold four commodities. In the case of a ship that carries three commodities to a destination box with already one or two delivered commodities, all the commodities are delivered and that box will hold four or five commodities.
Diplomacy advancements: Remember that an emissary may travel together with commodities or goods. This increases the victory points by one at the end of the game.
The players place the ship back into the game box, and return any tea and/or salt cubes to the player's supplies. They are not worth any victory points.
New ship arrives: Then, the next ship in line immediately arrives at the coast and a new ship is sighted: The players place the topmost ship of the adjacent stack on the empty coastal ship box, and place the top ship tile of that stack face up.
As prepared during set up, at the start of the game only East destination ships are available at the coast. Later, European ships will arrive at the coastal slots. When the first European ship is moved from one of the stacks to the corresponding coastal slot, one player immediately shuffles the corn and potato tiles into the pool of other remaining crop tiles.
Note: If a row runs out of ships, it will remain so until the end of the game. The player can continue or complete their Supply Ships action using the arriving ship.
Example: Marion takes two workers from a single space of her player board plus one worker from the bottom box of the migration area. She puts these three workers on the Supply Ships box of the board.
She ships one of her porcelain commodities from a Huguang factory, another porcelain commodity from a Nanzhili factory, one of her salt cubes from Zhejiang and another of her salt cubes from Nanzhili. Marion receives three silver bag tiles.
To ship all these things, she must have a boat transport capacity of 5: 1 porcelain commodity x 2 borders +1 porcelain commodity x 1 border + 1 salt cube x 1 border + 1 salt cube x 1 border.
Marion places a commodity on the Portuguese ship, which already has one commodity and a pair of cubes of salt. This ship immediately sets sail and the 2 commodities are transferred to the Portuguese destination (already having one commodity from a previous Supply Ships action).
A new Dutch ship arrives at the coast, taking the empty slot of the departed Portuguese ship.
Marion puts the other commodity on the Japanese ship, which already has a tea cube. The ship immediately sets sail and the commodity is moved to the general pool of the East market because the Japanese destination slot already contains 3 commodities and thus is full.
A Brunei ship arrives at the coast. Finally, Marion puts the pair of two salt cubes on a slot of that ship.
Emperor Undertakings
A player may send some of their workers to aid the emperor.
The player allocates a group of workers to one of the four boxes of the emperor area. The number of workers that each box demands is shown in the boxes.
During the resolution phase of the round the player will get the respective bonus from the emperor: 2 to 4 copper coins, 1 silver bag, one route tile, one boat step or a factory upgrade. For details check chapter Resolution of Emperor Undertakings.
As with all other workforce actions - despite the four action boxes - a player cannot use a second workforce action in the same round for this area.
The slot that allows for placing one worker to gain two copper coins may be used by all players in a round. The other three boxes can only be used by a single player (unless a player uses the related benefit of the space on the Emperor's Undertakings advancement box).
Example: Marion takes three workers from a space of her player board. As Angelika already placed workers on the third box of the Emperor's Undertakings area, Marion chooses the space for two workers, which will give her 3 copper coins and a route tile during the Resolution phase. She places the third worker on the top migration space.
War & Routes
Some of a player's relatives may join the war effort and return gloriously.
The player allocates a group of workers to the War Area. They place all of them on the left-most empty slot of the war box. During the Resolution phase, the players will determine how many victory points they receive (if any). Any ties are resolved in favor of the player who placed their workers here first.
In addition, the player may fulfill the demand of one of the route tiles that is face up and not yet fulfilled, receiving the indicated payment in copper coins or a silver bag. During the Resolution phase, the players receive the route tiles whose demand they fulfilled. They will get the listed victory points at the end of the game.
The route tiles show the following demands:
- The player delivers one of their silk/porcelain commodity pieces from a factory to get 3 copper coins. At the end of the game the player will get 3 victory points.
- The player delivers one of their silk/refined sugar/paper commodity pieces from a factory to get 2 copper coins. At the end of the game the player will get 2 victory points.
- The player delivers a pair of one each of their wheat and rice or cabbage and fruit good cubes from their fields (or rural market) to get 2 copper coins. At the end of the game the player will get 2 victory points.
- The player delivers one cabbage/fruit/cotton/salt/ramie/sugarcane/bamboo from their field (cabbage and fruit may come from the rural market) to get 1 copper coin. At the end of the game the player will get 1 victory point.
