Cities USA Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• 2-Player Variant
• Components
• Setup
• Start of a Round
  • Advanced 2 Player Variant
• Gameplay
  • A. Scoring Card Row
  • B. City Tile Row
    • Bridges
    • City Tile Spaces
  • C. Feature Tile Row
    • Building Feature tiles
  • D. Building Pieces Row
    • Skyscraper Tops
  • City Achievement Boards
    • Terminology For Achievements And Scoring Cards
• End of a Round
• End of the Game and Scoring
  • Buildings
  • City Achievements
  • Scoring Cards
  • Penalties
    • Construction Sites
    • Dead-End Streets
  • Feature Tiles
    • Water Feature Tiles
    • Park Feature Tiles
    • Food Truck
  • Scoring Example
• Solo Rules
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
  • Achievements
  • Game End and Scoring

Overview

The game is played over 8 rounds (or 4 rounds in a 2-player game). Each round, players use their workers to collect 1 scoring card, 1 city tile, 1-2 feature tiles, and 2-4 building pieces.

City tiles are made up of park, water, and city spaces and may include streets. Building pieces are placed on city spaces of matching colors to form buildings, which can be 1-4 stories high. Scoring cards and the city achievement boards provide objectives for players to complete to score points at game end.

Whoever scores the most Victory Points (VPs) has built the most fantastic city and wins the game!

2-Player Variant

For a longer 2-player game, play 7 rounds instead and build a city of 3x5 tiles.

Components

• 1 game board
• 32 city tiles
• 4 starting tiles (with colorless back)
• 4 city achievement boards (double-sided)
• 48 feature tiles
• 32 scoring cards
• 4 player aid cards
• 8 skyscraper tops (2 each in black, blue, white and yellow)
• 100 building pieces (25 each in black, blue, white and yellow)
• 4 scoring tokens (1 in 4 player colors)
• 32 worker pawns and 12 achievement rings (8 + 3 each in 4 player colors)
• 12 bridges
• 1 star token
• 8 cards for solo play
• 1 cloth bag

Setup

If you want to play solo, check out the solo setup and game rules under Solo Rules below.

1. Place the game board in the center of the table.
2. Each player chooses a player color and takes the 4 corresponding worker pawns (or 8 in a 2-player game), 3 achievement rings, 1 scoring token, and 1 player aid card.
3. Give each player 3 bridges.
4. Randomly place a skyscraper top on each of the 8 spaces on the game board marked with the skyscraper icon.
5. Choose any city achievement board and place it above the game board. Return the unused achievement boards to the box. In 2-player games, the middle space for each achievement is not used, so you should cover it with 1 achievement ring of an unused color.
6. Shuffle all the scoring cards together and place them in a face-down draw pile in the designated space on the game board. Draw 3 cards and reveal them on the board. Draw a fourth card and leave it face down over the space with a question mark.
7. Shuffle all the city tiles together and place them in a face-down draw pile in the designated space on the game board (if you wish, you can store some tiles off the board until needed). Reveal 3 of them on the indicated spaces and leave a fourth one face down on the space with a question mark.
8. Place the feature tiles face-down, mix them, arrange them into stacks, and place them below the city tiles, in the designated space on the game board (if you wish, you can store some tiles off the board until needed). Reveal 5 of them on the indicated spaces and leave a sixth one face down on the space with a question mark.
9. Put all the building pieces in the bag. Then, randomly draw ten of them, filling all the spaces at the bottom of the board, except for the 2 spaces with a question mark.
10. Randomly choose a start player, who takes the star token and places it in front of them.
11. Lay out the 4 starting tiles in view of all players. Starting with the player to the right of the start player and going counter-clockwise, each player chooses a starting city tile and places it in front of them. This is the start of their city. Return any remaining starting tiles to the box.

Start of a Round

A. Draw 4 scoring cards and place 3 face-up and the last 1 face-down in the top row of the game board. B. Draw 4 city tiles and place 3 face-up and the last 1 face-down in the second row of the game board. C. Draw 6 feature tiles and place 5 of them face-up and place the last 1 face-down in the third row of the game board. D. Create sets of building pieces by drawing pieces from the bag and place 1 in each of the first ten squares in the last row of the game board. Do not put building pieces on the spaces with a question mark.

