Central Market
Central Market Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Components
- 78 cards:
- 50 product cards
- 15 action cards
- 5 income cards (1 in each colour)
- 1 scoring board
- 5 colour reminder cards (1 in each colour)
- 1 Bidding card
- 1 starting player card
- 1 Round card
- 21 tokens:
- 4 player tokens in 5 colours
- 1 black Round token
- Game rules
Use the scoring board instead of the scoring card!
Not suitable for children under 3 years, because small parts could be swallowed.
2. Game Idea
You are a vender at the Central Market. Your job is to sell various products and earn some money for yourself. However, you are not alone – rival venders are willing to do just about anything to lure customers to their own stall and away from yours. Competition is fierce as the venders try to outwit each other by offering the best price – and not without the use of some dirty tricks!
3. Aim of the Game
In each round players put out various vegetables that they have to sell and haggle over who will offer the best price. The player that offers the best price gains preference in customer demand and is the first to sell as much of the product as he or she wishes. But there is a limit on how many kilograms of each product can be sold, so you have to make sure you offer a good price in order to be able to sell anything at all and make a profit. Profit is transferred into victory points at the end of each round. At the end of the game the player with the most victory points is the winner.
4. Game Setup
- Shuffle all the product cards and place them in a pile face down – this will be the draw pile.
- Each player takes three action cards – one from each kind, and also a colour reminder card, an income card and all tokens in his or her chosen colour.
- Place the Bidding card, Scoring board and Round card in the middle of the table.
- Put the black Round token on the number 1 of the Round card.
- Each player puts one of his tokens next to the Bidding card (bidding token), two more on both the numbers 0 on his income card (income tokens) and the last one – next to the Scoring board card (victory point token).
- The player who last shopped at a market becomes the starting player and receives the starting player card.
5. Playing the Game
The game consists of 7 rounds. Each round consists of 3 phases – the Product Delivery phase, the Selling phase and the End of Round phase.
Phase 1 – Product Delivery
In the Product Delivery phase each player is dealt 4 product cards from the draw pile (deal cards one by one). Players keep the cards in their hands hidden from other players. If at any time during the Product Delivery phase the draw pile becomes exhausted, players immediately shuffle the discard pile to make a new draw pile after which the dealing of product cards continues until each player has received exactly 4 cards.
Phase 2 – Selling
Selling is the main phase of the game in which each player tries to sell their products in order to receive the biggest profit.
The starting player starts the phase. He chooses one product from his hand, states that he wants to sell it (he doesn't play the card yet!) and makes his starting bid, placing his bidding token on the number (price) for which he would like to sell.
Now every other player in clockwise order has to carry out one of two following actions:
- pass – if a player doesn't have the offered product or he doesn't want to sell it this round, he can pass. Passing means that he won't be able to sell this product this round, but he may try to sell other products;
- bid – if a player wants to sell this product, he has to make an initial bid, which is lower than the current lowest bid. A player may bid only if he has the product in his hands (see the card "Cheat" for exception). To bid, a player has to put his token on a lower number (price) than the current lowest bid.
As soon as everyone has either passed or placed their initial bids, the players who are bidding to sell continue by either lowering their initial bids or by staying on their current bid. Each next bid must be lower than the current lowest bid. The players who pass or stay with their previous bids, cannot join the current bidding. Bidding continues clockwise until no player wants to lower their bid anymore.
Now it's time to cash in and the selling of the product begins!
Starting with the player, who made the lowest bid, players play cards with the offered product out of their hands and receive income as follows: amount of kilograms played multiplied by the amount bid. However, there are limits as to how many kilograms of each product can be sold in each round and limits on the amount of produce each player can sell in a round! (see rules on "Limits" below)
Players keep the played cards in front of them until the end of the round to keep track of how many kilograms they have sold.
Once the first player has played the product cards to be sold, he immediately adjusts his income tokens on his income card so that they show the amount he has earned. If this is not the first product a player has sold this round, he adds the amount earned to the amount he already has and adjusts the tokens so that they show the total amount.
Example: John plays two cards with total amount of 6 kilograms. He had bid price 4, so he receives 6 x 4 = 24 income points. He immediately moves his income tokens so that one on of them is located on number 20 and the other – on 4.
