City Council Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Game Goal
• Main Game Concepts
  • Favors & Scoring
  • Buildings, Zones & Electricity
  • Blue & White Collar Residents
  • Lifestyle, Crime, Pollution & Unemployment
  • Council Meetings & City Committees
• Game Play
  • Setup
  • Turn Sequence
  • 1. Committees Phase
  • 2. Council Meeting Phase
    • City Planning
    • Voting
    • Vote Counting
    • Plan Execution
    • Constructing a Building
    • Building Placement
    • Upgrading a Building
    • Relocating a Building
    • Selling a Building
• Game End
  • Victory
  • Defeat
• Special Rules for 2 Players
• Advanced Game Variations
  • Sandbox Mode
  • Hard Mode
• Errata
• General Favor Card Examples
  • Mob Hangouts
  • Correctional Activity
  • Increase Goods Reserve
  • White Collar Unemployment
  • Pollution Prevention
  • Improve Residential Facilities
• List of Buildings
• Building Upgrade Chart

Components

• Game board
• 52 Favor cards
• 44 Building tiles
• 28 People tokens:
  • 15 Blue Collar workers
  • 7 White Collar workers
  • 6 Black Delegates
• 33 Colored cubes:
  • 7 Black cubes (Pollution)
  • 7 Red cubes (Crime)
  • 8 Green cubes (Goods)
  • 11 Pink cubes (Community)
• 15 Round player tokens (3 in each color)
• 5 Cardboard player markers (1 in each color)
• Key to the City
• 7 Money tokens
• 6 Power tokens
• 2 Relocation tokens
• 2 Sale tokens
• 1 Rulebook

Game Goal

As a member of the council, you must strive to gain the favor of the different political groups who rule the streets of your city.

Representatives of these groups will ask you for small favors which you will have to complete in return for their political support (represented by Victory Points, or VPs). The player with the most VPs at the end of the game becomes the first mayor and earns the Key to the City. However, if you and the others don't keep up the good work, the city will fail, the government will take over and all players lose.

Main Game Concepts

Favors & Scoring

As the city grows larger, more and more political interest groups will try to impose their will on the city by knocking on your office door and offering you their support in return for performing a certain task. If you accomplish it you gain their favor and receive VPs toward your election as mayor.

There are two types of Favor cards: General Favor cards and Building cards.

Building cards are scored at the end of a turn. Points can be earned for any building that is currently built in the city (regardless of when it was built). Each building that matches the card earns a certain number of points, as indicated by the Victory Point indicator next to the building's name.

General Favor cards can be scored whenever the condition is met. Each condition earns a certain number of points, as indicated by the Victory Point indicator next to the condition.

Important! You cannot score Favor cards in the first turn of the game.

When scoring a Favor card, the player places the card in the middle of the play area and moves his player token up on the Scoring Track according to the total number of VPs earned by the card.

Each Favor card can only be scored once, according to the conditions that are met at the moment of playing it. A General Favor card that has been scored is placed face down in the Favor cards discard pile. A Building card that has been scored is removed from play.

Each Favor card is divided into several levels of difficulty: buildings/conditions marked in white are relatively easy to accomplish, light gray conditions indicate slightly more complex tasks, and dark gray conditions are the hardest to accomplish. White conditions are generally available during the starting phase of the game, whereas dark gray conditions can usually only be scored during more advanced city building phases.

Conditions whose Victory Point indicator is marked with a plus (+) sign are bonus conditions. They can only be scored in addition to at least one of the basic conditions on the card.

Each player is dealt 2 Favor cards at the start of the game. Each turn, players will draw 2 cards from the Favors deck and choose one to keep and one to discard. If there are not enough cards to draw, shuffle the discard pile to form a new Favors deck. If there aren't enough cards to shuffle, the game ends at the end of the current turn.

At the end of every turn, each player must discard to a hand of 7. Players may also discard any number of cards even if they are within the hand limit.

Note: All Favor cards are kept secretly in your hand and only revealed upon scoring.

Buildings, Zones & Electricity

The city can grow only if the council decides to erect the right buildings and expand to new zones.

