Calimala Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • The Game Board, Action Tiles and Scoring Tiles plus Trade Houses
  • The Player Mats, Ships and Workshop Tiles
  • The Action Cards and Scoring Cards
  • The Wooden Cubes and Active Player Token
• Game Preparations
• Sequence of Play
  • Choosing an action space
  • The Actions in Detail
  • Activating an action space
  • Scoring Phases
  • The Scoring Categories in Detail
• Game End & Final Scoring
• An Extended Example of a Player Turn
• Credits

Components

Each copy of Calimala contains the following components:

• 1 game board
• 8 action tiles
• 15 scoring tiles
• 55 cards (45 action cards, 10 final scoring cards)
• 5 player mats
• 65 wooden discs (13 each in five player colors)
• 200 wooden cubes (40 each in five player colors)
• 15 wooden ships (3 each in five player colors)
• 15 wooden trade houses (3 each in five player colors)
• 10 workshop tiles
• 1 active player token
• 10 white wooden discs
• 5 "50" victory points tiles
• 2 rulebooks (English & German)

The Game Board, Action Tiles and Scoring Tiles plus Trade Houses

The game board contains four main areas plus a scoring track around it.

On the top left side of the board is the Palazzo Vecchio — the city council of Florence. It has 15 slots for the scoring tiles and four slots for artworks sponsored by the players. This area triggers the scoring phases and breaks any ties between the players.

On the bottom left of the board is the city grid with the 8 slots for the action tiles. Streets always "connect" two action slots, and each street contains a round action space where the players will place their wooden discs when taking actions.

On the top right side of the board are three buildings under construction showing slots for contributions: the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore with 15 slots, the church of San Miniato with 9 slots and the church of Santa Croce with 12 slots. Each building also has several slots for artwork (respectively five, three and four slots).

On the bottom right side of the board is a map with parts of Europe showing six cities: three trade cities with slots for trade houses (Troyes, Bruges and Hamburg) and three port cities (Barcelona, Lisbon and London). Each city has 12 slots for the delivery of cloth (cubes). The cities show simplified "city coat of arms". The historical color schemes have been slightly adjusted for a better visualization during play.

The Player Mats, Ships and Workshop Tiles

The player mats consist of four main areas:

• Workshops are in the top right. Each player starts with one workshop and can build up to two additional ones by placing the workshop tiles on the empty slots. Workshops produce cloth cubes and each one stores up to four cloth cubes.
• The port is in the center of the mat. Here the players may build ships.
• Three warehouses are at the bottom right, each can store one resource type (wood, bricks and marble). When acquiring these resources, cubes in the player's color are placed in an available slot of the corresponding warehouse. Each warehouse may hold a maximum of four cubes.
• On the left side of the mat, the player aid briefly lists the available types of action.

The Action Cards and Scoring Cards

The players will use action cards during the game in addition to the actions triggered on the city grid.

At the end of the game the players score additional points for the scoring cards.

The Wooden Cubes and Active Player Token

Besides ships and trade houses the players also have wooden cubes in their player colors. They use them to mark different resources and clothes of the warehouses and workshops on their player mats and the slots of the buildings and cities on the game board.

During the game, the player taking his turn always has the active player token, so players do not lose track of the player order when they carry out the scoring phases.

Game Preparations

A. The youngest player will be the starting player. He takes the active player token and places it in front of himself.

B. One player shuffles the 8 action tiles and places them randomly, face up, on the corresponding slots of the city grid.

First game: A player arranges the action tiles in the layout shown for the first game.

C. One player shuffles the 15 scoring tiles and places them randomly, face up, on the corresponding slots of the city council (Palazzo Vecchio). He starts to place them in the top row and in each row from left to right.

D. Each player takes a player mat and the following components in the player color of his choice: 40 cubes, 3 ships, 3 trade houses and 2 neutral workshop tiles. He places the "50" victory points tile next to the scoring track. Depending on the number of players, each player also takes:

• 3 players: 12 discs in the player color of his choice and 3 white discs
• 4 players: 10 discs in the player color of his choice and 2 white discs
• 5 players: 8 discs in the player color of his choice and 2 white discs

E. Each player places an additional of his colored discs on space "0" of the scoring track. The players put surplus discs back into the game box.