In the rare case when a player exceeds 99 income points in one round, start counting again from 0 and at the end of the round just add 99 to the number shown on his income card.
Next the player who made the second lowest bid, repeats the selling action – plays product cards to be sold and receives income – and so on until every player that made a bid for the product has sold at least 1 kilogram. If a player has made a bid and it is his turn to sell the product, he must not refuse to do so – he has to play at least one card from his hand with this product (see "Limits" for exception).
As soon as each player has sold the product and received income, everyone removes their bidding token from the bidding card and the player, who is next in clockwise order from the starting player, has to offer another product and make his starting bid for it. Bidding proceeds as described above – again each player has the possibility to either pass or bid lower. When the bidding is over, each player sells product and receives income and so on. Thus the selling phase continues until each player has offered one product. Important! In each round each product can be offered and sold only once! If any player offers, for example, carrots, no other player in this round may offer carrots.
Exceptions – if a player has either reached his limit (see "Player's Limit") or doesn't have product in his hand that he can legally offer, he skips his turn and doesn't offer any product this round, and it is then the next player's turn to offer a product.
When the last product in the round has been sold and income has been received, the Selling phase ends and the game continues with the End of the Round phase.
6. Limits
Selling products in a market is never easy – both the demand of customers and permitted weight of products are limited. In the game this is represented with two limits:
Product Limit
In each round each product can be sold in total quantity of only 10 kilograms. As soon as this limit is reached, no other player may sell this product even if he had made a bid (this is the only case in which you are allowed not to sell a product after bidding for it). Thus you should keep in mind, that if you leave your bid too high you might not be able to sell the product during the given round. Important! If the situation occurs, in which a player has to sell a product, but he has only cards with higher value than the product limit allows, he still has to play the card, but he can sell only as many kilograms as there are left in the product limit – all kilograms above this are considered lost.
Player's Limit
In each round players also have their individual limit of 10 kilograms. This means that each player may only sell a total amount of 10 kilograms of all products combined. As soon as a player reaches this limit, he cannot participate further in the offering or bidding of any other products in this round. Important! A player's limit is affected only by the sold amount of products – those that are lost (due to product limits) are ignored.
If it is a player's turn to offer a product, but he has reached his player's limit for this round, he skips his turn and it is then the next player's turn (in this case the number of products offered in the round will be less than the number of players). If the situation occurs, in which a player has to sell a product, but he has only cards with a higher value than his remaining player's limit permits, he still has to play the card, but he can sell only as many kilograms as there are left in the player's limit – all kilograms above this are again considered to be lost.
Example: the bidding for the first offer in a round – carrots – has ended and Anna made the lowest bid. She sells 6 kg carrots and receives income. John had the next lowest bid and he decides to sell 3 kg. This means that the next player – Madara – can only sell 1 kg of carrots due to the product limit. Madara plays a card with value 3, however she receives income only for 1 kg, while the other two are lost. If any other player would have bid for carrots in this round, they would not be able to sell anything, as the limit has been exhausted. Thus the selling of carrots ends and it is the next player's turn to offer a different product.
For the remainder of this round Anna has only 4 kg of player's limit left (as she spent 6 to sell the carrots), John has 7 kg, Madara – 9 kg (as she sold only 1 kg), while any other players still have 10 kg remaining on their own player's limit.
Phase 3 – End of the Round
In the End of the Round phase players perform the following actions:
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Set aside one product card for the final round – each player may, if he wishes, take no more than one card from his hand and set it aside, face down. This card will be used in the final round of the game. Players keep all other cards in their hands for following rounds.
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Players put all the played cards in a discard pile. If at any time the draw pile runs out, shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile (see "Phase 1 – Product delivery").
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Victory points – players receive victory points according to their earned income in the round. The player, who has earned the most income points, receives as many victory points as there are players. The player with the second highest income point amount receives one victory point less and so on (for example, in a four player game, the winner of the round (with most income points) receives 4 victory points, the runner up gets 3 victory points, third place – 2 and last place – 1 victory point). In the very rare case, when a player has earned no income points in a round, he does not receive any victory points. If two or more players are tied for a place in the round, each of them score only as many points as they would if they were the last from the tied players (for example, if the second and third place are tied for income points, they both receive victory points as if they were third). Each player moves his victory point marker forward as many spaces as he earned victory points.