Buildings are constructed according to the council's decision. Each building has a certain size and construction cost.

There are 4 types of buildings:

• Residential (green)
• Industrial (yellow)
• Commercial (blue)
• Safety (red)

The first three types each have corresponding zones in which they should be constructed. For example, the blue zones on the game board are for commercial use, so all blue buildings can be constructed at normal cost in these zones. If players want to construct a green building in the blue zone, the cost increases (see page 8, "Constructing a building").

• Blue zone: Commercial
• Green zone: Residential
• Yellow zone: Industrial

Red buildings (Safety) can be constructed anywhere at normal cost.

In order to activate buildings in a zone, you need to supply the zone with one Power token and one Community token. Each time you place a Power token on a zone, you must decrease by one the Power Supply indicator on the board. The Power Supply is only increased if you generate new power (e.g., using a Power Plant building). If you run out of power, no more zones may be activated.

The city was founded with one Starting Zone donated by the government. This zone already has all the Power token and Community token it needs to operate and has no zoning restrictions. The Starting Zone comes with 3 pre-constructed buildings. These buildings can be upgraded as any other building (see page 9, "Upgrading a Building").

At the beginning of the game you must construct buildings in the Starting Zone. During this time you may only construct starting building tiles with a light-blue back and light title.

Once the Starting Zone is full, you may begin constructing in the 6 new zones. At this time you may start constructing advanced building tiles with a dark-blue back and dark title.

Blue & White Collar Residents

• The Blue Collar workforce can operate almost any aspect of the city. They are loyal to the city and constitute its backbone.
• The White Collar residents are more sophisticated and demand better jobs and lifestyles. They are less loyal and may leave the city on a whim, much more quickly than you think!

Lifestyle, Crime, Pollution & Unemployment

These are the indicators of the city's growth and strength.

• Community tokens represent the benefits the city has to offer its citizens.
• Crime tokens represent the criminal activity in the streets of the city.
• Pollution tokens represent the pollution level in the city.
• Goods tokens represent the resources the city contains.

All tokens available for use are placed on the corresponding monitoring sections on the board.

Note: The number of tokens and workers of each type is deliberately calculated and definitive.

Council Meetings & City Committees

The Council Meeting determines the outcome of each turn. During the meeting, each player suggests his way to make the city a better place by nominating a plan for the council to approve.

Each player also has a black Delegate token which he can use to vote for any plan suggested in the Council Meeting (except his own).

This way only the best plans go from the drawing board to actually being realized in the city streets.

There are five committees and each player serves as chairman of one of the committees. Each committee grants its chairman a special ability, and it also determines the turn order.

The five City Committees are the Transport Committee (1st), Treasury Committee (2nd), Election Committee (3rd), Union Committee (4th) and Executive Committee (5th). Each committee has two spots, A and B.

Note: You can be the chairman of the same committee for up to 2 turns in a row.

Game Play

Setup

• Give each player 1 cardboard marker and 3 round tokens in a matching color, as well as 1 black Delegate token.
• Shuffle the deck of Favor cards, deal each player 2 cards and place the remaining deck face down beside the main board.
• Put one of each player's round tokens on "0" in the Scoring Track.
• Set the starting City Budget for a 2-3 player game to $7 by placing a Money token on the 7 spot on the City Budget track. In a 4 player game the starting budget is $8 and in a 5 player game it is $9.
• Place 3 Blue Collar workers on the Workforce Housing section for a 2-3 player game. Place 4 Blue Collar workers for a 4 player game and 5 Blue Collar workers for a 5 player game.
• Place 1 White Collar worker on the Workforce Housing section for a 2-3 player game and 2 White Collar workers for a 4-5 player game.
• Place 1 Goods token on the Goods Depot section.
• All remaining tokens (Money, Power, Goods, Pollution, Community, Crime, and Blue and White Collar workers) are placed in a reserve pile next to the board.
• Divide the building tiles into 2 groups: starting buildings (light blue back and light title) and advanced buildings (dark blue back and dark title).
• Divide the advanced buildings according to shape, forming 4 stacks: small, medium, large and L-shaped, and place them face down next to the board.
• Then create the engineer's planning area: take the starting buildings and divide them according to shape to create 2 stacks, small and medium. Shuffle the tiles in each stack and place them face up underneath the matching advanced building stacks. Draw 3 cards from each starting building stack and place them underneath the corresponding stacks, as shown in the setup example. All 8 buildings that are facing up are available for construction.
• Also place 1 Money token and 1 Relocation token in the planning area.