Advanced 2 Player Variant

For a bigger challenge in a 2-player game, play with this variant:

You may only place your second worker in a row if you already have 1 worker in each of the 4 rows.

Gameplay

Play begins with the player holding the star token and moves clockwise. Before playing their first turn, the start player returns the star token to its place on the board.

Each turn, the active player takes an item (or group of items) from the board and then places 1 of their workers in the designated worker space next to or under the item(s) taken.

In a 3-4 player game, each player may place only 1 worker per row each round. In a 2-player game, they must place 2 workers per row over the course of the round.

Workers may be placed in any order (e.g., you may place your first worker in the 3rd row). Each row provides a different resource to be used in the game.

When a player takes a face-down item, it is turned face-up. The players may not look at a face-down item until it is taken. If a player chooses the space with 2 question marks, they draw 2 random building pieces from the bag.

In this example, you take the city tile and then place your worker on the worker space under the chosen city tile. All the items (or sets of items) on the board have a designated worker space next to or under the items.

A. Scoring Card Row

The player takes the scoring card, places their worker on the designated worker space, and places the card face-up on the table beside their city.

B. City Tile Row

The player takes the city tile and places their worker on the designated worker space (as in the lower left image).

Next, the player places the city tile face-up into their city. It must be placed fully adjacent to an existing tile, though it may be rotated to any orientation. The tiles have 3 types of spaces: city (grey), park (green), and water (blue).

Any type of space may be placed next to any other type. A player's city may never exceed 3 tiles in length and 3 tiles in width (if playing the longer 2-player variant, the city may never exceed 3x5 tiles).

Bridges

After placing a city tile you may place 1 bridge in your city, and sometimes you will be forced to place bridges.

A bridge must be placed between 2 spaces where there isn't already a street, with one end of the bridge at the center of the city tile. Bridges count as streets. Once a bridge is placed, it may not be moved.

First, check to see if the city tile you placed created a dead end. A dead end is when the end of a street or bridge meets another city tile where there is no street or bridge. If you did make a dead end, you must place a bridge to fix it.

The left city tile placed creates a dead end. A bridge must be placed between the 2 park spaces to fix it.

On the rare occasion that your city tile placement creates multiple dead ends, you must fix them all. If you don't have enough bridges for all of them you can choose which ones to fix. Any remaining dead ends will score negative VPs at the end of the game.

Next, you may voluntarily place 1 bridge on any city tile following the above placement rules. However, you may not place a bridge in a way that creates a dead end.

The left bridge is illegal because it creates a dead end. The right bridge is illegal because it is not touching the center of a city tile.

City Tile Spaces

A space is one of the 4 quadrants of a city tile. All spaces with a grey background are called city spaces. There are 3 types of city spaces: Building spaces, Construction Sites and Food Trucks.

Building spaces — Building pieces must be placed on top of spaces showing their same color: black, blue, yellow or white.

Construction Sites — Building pieces may not be placed on these spaces, but Building Feature tiles can be. Players will lose VPs at the end of the game for uncovered Construction Sites.

Food Truck — Building pieces may not be placed on these spaces, but Food Truck and Building Feature tiles can be. At the end of the game, they are worth 2 VPs if left uncovered.

Water and park spaces — You can place park and water feature tiles on these spaces.

C. Feature Tile Row

The player takes the feature tile(s), places their worker on the designated worker space, and then places each feature tile face-up on an empty space (no building or other feature tile) of the same type in their city. Only 1 feature tile may be placed per space. If the player cannot legally place a tile or chooses not to place it, it is removed from the game.

Feature tiles with a blue background may only be placed on water spaces.

Feature tiles with a green background may only be placed on park spaces.

Food Trucks and Building Feature tiles are placed on Construction Sites, Food Trucks or on building spaces with no building pieces on them.

Building Feature tiles

Purple feature tiles change the color of any building space to a wild space, so that a building piece of any color may be placed on that space. Once a piece is placed, only pieces of the same color may be placed on top of it, as usual.

Note: Building Feature tiles may be placed on Construction Sites and Food Trucks. This is the only way a building piece can be put over a Construction Site or Food Truck.

See these Feature tiles details and how they score under Feature Tiles below.