- The player delivers any one of their commodities from a factory and any one goods cube from their fields to get 3 copper coins. At the end of the game the player will get 2 victory points.
- The player delivers any one of their commodities from a factory to get 2 copper coins. At the end of the game the player will get 2 victory points.
- The player delivers any two of their commodities from factories to get 1 silver bag. At the end of the game the player will get 3 victory points.
- The player delivers any one of their commodities from a factory and any two of their goods cubes from their fields to get 1 silver bag. At the end of the game the player will get 3 victory points.
- The player places any one of their discs from one of the diplomacy advancements area and send it as an emissary to this route tile. At the end of the game the player will get 2 victory points.
To deliver the goods cubes and commodity pieces on the route tiles, the players do not need any boat transport capacity. The player simply takes their goods cubes from fields or crops, and their commodity pieces from a factory. The players also may use any of their helpful advancement spaces, and they can buy needed food goods cubes from the rural market for 2 copper coins each, if any are available. For details, please check chapter Advancements, and chapter The Rural Market.
Note: There is an advancement area dedicated to the War & Routes area. A player may benefit from it in achieving better results.
Example: Marion takes two workers from a space of her player board, and places them on the second-to-left slot of the war box, as Tanja already placed three workers earlier this round on the left-most space. Then, Marion delivers one of her paper commodities to the second route tile.
C. Feed Workers
Working all day makes hungry, thus it is time to get food.
After all the players finished their 6 actions (3 fortune actions and 3 workforce actions), they must feed all their workers on the game board.
In turn order each player adds up all their workers on the game board (on all action areas and the migration area) and divides the amount by 3. This result, rounded up, each player has to pay in food.
The players either take rice, wheat or corn cubes from their fields or crops, which each count as 1 toward the necessary result, or take fruit, cabbage or potato cubes, but only any two of these equal 1 food. The players may also use any of their matching advancement spaces of the economy area to pay part of the needed food.
Players can buy goods cubes from the rural market for 2 copper coins each, if any are available. For details, please check chapter The Rural Market.
If a player chose the bonus Fed Workers at the start of the round, they automatically feed all their workers without spending any additional food goods cubes.
If possible, workers must be fed. If a player cannot feed all their workers, they receive one misfortune tile per missing food.
Example: Marion has a total of 11 workers on the game board, 2 of them on the migration area. She must pay a total of 4 food to feed all her workers. Marion takes two rice cubes, and 2 fruit cubes from her fields (2x 1 + 2 x ½ = 4). She is missing 1 food, thus she needs to take a misfortune tile.
D. Resolution: War Glories, Natural Disasters, Routes, Emperor Undertakings, Taxation
The players are rewarded in different areas, but also need to pay taxes and may suffer from natural disasters.
This phase is performed in several steps in order as described below.
I. War Glories
The players compare the sum of the workers of all players in the war area with the sum of war symbols on all face up route tiles.
If there are still workers placed sideways, they are now put upright and taken into account, too. For details, please check chapter Advancements.
If the sum of workers is equal to or higher than the sum of war symbols, then the war has been won and the player with the most workers in this area places a disc from their personal supply on the slot for 4 victory points. The player with the second most workers in the war area places a disc on the slot for 2 victory points.
If the sum of workers is lower than the sum of war symbols, then the war has been lost. However, the player with the most workers in this area still places one of their discs on the 2-victory-points-slot. No other player places a disc in this case.
If there is a tie for "most workers", the tied player who played first (on the left-most slot) breaks the tie. During the game, the discs remain on these victory point slots, so players stack them from round to round.
Note: The advancements war area may benefit the players. One of those advancements allows a player to keep to two warriors.
Example: The total number of war symbols is 6. Angelika, Marion and Tanja placed a total of 8 workers on the slots of the war box, thus winning the war. As Marion and Tanja both placed 3 workers, Tanja wins the tie and places one of her discs on the slot for 4 victory points, while Marion places her disc on the slot for 2 victory points.
II. Natural Disasters
Six of the route tiles show a natural disaster symbol, two of each type. If this is the case on the actual route tiles, one or more natural disasters occur now.
There are three types of natural disasters:
- Wildfire: In turn order, each player loses one factory level at one of their factories, so they must remove a disc of their choice. If a player removes the single disc of a level-I-factory, that factory tile stays on the board and any player may rebuild that factory in a later round when choosing the Develop Factory action. If there is a commodity on a level-1-factory, it is removed. If there are two (or three) commodities of different players on a level-II-factory (or level-III-factory), the owner of the factory chooses the commodity to be removed. If a player has no factories they do not lose anything.