Turn Sequence

Each turn is played according to the following sequence:

1. Committees phase
2. Council Meeting phase
3. Production phase
4. Monitoring phase
5. Turn end and replenishing

1. Committees Phase

This phase determines the turn order for this turn. In the first turn, randomly place one of the round player tokens in the Election Committee position. The player who got this position chooses the rest of the players' starting committees.

• Executive Committee: Gains one extra Delegate for this turn.
• Union Committee: Can keep both Favor cards during the drawing phase.
• Election Committee: Decides on the changes to the city committees, according to the restrictions described below. Also has the deciding vote in case of a tie in the Council Meeting phase, and is responsible for executing the approved plans.
  • Note: This role must always be filled, as it is the only one that can apply changes to the committees.
• Treasury Committee: Can embezzle $1 from the City Budget, if possible. Takes 1 Money token and decreases by $1 the City Budget track.
• Transport Committee: Plays first in this turn and can activate two buildings in the production phase.

In a regular round (all except the first round), the chairman of the Election Committee starts by deciding who gets to keep his current committee role and who must switch with another player or move to an unoccupied committee.

He must act according to the following restrictions:

• At least one change must be made every turn.
• The least amount of changes should be made. I.e., unless the first rule requires it or there are no empty spots (in a 5-player game), only one player should move.
• No player can be the chairman of the same committee for more than two consecutive turns (including the Election Committee). Each player counts the number of turns they are in the committee by placing their round player token on the appropriate circle in the committee. After the first turn in a committee, place your token on position A. After the second turn in the same committee, move the token from A to B. On the following turn, all players in the B spot must be moved to a new committee.

Example 1: The Election Committee player (purple) must make one change. The orange player has played two turns as the Treasury Committee chairman so he will be the one to move. The least disruptive change is to move him to the Transport Committee so that no one else has to switch before they have spent two turns in their role.

In the following turn, there are 3 players who must move. He moves the gray player to the Treasury Committee and switches himself with the yellow player on the Union Committee. Since there is no reason to move the orange player, he ends his turn with the minimal number of changes.

After the players have their new positions, each player performs his role in order, starting with the Transport Committee.

On the Union Committee's turn, all players draw 2 cards from the Favor deck and may keep one of them. Only the Union chairman gets to keep both cards.

2. Council Meeting Phase

City Planning

Each player, in turn order, pitches his plan to the other council members to get their approval.

A plan must be one of the following:

• Construct a Building: A player may choose any building from the city engineer's planning area (page 4, "Setup"), as long as there is enough money in the City Budget to build it (building costs, page 19). The player places a round player token on the chosen building to mark his suggestion. The same building tile cannot be chosen twice in the same turn.
• Relocate a Building: A player may place a Relocation token along with his round player token on a building he wishes to relocate.
• Sell a Building: A player may place a Sale token along with his round player token on a building he wishes to sell to the private sector.

Voting

Once all plans are on the council table, it's time to vote!

In the first round of voting, each player, in turn order, places his Delegate on another player's plan.

In the second round of voting, in turn order, any player who has private funds (funds that were embezzled from the City Budget) may place one or more Money tokens on any construction plan. These private funds serve to reduce the building cost taken from the City Budget in the event that this plan is executed, and also serve as a tie-breaker when deciding which plans to execute. Each Money token placed on a building decreases its cost by $1.

After all private funds are allocated, the Executive Committee chairman may place his second Delegate on any plan he wishes.

Note: You may not place more embezzled funds than the building cost.

Example 2: In this example, all players have offered a construction plan for voting.

Each player puts his Delegate on his preferred plan based on what he thinks will most help the city, the current City Budget and his personal goals.