D. Building Pieces Row

The player takes the building pieces from 1 space or, in the case of the last space, draws 2 random pieces from the bag, and then places their worker on the designated worker space. Each building piece may only be placed on a building space of the matching color and/or may only be stacked on top of a piece of the same color (up to 4 pieces high). If the player cannot legally place a piece or chooses not to place it, it is removed from the game.

Skyscraper Tops

After taking and placing the building pieces, the player may also take 1 or both of any skyscraper tops in the same space that held their chosen building pieces, but only if they have a 4-story building(s) matching the color of the skyscraper top(s). If taken, the player must then immediately place the top(s) on their 4-story stack to make a 5-story "skyscraper".

Brandon takes the 4 building pieces from the first space in the building pieces row. In that space, there is a yellow and a blue Skyscraper top. After placing the building pieces, he now has a black and a blue building that are 4 pieces high. He may now take the blue skyscraper top and add it to the stack of 4 blue pieces, making a blue skyscraper. To make a black skyscraper, on a future turn, he will need to choose building pieces from a space containing a black skyscraper top.

City Achievement Boards

At the end of the player's turn, they check to see if they have fulfilled any achievements listed on the city achievement board. If they have, they place 1 of their rings on the highest vacant number under that achievement. A player may claim multiple achievements on the same turn, but may only claim each achievement once per game.

Terminology For Achievements And Scoring Cards

• Adjacent means orthogonal not diagonal.
• Two spaces separated by a street are NOT adjacent.
• An area means a group of orthogonally connected spaces of the same type that are not separated by streets. Streets, in other words, separate areas.
• A neighborhood is a group of orthogonally connected spaces of the same or different types that are enclosed by streets and/or the edge of your city. A neighborhood is represented on the cards and city achievements as a dark grey rectangular border.
• Bridges are considered to be both bridges and streets.
• All number requirements are a minimum, not exact (unless stated).
• A Building Feature tile counts as an empty building space of any color for the purposes of achievements.
• If you claim an achievement but later in the game no longer meet its requirements, you do not remove your achievement ring from the board.

After checking for achievements, the player's turn is over and the player to their left takes their turn.

End of a Round

Once all the workers have been placed, the round is over. The player with the worker closest to the star space (the rightmost worker in the fourth row) takes the star token and becomes the first player for the next round.

Players then collect their workers. In a 3-player game, the remaining scoring card, city tile, feature tiles, and building pieces are removed from the game. Start a new round, unless the game end is reached.

End of the Game and Scoring

After the 8th round (or the 4th round in a 2-player game), the game is over. At this point, all players will have built a 3x3 grid of city tiles.

Each player places their scoring token near the scoring track. The players calculate their scores as follows and move their tokens on the track accordingly (see a scoring example below). If you score more than 50 VPs, begin a new lap of the score track starting at the 1 space and flipping your marker to its +50 side.

Buildings

Score 0/1/2/3/5 VPs for each building 1/2/3/4/5 stories high.

Height	1	2	3	4	5
VPs	0	1	2	3	5

City Achievements

Score the VPs listed under any achievement rings you placed on the city achievement board.

Brandon (pink) has completed two achievements in the city of Chicago, that score 9 VPs for him.

Scoring Cards

Score the VPs listed on each of your scoring cards whose requirements you have met. Each scoring card scores for every occurrence of the shown requirement. The same configuration of spaces or building pieces may be scored by multiple scoring cards.

Brandon (pink) has the following collection of cards which grants him 18 VPs: Corporate Towers (1 VP per blue building of any size, x2 = 6 VPs), Government Towers (1 VP per black building of any size, x2 = 6 VPs), Protected Areas (1 VP per neighborhood with no city spaces — water and park spaces only, x2 = 2 VPs), and Nature Trails (1 VP per neighborhood with at least 1 park and 1 water space, x2 = 4 VPs). See how his final game looks like in the back of the box to check how these cards score in each case.

Penalties

Lose VPs for Construction Sites and "dead-end" streets.

Construction Sites

Construction Sites	1	2	3	4+
Lost VPs	1	3	6	10

Dead-End Streets

Lose 3 VPs for each street or bridge that meets another city tile where it is not connected to another street or bridge.

Brandon has 1 visible Construction Site, so he loses 1 VP. There is also a path that runs into a park space, so there is another loss of 3 VPs. Brandon loses a total of 4 VPs.