F. A player shuffles the scoring cards and deals them as follows:

• 3 players: Each player receives 3 cards, the remaining card is placed face up next to the board.
• 4 players: Each player receives 2 cards, one of the remaining cards is placed face up next to the board, the other is placed face down back into the game box.
• 5 players: Each player receives 2 cards. No card is placed face up next to the board.

Each player secretly picks (and keeps) one scoring card. Only these cards (and, with 3 or 4 players, the face up scoring card next to the board) will be scored at the end of the game for all players. The cards that have not been picked are placed back face down in the box, without being revealed.

G. The players place one copy each of the following 5 action cards face up on the table: Wood, Brick, Marble, Weave and Build. Each player, starting with the player sitting to the right of the starting player and continuing in counterclockwise order, takes one of these cards in his hand. Each player begins with one action card. The players shuffle the deck of remaining action cards (in games with less than 5 players including the not chosen action cards) and place it face down next to the game board.

Sequence of Play

Calimala is played in player turns in clockwise order.

The players take turns by choosing and activating different action spaces. Depending on the choice of the active player, the other players may activate the same actions, too. During the game player turns are interrupted by scoring phases. At that time the players receive victory points. The game ends with a final scoring after all players took the same number of turns.

Choosing an action space

In each player turn, the active player places one of his discs on an action space of the city grid, so that he is able to conduct the two "connected" adjacent actions. He may choose to place a colored disc or one of his white discs. If there are already one or more discs on the chosen action space, the active player places the new disc on top, forming a stack. A stack of discs may consist of a maximum of four discs (see Activating an action space).

The Actions in Detail

Both the actions on the city grid and the action cards offer the following nine actions:

Wood, Brick, Marble: The player receives one wood, one brick or one marble. The player places one cube in his color from his reserve on an empty slot of the corresponding warehouse on his player mat. Each cube in a warehouse is considered to be that matching resource. Only if all four slots of the matching warehouse are filled, a player instead draws an action card.

Weave: The player produces cloth in his workshops. The player places one of his cubes from his reserve on an empty slot of each of his workshops. The cubes are considered to be cloth. This means, if the player activates this action once and already built the second or third workshop, he receives two or even three cubes at the same time. Only if all slots in all workshops are filled, the player instead draws an action card.

Ship: The player ships cloth to the port cities. The player transports one cloth cube with each of his ships from his workshops to a port city — if that city has an empty slot. Thus, if the player activates this action once and already has two or three ships and enough cloth cubes in his workshops, he may decide to deliver cloth cubes with one, two or all three ships. For each ship, he may choose the same or a different city as destination. A player may decide to ship less cloth cubes than the possible maximum. Only if all slots in all three port cities are filled, or if the player does not have any cloth cubes and/or no ships, he instead draws an action card.

Build: The player either builds one ship, one trade house, or one workshop.

• To build a ship, he places two cubes from his wood warehouse back into his reserve. Then he places one of his ships on the port on his player mat.
• To build a trade house, the player places two cubes from his bricks warehouse back into his reserve. Then he places one of his wooden trade houses on an empty slot in one of the three trade cities. Each player may not have more than one trade house in a single trade city.
• To build a workshop, the player places one cube each from his wood and bricks warehouses back into his reserve. He takes one of his workshop tiles and places it on the leftmost empty slot of his player mat.

Only if a player cannot build any of these three items, either because he has already placed all his available tokens and tiles, or does not have the matching resources, he instead draws an action card.

Artwork: The player creates artwork for one of the four buildings. He moves one cube from his marble warehouse to an empty artwork slot next to one of the three buildings under construction or to the city council. Only if a player does not have any marble, or when all slots of all buildings are filled, he instead draws an action card.

Transport: The player transports cloth to the trade cities. The player transports one cloth cube from his workshops to each of his trade houses in the three trade cities, but at most one cube per trade house. Thus, if the player activates this action once and already has two or three trade houses and enough cloth cubes in his workshops, he may decide to deliver cloth cubes to one, two or all three trade cities. Only if all slots in all trade cities are filled, or if the player does not have cloth cubes and/or no trade houses, he instead draws an action card.