The 2nd voting round starts with a four-way tie. The orange player decides to use private funds for the Hospital building and places 1 Money token on it. The purple player, who has the 2nd Delegate, places it on the Bank. Voting has ended and the highest voted plan is the Bank. The 3 remaining plans are tied at 2nd since they each have 1 Delegate. The first tie-breaker is the private funds so the Hospital is chosen. Then the Election Committee chairman (gray) picks the Coal Power Plant building.

Vote Counting

Each Delegate counts as one vote. The 2 plans with the most votes in a 2-3 player game (3 plans in a 4-5 player game) are submitted for execution.

In the event of a tie, private funds serve as a tie-breaker. The more private funds a building has, the higher it is ranked. If there is still a tie, the Election Committee chairman decides which of the tied plans to execute.

Plan Execution

The Election Committee chairman is responsible for executing the plans. He decides on the execution order. He must strive to execute all approved plans (cannot "sabotage" plans by intentionally increasing building costs). In spite of this, it is still possible that some plans cannot be executed because there is not enough budget.

Constructing a Building

Each building has a construction cost and a type (designated zone).

The cost for constructing a building on its designated zone is indicated in the upper left corner of the building tile. Constructing it on a different zone costs $1 more for each building block placed on a non-matching zone. Only the Starting Zone entails no additional cost for any type of building.

The building tile shows its name (on a light title for starting buildings), its building cost in the upper left corner, its designated zone in the upper right corner, and an action box at the bottom. A marker on the tile shows whether it can be upgraded from another building or to another building.

Building Placement

In the first turns of the game you should strive to fill the Starting Zone but also to make the most of its benefits. You may construct a building that overlaps with both the Starting Zone and another zone.

Example 3: In this example the School building tile overlaps with both the Starting Zone and the residential zone. This does not entail any additional cost as any building can be placed on the Starting Zone and the School is a residential building.

In the advanced planning phase you may construct a building anywhere on the board, as long as there is space in the city. Buildings may be rotated in any direction and can overlap with more than one zone. However, you must pay an additional $1 for each building block that is not located in the building's designated zone. Safety buildings do not have zone restrictions and can be built on any zone with no extra construction cost.

Example 4: Constructing the Bank (a commercial building) such that it overlaps with both the Starting Zone and the residential zone will cost $3 instead of $2, as 1 block of the building is located on a non-matching zone, which entails an extra $1 zonal charge.

Upgrading a Building

When executing a plan that was chosen in the Council Meeting, the Election Committee chairman may choose to upgrade an existing building instead of building it from scratch (see page 20, "Building upgrade chart," for the list of possible building upgrades). This is done by paying the cost difference between the original building and the upgraded building. Then, he replaces (or covers, in case of a pre-constructed building) the old building tile with the new one. The old building tile is discarded.

Example 5: In this example the chosen plan was to build a Restaurant. The Election Committee chairman chooses to maximize the City Budget by upgrading the Diner. This upgrade will cost $1 ($2 – $1). The Restaurant must completely cover the Diner tile.

Relocating a Building

Simply move the building to its new location. The relocation does not have a cost. However, if the new location does not match the building's designated zone, you must pay (from the City Budget) $1 for each block that overlaps with the non-matching zone.

Selling a Building

When selling a building, the City Budget receives the building's cost minus $1. If a building costs $1, then the city will get no money for this sale. After the building is sold, it is discarded.

Example 6: Two plans are left to execute: selling the Clinic and relocating the Factory. The Election Committee chairman decides to sell the Clinic first (A), even though there is no gain to the City Budget, to vacate room for a new building. He then uses the vacant space to relocate the Factory (B).

After all possible plans are executed, the Council Meeting phase is over.

3. Production Phase

This phase is composed of 3 sub-phases:

• A. Buildings/zones activation
• B. Unemployment report
• C. Action resolution

A. Buildings/Zones Activation

In this phase, in turn order, council members can activate either a zone or a building tile.

Note: The Transport Committee chairman can activate two buildings/zones (or one of each) on his turn.

Activating a Zone

A player can activate an entire zone by placing a Power token (if there is enough power in the supply) and a Community token (from the Community Level section) on the chosen zone. This enables activating any building that is built on or overlaps with the zone. The Starting Zone does not need to be activated in order to activate buildings on it.