- Flood: Each player loses one boat transportation step (they move their cylinder one space to the left on the boat track). A player never loses a boat transport capacity if their cylinder is at the leftmost space of the track.
- Drought: In turn order, each player loses one goods cube in each province where they have at least one cube on fields or crop tiles. If a player has no goods cubes in a province they do not lose anything in this province.
Note: If the same disaster symbol appears twice in the same round only one takes effect, so players do not double the penalties from that disaster.
III. Routes
After the natural disasters resolution, the players take any route tile whose demand they fulfilled earlier in this round (as ascertained by the color of the wooden piece(s) on the tile).
The players should keep tiles won face down. At the end of the game they will be worth the indicated victory points.
Place any remaining face up tiles to the discard pile, and turn the topmost tiles of the stacks face up, so that the strength of the enemy and natural disasters (if any) are known.
Note: Tiles on the discard pile are always face down.
If a player has one or more route tiles face up in front of them (gained as an "emperor undertakings" reward or an advancement bonus), they may now fulfill it completely or in part. Remember that maybe the rural market and some advancements can be helpful. For details, please check chapter Advancements, and chapter The Rural Market.
To fulfill the demand of these personal route tiles, the players do not need boat transportation capacity. If the demand of the route tile is completely fulfilled, the player turns the tile face down. At the end of the game it will be worth the indicated victory points.
IV. Emperor Undertakings
Now each player with workers on one of the emperor undertaking spaces receives a reward.
- Palace Keeping: A player with one worker on one of these four spaces gets 2 copper coins.
- Road Construction: A player with two workers on this space gets 3 copper coins and selects a single route tile from the discard pile. The war and natural disaster symbols on this tile have no effect. The player keeps the route tile face up in front of them. During the Routes Resolution phase of the following rounds, the player can fulfill the demand of the tile. In the rare case, if there is no route tile to claim, the player instead gains 2 copper coins for a total of 5 copper coins.
- Water Canal: A player with three workers on this space gets 4 copper coins and moves one step to the right on the boat track.
- Bridge Building: A player with four workers on this space gets 1 silver bag and upgrades a factory for free.
V. Taxation
Each player adds the value of their action cards played during this round plus the number of discs on their tax space on their player board:
- If the sum is between 3 and 5 no payment is required.
- If the sum is between 6 and 8 the player immediately must pay 1 silver bag.
- If the sum is between 9 and 12 the player immediately must pay 2 silver bags.
If the player has no silver bags, they must exchange copper coins into silver bags at the current copper to silver exchange rate. For details, please check chapter Determine Copper/Silver Ratio.
They also can sell goods to the rural market, to get more copper coins.
If a player still cannot pay all silver bags, first they pay their silver bags. Then, they must pay their remaining copper coins to the bank, and must take a misfortune tile for each missing silver bag.
Example: Marion must pay 2 silver bags. As she only has 1 silver bag, 5 coins, and a single wheat cube on one of the provinces, she cannot pay the full taxes. The actual exchange rate for silver bags is 10 coins, so even selling the wheat to the rural market does not give her enough coins to get a second silver bag. Thus, Marion pays the silver bag, the 5 copper coins, and must take 1 misfortune tile.
E. Late Shipping
The captains on their ships do not want to miss the good winds home, so they need the final supplies to start the long voyage.
Now, instead of the printed demand on the ship tiles, any ship at the coast accepts rice, fruit, cabbage, wheat, potatoes or corn.
In turn order each player has one opportunity to supply a pair of two different food goods from their fields, and places them on an empty slot of a ship. Remember that maybe the rural market and some advancements can be helpful. For details, please check chapter Advancements, and chapter The Rural Market.
The normal boat transportation rules are in effect, each cube moved from the fields or crop tiles needs one boat transportation per border crossed. Cubes bought at the rural market or coming from the use of advancements do not need boat transportation.
A player receives one silver bag for the pair of two different goods shipped.
The player places the pair of different goods on any empty space of a ship.
If, doing so, a ship is "full" and sets sail any commodities on it are delivered as during the Supply Ship action. Goods cubes are returned to the players.
Immediately replace a ship that sets sail by the top ship from the same row. The players can supply this new ship, too.