Contribute: The player contributes resources to the three buildings under construction: the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the church of San Miniato, and the church of Santa Croce. The player moves a cube of his choice from one of his warehouses to a matching empty slot at a resource row at one of the three buildings. Each building has slots for wood, bricks and marble. Only if all slots at all buildings are filled, or if the player has no matching resource cubes in his warehouses, he instead draws an action card.

Activating an action space

After placing the disc on the action space, the active player activates that space and the connected two actions. He has to conduct at least one of the two connected actions, if necessary by playing one or more additional action cards. (Therefore a player is not permitted to place a disc to draw two action cards.)

If he placed his disc on top of one or more discs a total of up to three discs of the stack are activated, from top to bottom:

• The active player carries out both actions. He may do this in the order of his choice.
• If the active player placed a white disc, he may carry out each of the two actions connected to that action space twice. The player may conduct these actions in any order of his choice: Either A, A, B, B, or A, B, A, B, or A, B, B, A etc.
• Afterwards, the player(s) owning the second and third activated colored disc from top to bottom may perform the two actions linked to the action space, too. Again, each player can choose the order of these two actions, when activating his disc. Other white discs in the stack are not activated.

Note: Colored discs, if played early in the game, will be activated up to three times and will generate up to six actions, either by using the action tiles, or by drawing action cards. White discs generate four actions right away, but are not reactivated later.

Drawing action cards:

• Only if a player cannot carry out an action at all, he draws an action card as compensation and takes it into his hand. If the players owning the second or third activated disc cannot perform both actions, they may draw 2 action cards.
• If a player voluntarily decides to skip an activated action, or carries out an action partially, he does not draw an action card. The players keep action cards hidden from the other players, only the number of action cards in their hands is public information.
• While carrying out the activated actions, a player may also play any number of action cards from his hand, either before or after each of the two actions. The player must be able to conduct this action at least partially. If he cannot conduct the action, he cannot play the card. The player cannot discard and replace an action card which he cannot use. Afterwards, he discards the played action cards onto a face up discard pile. If the players draw the last action card from the deck, they immediately reshuffle the discard pile and place it face down as the new action deck.

After activating up to three discs on the chosen action space the active player passes the active player token to the next player in clockwise order.

Exception: Player turns may be interrupted by a scoring phase, if temporarily there is a fourth disc at the bottom of the stack (see Scoring Phases).

Scoring Phases

There are 15 scoring phases in Calimala plus a final scoring round at the end of the game.

When there is a fourth disc at the bottom of the action stack, the player turn is interrupted by a scoring phase after activation of the three topmost discs. That fourth disc is not activated! Instead the owner of that disc moves it on one of the scoring tiles of the city council and triggers a scoring. The player's disc in the city council is considered to be a seat.

City council order: The players place their discs on the scoring tiles starting in the top row and in each row from left to right. The top-left tile is the first to be scored, the bottom right one the last.

If the fourth disc of the stack is white, the active player exchanges it with one of his discs from his reserve. He places his colored disc on the scoring tile and the white disc into his reserve. If he has already placed all his colored discs on action spaces, he instead takes one of his colored discs from any other action space and places it on the scoring tile. In that case, he places the white disc on top of that stack, so that the number of discs in that stack does not change.

Note: The order in which the scorings are triggered is very important. Players should keep an eye on the upcoming three or four scorings.

After finishing the scoring, the active player passes the active player token to the next player in clockwise order.

The Scoring Categories in Detail

For each scoring the players add up their cubes in the specific category.

• City: The players add up their cloth cubes delivered to the corresponding city.
• Building under construction: The players add up their number of contributed wood, brick, marble and artwork cubes in the corresponding building.
• Artwork: The players add up all their contributed artworks at all the four buildings (the three churches and the city council).
• Port Cities: The players add up all their cloth cubes delivered to the three port cities Barcelona, Lisbon and London.
• Trade Cities: The players add up all their cloth cubes delivered to the three trade cities Troyes, Bruges and Hamburg.
• Contribute: Depending on which category is scored, the players add up all their contributed cubes in that category at all three buildings under construction.

The first three players score the following victory points in a specific category:

• The player with the most cubes will gain 3 victory points.
• The player with the second most cubes will gain 2 victory points.
• The player in third place will gain 1 victory point.
• No points are scored for players that do not have any cubes in the scoring category.