Note: A specific zone can only be activated once per turn, and this enables activating buildings on it during the whole turn.

Activating a Building

Only building tiles that are built on or overlap with an activated zone (either the Starting Zone or a zone that was previously activated in this turn) can be activated. Power plants are an exception to this rule: they do not need to be in an activated zone to be able to produce.

Activating a building means performing one or more of the actions listed on the bottom of the tile. Objects to the left of the arrow represent the cost of performing the action, which must be placed on the tile during the activation sub-phase. Objects on the right side represent the results of the action, which are received in the resolution sub-phase. Activating a building may require a combination of Blue Collar and White Collar workers and other tokens from the city's available resources (e.g., City Budget, Goods Depot, etc.).

You must supply all requirements on the left side of the action in order to fulfill it and consequently produce the results of the action.

Some buildings have more than one action box. This means that a player activating the building can choose whether to perform one or more of the actions.

Once a building has been activated by one player, even if not all action boxes have been performed, no other player can activate the same building in this turn.

The slash (/) symbol between 2 action boxes means that you can activate only one of the two actions. The symbols marked with an X (a Pollution token, a Crime token, or a Blue Collar worker) mean that the token is taken from the corresponding city section and moved to the reserve pile.

Example 7:

A. The orange player wants to activate the School. He can do it without activating the residential zone as it overlaps with the Starting Zone.

B. The gray player wants to activate the Courthouse, but it cannot be activated as it is located on the un-activated residential zone. He decides to activate residential zone 2 so other players can activate the Courthouse.

C. The purple player can now activate the Courthouse as the residential zone is currently activated.

Specialized Workers

Workers that appear in a separate box next to the action boxes and are indicated by a gear symbol are needed in order to activate those actions, in addition to the cost that appears on the left side of the action. One Specialized worker can enable performing two actions on the same tile.

The Specialized White Collar "pilot" in the box on the left corner is needed to fly passengers in both action boxes on the Airport tile. Only one pilot is needed to perform one or both of the flight actions. In addition to the pilot, each box must be filled with all necessary workers: one White Collar flying "first class" and one Blue Collar flying "economy" per box.

The specialized Blue Collar "driver" on the left of the Distribution Depot tile is needed to perform a trading action: either sell 1 Goods token for $2 or spend $2 to buy 1 Goods token.

A Pollution token symbol on the right of a building tile indicates that each time the building is activated, a Pollution token should be added from the reserve pile to the Pollution Level section on the board.

The Playground is a special building: once it is built, a Community token from the reserve pile is placed on it, and will remain there as long as the Playground is built. This token should be counted in the monitoring phase and can also be used to activate the zone it is built on.

If the token is used to activate the zone, it is placed on the zone and not counted in the monitoring phase of that turn.

At the end of the turn it is returned to the Playground tile.

The prison-bars symbol represents an incarcerated population. When activating a correctional building (Police Station, FBI Branch or Courthouse), a Crime token is taken from the Criminal Activity section and placed on the left side of the action box. When resolving the action, if the Prison building is not built, the Crime token is put back in the reserve pile. If the Prison is built, the Crime token will instead be placed on the left side of the first (left) action box on the Prison tile, awaiting activation. When the first action box on the Prison tile is activated, the Crime token moves to the second action box. Once the second action box is activated, the Crime token is returned to the reserve pile. If the Prison tile is not activated, the Crime token will remain there until it is.

Overcrowded prison: If at any time a Crime token should be placed on an action box that is taken, the previous Crime token is "pushed" to the right. I.e., if the first spot is taken, it is pushed to the second spot, and if the second spot is taken it is pushed out to the reserve pile.

Crime tokens that are placed on the Prison tile are not counted in the monitoring phase.

Note: The Prison building can only be activated via one of the correctional buildings. You may not place a Crime token directly on it.

An X symbol on the right side of an action box means lowering the criminal activity level in the city. When resolving the action, a Crime token is taken from the Criminal Activity section and put back in the reserve pile.