Feature Tiles

Score VPs for feature tiles. Feature tiles score differently depending on the type:

Water Feature Tiles

Yacht — Score the VPs shown in the top left corner if the feature tile is in a water area exactly equal in size to the number on the bottom right (or, in the case of 4+, also greater than). Multiple Yachts in the same water area may score. (1 space: 2 VPs; 2-3 spaces: 2 VPs; 4+ spaces: 3 VPs)

Ferry and Beacon — Score 1 VP per Ferry tile and 1 VP per Beacon tile. If 1 Ferry tile and 1 Beacon tile are orthogonally adjacent to each other in the same water area, instead score 5 VPs for the pair. A tile may only be part of 1 scoring pair. (Each tile shows 1/5.)

Park Feature Tiles

Park Bench — Score the VPs shown in the top left corner if the feature tile is in a park area exactly equal in size to the number on the bottom right (or, in the case of 4+, also greater than). Multiple Park Benches in the same park area may score. (1 space: 2 VPs; 2-3 spaces: 2 VPs; 4+ spaces: 3 VPs)

Swing and Slide — Score 1 VP per Swing tile and 1 VP per Slide tile. If 1 Swing tile and 1 Slide tile are orthogonally adjacent to each other in the same park area, instead score 5 VPs for the pair. A tile may only be part of 1 scoring pair. (Each tile shows 1/5.)

Food Truck

Score 2 VPs per visible Food Truck space. This includes Food Trucks that are printed on the city tiles themselves as well as feature tiles.

The player with the most Victory Points (VPs) wins! In the case of a tie, from those who have tied, player with the most Victory Points from City achievements wins.

Scoring Example

This scoring example can be cross-referenced with the game example found on the back of the box. We have replicated the Seattle achievement tile below for an easier reference. The pink player scores 16 VPs for the height of their 10 buildings (from left to right and top to bottom: Black 1 VP, Yellow 5 VPs, Blue 2 VPs, Blue 2 VPs, White 0 VPs, Black 1 VP, Yellow 1 VP, Blue 2 VPs, White 0 VPs, Black 2 VPs). 6 VPs for the achievements obtained in Seattle, and 18 VPs for their 8 scoring cards. They lose 3 VPs for the two visible Construction Sites. They lose 3 VPs for the dead end on the top right corner of the city. Their feature tiles score as follows: 11 VPs for their Yachts and Park Benches; 6 VPs for the Ferries and Beacons, and 5 VPs for the Swing and the Slide adjacent to each other. Finally, they score 4 VPs for the two visible Food Trucks. In total, they have obtained 60 Victory Points.

Solo Rules

Follow the rules of the normal game, except for the changes described below. In the solo game, you will play against the Builders Guild of America (also called the "BGA"). Your goal is to complete at least 2 of the 3 achievements and earn the highest score you can.

Setup

Set up the game as normal, except use only 1 set of player components. Then, shuffle the 8 solo cards and place them in a face-down draw pile next to the board.

• Start of a round.
• Set up the board as if playing with 4 players.
• Shuffle the solo cards and create a face-down pile.

Gameplay

For the first round, you go first. On subsequent rounds, you go first only if you placed your worker in the space containing the star. Otherwise, the BGA goes first.

On your turn, it's a normal turn: Take an item (or group of items) and place a worker on the corresponding space. Add items to your city, as usual.

On the BGA's turn, flip a solo card and remove all the items it says to remove (i.e., wherever the card shows an X). If there is nothing to remove from a space, ignore it.

The BGA can never take the last item(s) in a row if you have not yet taken something from that row. So, in that case, leave the item(s).

Achievements

Your achievement scoring is based on how many city tiles you have placed when you complete the achievement:

• Your city has only 1 to 4 tiles: score the highest value.
• 5 to 7 tiles: score the middle value.
• 8 to 9 tiles: score the lowest value.

Brandon has scored Green Lake and only has 2 tiles in their city. Hence Brandon scores the highest reward (5VP) and places their scoring ring on that number. Then, in a future turn they can finish Space Needle but at that moment there are 6 city tiles so they will only get the middle reward, which is 4 VP.

Game End and Scoring

If you did not complete at least 2 achievements, you have failed as a city planner. If you did complete them, calculate your score as usual. Try to beat your highest score in future games!