In case of a tie, the tied players add up their seats and their contributed artworks in the city council:

• The tied player with the highest sum wins the tie.
• If two or more players have the same sum, the tied player with more seats wins the tie.
• If the number of seats is the same, the tied player who first gained that number of seats wins the tie.
• If the tied players do not have any seats, the tied player who contributed the first artwork wins the tie.
• If the tied players did not contribute any artwork, they evenly split the victory points (rounded down).

The players track their victory points by moving their discs on the scoring track around the game board. If a player has 50 or more victory points, he takes his "50" victory points tile and places it next to his player mat.

Game End & Final Scoring

The game ends when one of the following conditions occurs:

• The players have placed all action discs on the city grid, both their own colored discs and their white discs. In this case, the players score any remaining scoring tiles in the city council without getting additional seats.
• The players have triggered all 15 scoring tiles. In this case, they finish the current "player round" until each player has placed the same total number of discs. The players do not get additional seats in the city council. Therefore they remove the fourth discs in stacks of any activated action spaces from the game.

Afterwards, all players reveal their scoring cards and proceed with the corresponding scoring (with 3 or 4 players including the face up scoring card next to the board):

• Each scoring card either shows one of the six cities (Barcelona, Bruges, Hamburg, Lisbon, London, Troyes) or one of the four buildings (Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Croce, Santa Maria del Fiore, San Miniato).
• The players add up all their cubes in the corresponding area. For the Palazzo Vecchio scoring, each player adds their seats and the contributed artwork cubes.
  • The player with the most cubes gains 5 victory points.
  • The player with the second most cubes gains 3 victory points.
  • The player with the third most cubes gains 1 victory point.
• All ties are resolved as described in the Scoring Phases chapter.

After all scoring cards are resolved, the player with the most points wins the game! In case of a tie, the player with more seats and contributed artworks in the city council is the winner.

An Extended Example of a Player Turn

Choosing and activating an action space. Marion begins her turn by placing one of her blue discs on top of the stack on the action space connected to the Artwork and Ship action. Marion has one cloth cube in each of her two workshops, two marble cubes in the warehouse and two ships in her port. She has an artwork action card and a wood action card in her hand.

First, Marion conducts the Artwork action. She takes one marble cube from her warehouse and moves it to the matching row at Santa Croce. Afterwards, Marion plays the Artwork action card from her hand and moves the second marble cube to Santa Croce, too. Both Santa Croce and all artworks will be scored later during the game.

Finally, Marion conducts the Ship action. With two ships and two cloth cubes she may do up to two deliveries to any port cities. She decides to only deliver one cloth cube to Lisbon, so that there are now one yellow, two blue and two red cloth cubes.

Now, Angelika activates her red disc in the stack. She has a workshop, two ships in the port, one marble and one stone cube in her warehouses, a Build action card and a trade house in Troyes. First, Angelika conducts the Artwork action and moves a marble cube from her warehouse to San Miniato. Angelika does not have any cloth cubes in her workshop, so she cannot conduct the Ship action. Instead she draws an action card and gets a Wood action. Angelika immediately plays this Wood action card and now has a wood and stone cube in her warehouses. She plays her Build action card and places both cubes back into her reserve to build a workshop.

Finally, Tanja activates her disc in the stack. She has no marble or cloth cubes and cannot conduct both actions. Instead, she draws two action cards, which she saves for a later turn.

Scoring phase. There are four discs in the stack on the action space. Thus, the players interrupt the player turn for a scoring phase, after activating the top three discs of the stack. There is a white disc at the bottom of the stack. White discs may never be transferred to the city council. Therefore Marion exchanges that disc for one of the blue discs from her reserve and places it on the scoring tile for Lisbon.

Now, the players score Lisbon! Angelika and Marion both delivered two cloth cubes to Lisbon, Tanja delivered one cloth cube. Marion has more seats in the city council, so she wins the scoring and receives 3 victory points, while Angelika receives 2 and Tanja 1 victory point. All players adjust their points with their discs on the scoring track.

Credits

• Author: Fabio Lopiano
• Development: Henning Kröpke, Uli Blennemann
• Graphics: Harald Lieske
• Layout: Filip Stránský

Copyright 2017 ADC Blackfire Entertainment GmbH, Weidenweg 69, D-47059 Duisburg.