The FBI Branch can do both the prison-bars action and the X action. The Police Station can do either the prison-bars action or the X action (the Election Committee chairman decides which one).

After all workers are placed on job locations, the city runs out of tokens or there are no vacant jobs left to fill, this sub-phase is over.

Note: In the activation phase you are only setting up the requirements for the actions. Resolving the actions will take place in sub-phase C, "Action resolution."

Example 8:

A. The Transport Committee chairman (orange player) activates two buildings on his turn. He activates the Bank by placing a Blue Collar worker from the Workforce Housing section and a Money token from the reserve pile, and decreases the City Budget by $1. He also activates the Firm by placing a White Collar worker from the Workforce Housing section.

B. Next, the gray player activates residential zone 1 by placing 1 Community token from the Community Level section and 1 Power token, and decreases the Power Supply track by 1.

C. The purple player activates the School by placing 3 Blue Collar workers along with a Money token, and decreases the City Budget by $1.

D. The gold player activates the Manufacturing Plant by placing 2 Blue Collar workers and the last Goods token from the Goods Depot section.

A. After all players have activated a building, the turn returns to the orange player. He chooses to activate the Courthouse by placing a White Collar specialized worker on the left side and a Blue Collar worker and a Community token on the 2nd action box. He also activates the Diner.

B. The gray player activates the last building: the Clinic. Since no more workers can be placed and there are no Goods tokens available to activate the Shop, the activation sub-phase is over.

B. Unemployment Report

This phase indicates how many workers will arrive to or leave the city, and how unemployment affects crime and community in the city.

After activating as many buildings as possible by supplying them with workers and resources, you must check how many workers remain in the Workforce Housing section and find the corresponding spots on the unemployment monitor.

Place the remaining White Collar workers on the correct spot on the left side of the track, and the remaining Blue Collar workers on the right side. Then perform the addition/subtraction of workers and tokens as indicated on the bottom of the track for the white side and above the track for the blue side.

• Crime tokens are added to the Criminal Activity section.
• Community tokens are removed from the Community Level section to the reserve pile.

Example 9: Two Blue Collar workers are left unemployed, so players must add 1 Crime token to the Criminal Activity section. There are no unemployed White Collar workers, so a new White Collar worker migrates to the city. It is taken from the reserve pile and placed on the Workforce Housing section.

C. Action Resolution

Finally, players resolve all actions, building after building, updating the Power Supply and City Budget tracks accordingly and adjusting the amount of tokens in the city's monitoring sections.

Workers that have finished their work are returned to the Workforce Housing section, including specialized workers. All resources used to perform actions are returned to the reserve pile.

Basic Actions

• Clinic: The Clinic building requires 1 White Collar worker ("doctor") to activate (in sub-phase A) so it will produce a new Community token (in sub-phase C). The worker is returned to the available workforce and the Community token is placed on the Community Level section.
• Diner: A Blue Collar worker placed to activate the Diner (in sub-phase A) will produce $1 (in sub-phase C). The worker is returned to the available workforce and the City Budget track is increased by $1.
• Gallery: To activate the Gallery building, you will need a White Collar worker and a Goods token (taken from the Goods Depot section) so it can produce $1 and a Community token. The Goods token is consumed and returned to the reserve pile.
• Solar Power Plant: One Blue Collar worker and one White Collar worker placed on the Solar Power Plant will produce 2 Power tokens. The workers are returned to the available workforce and the city's Power Supply track is increased by 2.

Educating Workers

Workers that appear on the left side of an action box and are marked with an X (a Blue Collar worker with an X) will actually become the worker or other token appearing on the right side of the action when it is resolved. They are not returned to the Workforce Housing, and instead are discarded to the reserve pile.

In the School, two Blue Collar workers are transformed into 1 educated White Collar worker. When resolving this action, the 2 Blue Collar workers are returned to the reserve pile and a White Collar worker from the reserve pile is added to the Workforce Housing section of the board.

Example 10: The Diner produces $1, the Firm and Bank produce $2 each and the Courthouse produces $3, pushing the City Budget track to the maximum $11! (The city cannot uphold a budget of more than $11.) The Clinic produces 1 Community token. The Manufacturing Plant produces 3 Goods tokens and 1 Pollution token. The School educated 2 Blue Collar workers, who are returned to the reserve pile, and instead a new White Collar worker is placed on the Workforce Housing section.