After victory points are scored, all players move their income tokens back to number 0 on their income card and in the next round they start earning their income anew.
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Determine the starting player – the starting player in the next round is the player who has the fewest victory points. If several players are tied, then the starting player is the tied player, who is closest to the starting player of the current round in clockwise order. This player receives the Starting Player card and starts the next round.
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Move the Round token – the Round token is moved to the next number.
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All limits are renewed – in the next round each product can again be sold in quantity of 10 kg, as well as each player has their own 10 kg round limit.
7. The Final Round
In a three or four player game, after the end of the sixth round there is one final round to play. At the start of the seventh and final round there is no product delivery and players do not receive cards from the draw pile. Instead, players discard all the cards left in their hand and pick up the product cards they put away at the end of each previous round. The final round is played only with the cards previously set aside for the final round (see point 1 in "End of the Round" phase). The rest of the round is played by the base rules.
8. Game End
The game ends after the final round, when everybody has received victory points. The player, who has earned the most victory points, becomes the winner. If several players are tied, then the player with the most unused action cards left becomes the winner. If they are still tied, they share the victory.
Five Player Game
If there are 5 players playing the game, only five rounds are played. The fifth round is played the same as the final round in a 3 or 4 player game (see "Final Round" above) – players use the cards they set aside during the first four rounds, and the game ends after the fifth round.
Three Player Game
If you want to make the game more competitive for a three player game, remove any one kind of product from the game and play with only 40 product cards. All other rules remain the same.
9. Action Cards
During the game each player has three action cards, which he can play only once – as soon as an action card has been used it is discarded from play. Action cards are not held in hand – instead as long as they have not been used they stay in front of the player and can be used in any round including the final round. Each card has its own rules as to how and when it can be played:
Cheat
Some vendors can be cunning and deceiving: while you listen to their stories they might put some carrots in your bag, though you clearly asked for tomatoes. While a player has the Cheat card, he may participate in bidding even if he doesn't have the product that is offered. However, as soon as it is the player's turn to sell the product, he has to play the Cheat card to show that he in fact doesn't have this product. At this point, the player who cheated may play any other product from his hand and receive income according to his bid. This product still affects both the player's limit and the product limit (keep in mind that it affects the limit of the initial product that had been offered during bidding, not the one that it really is!). If it so happens that it is the player's turn to sell a product, but the product limit is already exhausted, then he does not have to play the Cheat card – this time his deceiving intentions go unnoticed.
Tourists
Burdened with cameras and shopping bags they have heard that you can find almost anything at the Central Market. However, they still want to get it as cheap as possible. As soon as players have completed selling a product, and received income, any player may play the Tourists card (if there are several such players, they carry out this action in clockwise order). When a player plays the Tourists card, he makes an additional sale of the product, which had just been sold, overriding both limits. The only limitation is the amount of product cards he has in his hand at that time. Nevertheless, the player has to make the sale for the lowest bid that was made (it doesn't matter, which player made that bid). The player immediately receives income points and puts the played cards in the discard pile as they do not affect any limits. Important! A player may only play the Tourists card if he himself made a bid for this product and managed to sell at least 1 kg! You can't play "Rot" card (see below) on products that are being sold with the Tourists card.
Rot
Competition is fierce in the market. Seeing that some other vender is about to make a good sale you can't help yourself from playing out a dirty trick on him... Immediately after any other player has played the cards with the product he wants to sell, you may play the Rot card on him. If the Rot card is played on a player's products, half of the amount (rounded down if the amount is an odd number) is considered to be rotten and he receives income only for the good half. If a player has played products in an amount that exceeds his limit or the product limit, the Rot card affects only the amount that the player can legally sell (and not the value of the card). If there is more than one player who wants to play the Rot card, they must play this action in clockwise order, starting from the player, who is closest to the seller on whom the Rot card is being played. If multiple rot cards are played at one time, each next card only reduces the amount left after the previous Rot card (not half of the starting amount). You cannot play the Rot card on products sold with the Tourists card.