Diplomacy advancements: Remember that at this point an emissary can travel together with commodities or goods of the same color.
F. Administration: Determine Copper/Silver Ratio, Manage Workers, Prepare New Round
Governing China results in a lot of administrative things, too.
This phase is performed in several steps in order as described below.
I. Determine Copper/Silver Ratio
The players determine the copper/silver ratio by rolling the die. If the number rolled is higher than the number of the current space, the die is moved to the space to its right. If the number rolled is lower than the number of the current space, the die is moved to the space to its left. If the number rolled is equal to the number of the current space, the die stays in its space. Afterwards, it shows once more the number of that space.
The current copper/silver ratio is shown above the die. The number shows the amount of copper coins, which a player gets/must give for 1 silver bag.
Example: The actual exchange rate is 10 copper coins for 1 silver bag (and vice versa).
Note: A player may only convert copper to silver or vice versa when they need to pay something, plus during final scoring. A player may not exchange more than they actually need.
II. Manage Workers
First, the players take all their workers from the action boxes (except the ones that are placed sideways on the war box).
Then, they move all workers from the top space of the migration area to the bottom space. All these workers at the bottom space remain on the game board.
III. Prepare the New Round
Each player empties their tax space and places these discs back into their personal supply.
Each player discards the action cards played this round and draws a new group of three action cards.
The players move their cylinders on the turn order box from the bonus spaces to the provisional turn order track below the bonus track, keeping the order of the cylinders.
The Rural Market
Rural markets are everywhere in Chinese provinces. These markets always offer a chance to earn some coins by selling food, or offer such food to hungry people.
Selling to the rural market or purchasing from it is not an action and can be made at any time in the player's turn.
Selling to the rural market or purchasing from it does not need any boat transportation capacity.
A player can only sell food (but not rice!) at the rural market, i.e., wheat, cabbage, fruit, corn, and potato. Each goods cube earns the seller 1 copper coin.
The player may sell or may buy as many food goods cubes as they wish (and can afford…) in a player turn. However, a player may not sell and buy from the rural market in the same player turn. A player cannot buy and sell at the same occasion, whether it is their player turn or a play in the round-end phases.
Once on the rural market, a goods cube represents any food goods (but not rice!). Buying a single good costs 2 copper coins.
During the late shipping phase of the round – in turn order – each player may buy cubes from the rural market.
A player may want to buy a goods cube from the rural market to feed workers, supply ships or fulfill route tiles.
When a player buys a goods cube, they must use it immediately, otherwise they may not buy it.
A player can only buy a good from the rural market, if there is a cube there. The players must take the purchased cube out of the market box.
Game End and Final Scoring
The game finishes at the end of the fourth round.
Before final scoring, the players have an exceptional opportunity to sell goods and fulfill route tiles. In turn order and following the rules the players can both:
- sell food goods to the rural market to get copper coins, which they may convert into silver bags and
- fulfill the demand of remaining open route tiles face up in front of them (if they took one more route tile when resolving the Emperor Undertakings). Remember that maybe the rural market and some advancements can be helpful. For details, please check chapter Advancements, and chapter The Rural Market.
Now the players take the scoring pad and add the victory points for each player:
- Yangtze boats: 2 victory points for each boat transportation level.
- Factories: 2 victory points for each level-I-factory, 3 victory points for each level-II-factory, 5 victory points for each level-III-factory.
- Commodities: Add all victory points of commodities delivered to the East and European markets. Important Note: Each emissary at that markets earns 1 additional victory point; each commodity produced but still in a factory or on a ship at the coast earns 1 victory point.
- War glories: Add the victory points of the discs on the war glories area.
- Routes: Add the victory points of the route tiles won. An unfulfilled tile earns no points.
- Advancements: For each of the four sections the players determine which player has the most discs. That player earns 2 points. In case of a tie all tied players earn 1 point each.
- Yínzi: The players convert their copper coins into silver bags at the current ratio. Afterwards a player gains 1 victory point for each silver bag.
- Misfortune tiles: A player loses 2 victory points per misfortune tile.
The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, among the tied players the one wins that is earliest in the turn order of the last round.
Credits
Authors: José Carlos Rôla and Luis Costa
Development: Uli Blennemann, Henning Kröpke
Graphics: Harald Lieske
Layout: Vladimír Krist, Filip Stránský
Copyright 2019 Spielworxx, Nielande 12, D-48727 Billerbeck