All new tokens are placed on the corresponding sections of the board.

4. Monitoring Phase

In this phase you will find out how the council performed and how its actions affected the city during this turn.

The Lifestyle Indicators monitor reflects the lifestyle status of your city: if you achieve a good balance between Community, Crime and Pollution, your city will attract new residents (workers). If not, it may cause residents to leave the city.

Subtract the number of Community tokens from the number of Crime tokens plus Pollution tokens on the corresponding sections of the board, to find the correct spot on the indicator, and then add or subtract workers as indicated above the monitor.

Example 11: When checking the Lifestyle Indicators, the players count 1 Community token versus 1 Crime token and 1 Pollution token. The result is +1 on the red/black side. As a result, the city loses 1 Community token. It is removed from the Community Level section and returned to the reserve pile.

5. Turn End and Replenishing

After all phases are finished, prepare for the next turn by completing the following:

• All unconstructed buildings on the table are discarded to a discard pile corresponding to the building's size. Draw new buildings from the stacks to fill the planning area. Reshuffle discard piles if needed.

Note: The buildings on top of the stacks are not discarded and will be used when drawing tiles for the next turn.

• Players can score as many Favor cards as they can (if at least one condition on the cards has been met). Building Favor cards can only be scored in this phase.

Reminder: No scoring occurs in the first turn.

• Each player discards down to a hand of 7 Favor cards, to a central discard pile. Players may discard even if they have less than 7 cards.

• If the Starting Zone is full, starting from the next turn you can build advanced buildings and expand into new zones. To create the advanced city engineer's planning area, combine the starting building stacks with the corresponding advanced building stacks (according to size). Shuffle all 4 building stacks and place them face up. Draw 3 small buildings, 3 medium buildings, 2 large buildings and 1 L-shaped building and place them underneath their corresponding stacks. All 13 buildings that are facing up are available for building. Also add one more Money token and one more Relocation token to the planning area (there are now 2 of each).

  Once the advanced city planning phase is triggered (after filling the Starting Zone), you will stay in this state until the end of the game, even if empty blocks are created in the Starting Zone.

• Remove any Power token and Community token used to activate zones to the reserve pile.

• Each player moves his token to the A or B spot on his committee accordingly.

Game End

Victory

If any player reaches 11 VPs, the game ends at the end of that turn. The turn continues to allow other players the opportunity to score final cards.

Reminder: If at any stage the Favor cards run out, the game ends at the end of that turn.

The player with the most VPs at the end of the last turn wins and is declared the new mayor.

In case of a tie, the player with the fewest cards in his hand wins the game.

If there is still a tie, the player with the fewest cards and the most embezzled private funds wins.

Defeat

If at any time during the game all Crime tokens and/or Pollution tokens are placed on their corresponding section of the board, the government decides to disband this corrupt city council, the game instantly ends and all players lose.

Special Rules for 2 Players

In the 2-player game there is a third, "puppet" council member, called Prof. Phil.

Deal Prof. Phil 2 Favor cards, face down, and assign him tokens as a normal player.

In the Committees phase, Prof. Phil is assigned a committee just like a normal player, except that he cannot be the chairman of the Election Committee. He must always use the benefits of his committee, as a normal player.

On the Union Committee's turn, Prof. Phil is dealt 2 Favor cards face-down, and the players choose one to discard (without looking at the cards).

At the beginning of the planning phase, the players randomly reveal one of Prof. Phil's Favor cards and he will propose a plan based on the card. If one of the buildings on his card matches a building in the city engineer's planning area, he will offer it as his suggested plan. If more than one building matches, the one placed higher in the planning area is chosen. If no building matches the card (or if it is a General Favor card with no building conditions), his suggested plan will be the largest available building (starting with L-shaped). If several buildings of the same size exist, the one placed higher in the planning area is chosen.

The same criteria used for choosing Prof. Phil's proposed plan are used to choose his vote in the voting phase, except that he cannot vote for his own plan. Prof. Phil will always use private funds on his plan if he has any.

The rest of the rules apply to the 2-player game as normal.

Advanced Game Variations

Sandbox Mode

These rules are recommended after players are more familiar with the main game mechanics, perhaps after 2 or 3 games. Sandbox mode can take ~30 minutes per player.

• Play without the fixed buildings in the Starting Zone. Cover the fixed buildings by placing the Airport tile face down over them.
• The City Council starts with $11 in the City Budget.
• The game end trigger and winning condition is 13 VPs.
• The game continues even if there are no cards left to be dealt.
• All buildings and zones are available at the start of the game.

Hard Mode

Play the Sandbox mode but with only $9 City Budget. You can try to lower it even further as you and your fellow councilmen become better city planners.

Errata

1. On the back side of the box, the components' list states that there are 42 building tiles when there are actually 44.
2. In the image on the back side of the box, the game board appears having a typo in the word budget, however on the actual board it is written correctly.

General Favor Card Examples

Mob Hangouts

1. At least 3 Crime tokens on the Criminal Activity section of the board.
2. In addition to the 3 Crime tokens, have the Restaurant activated.
3. In addition to the 3 Crime tokens, have the Pawn Shop activated.

Correctional Activity

1. At least one Crime token on the Prison tile.
2. Two Crime tokens on the Prison tile.
3. More Crime tokens on the Prison tile than on the Criminal Activity section of the board.

Increase Goods Reserve

1. Finish a turn with more Goods tokens on the Goods Depot section of the board than money in the City Budget track.
2. Finish a turn with twice as many Goods tokens on the Goods Depot section of the board than money in the City Budget track.

White Collar Unemployment

1. No White Collar workers on the Workforce Housing section of the board.
2. No White Collar workers on the Workforce Housing section and at least 5 White Collar workers on "jobs" on building tiles.
3. No White Collar workers on the Workforce Housing section and all 7 White Collar workers on "jobs" on building tiles.

Pollution Prevention

1. A full Industrial (yellow) zone (the zone has no free blocks on it) and less than 3 Pollution tokens on the Pollution Level section of the board.
2. A full Industrial (yellow) zone and no Pollution tokens on the Pollution Level section.
3. Two full Industrial (yellow) zones and less than 3 Pollution tokens on the Pollution Level section.

Improve Residential Facilities

1. At least 2 Residential (green) buildings should be activated (not necessarily by the player playing this card, but by anyone in the city).
2. At least 3 Residential (green) buildings should be activated.
3. At least 4 Residential (green) buildings should be activated.

List of Buildings

Names shaded gray in the printed table are advanced buildings (dark title); unshaded names are starting buildings (light title).

In the Action column, the items before an arrow are required and the items after it are produced. A "$" with no number is $1. A worker marked with a gear is a Specialized worker. A worker marked with an X is an educated worker (see "Educating Workers"). A token marked with an X is removed from its section and returned to the reserve pile. The incarcerated population symbol (prison bars) is described under "Specialized Workers" in the Production Phase. "⇄" is a trading action. "/" means either/or.

#	Name	Size	Cost	Type	Action
1	Clinic	1	$1	Residential	White Collar → Community token
2	Diner	1	$1	Commercial	Blue Collar → $1
3	Dump	1	$1	Industrial	Blue Collar → remove 1 Pollution token
4	Firm	1	$1	Commercial	White Collar → $2

Building Upgrade Chart

The chart shows which buildings may upgrade to which, grouped by zone color. Arrows point from the building being upgraded to its upgrade.

Commercial (blue):

• Diner → Restaurant
• Gallery → Museum
• Bank → Federal Reserve
• Shop → Department Store → Shopping Mall

Residential (green):

• Playground → Park → Zoo
• School → University

Industrial (yellow):

• Dump → Recycling Center
• Workshop → Factory or Manufacturing Plant → Bio-Tech Factory
• Distribution Depot → Train Station

Note: The Zoo's tile in this chart shows a residential (green) designated-zone icon, while the List of Buildings above lists the Zoo as Commercial. Both are transcribed as printed.