Corruption Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Set-Up
• Rounds
  • Phase I: Invitation to Bid
  • Phase II: Corruption
  • Phase III: Awarding Contracts
• Victory
• Variants
  • Down the River
  • Free Stud
  • Closed
  • Little Black Book

Game Components

• This rules sheet
• 70 Player cards (which consist of Character and Bribe cards)
• 24 Contract cards
• 3 Government cards
• 14 Phone Cards, for use in the "Little Black Book" variant

Set-Up

1. Each player takes a set of ten player cards of the same color. Each set of ten contains six bribes (worth $1,000, $2,000, $4,000, $6,000, $8,000, and $10,000), a district attorney, two reporters, and one hit man.
2. The three government cards (City Hall, the County Seat, and the Capitol) are placed face up in the center of the table.
3. The 24 contract cards are shuffled and the deck is put on the table, face down.
4. The first round then begins.

Rounds

Each round is composed of three phases: Invitation to Bid, Corruption, and Awarding Contracts. A complete game consists of four rounds.

Phase I: Invitation to Bid

(Figure 1: Invitation to Bid: three government bodies with two contracts each.)

Deal the top six contract cards face up, side by side, placing two under each government body card. The contracts represent construction jobs that will be awarded at the discretion of the government bodies.

If some contracts were not awarded in the previous round, they remain in play. Either way, six new contracts are added as usual, two for each government body.

Phase II: Corruption

(Figure 2: Four players have finished the first Corruption round. Two players have played their first cards on Swiss bank accounts.)

The leading player (the one whose contracts have the greatest total value when the round begins) plays first. In the case of tie, the one with the greatest number of contracts goes first. During the first round the first player should be chosen randomly. Since it is usually a handicap to go first, players may agree that the player with the best knowledge of the game should go first in the first round.

Each player, going clockwise in turn, places a single one of her player cards under one contract or in a single government body's Swiss bank account. This continues until each player has placed six cards.

Player cards played on contracts are placed vertically. Those played on Swiss bank accounts are placed horizontally. District attorneys, reporters, and hit men can only be played on contracts.

During the first round, each player's first card is played face up, the rest face down. During the second round, the first two cards are played face up, and so on. The only exception is that cards played on Swiss bank accounts are always played face down.

Phase III: Awarding Contracts

(Figures 3 & 4)

Once each player has played his six cards, all of the cards on the table are revealed.

The following general rules are observed in the awarding contracts phase:

• For each step, action proceeds in the order cards were played during the corruption segment of the round. For this reason, it is important to make sure the cards stay arranged properly during play. Further (although it will rarely matter) cards should always be resolved from left to right.
• Character cards are removed from the game after the round in which they are played. Bribe cards, on the other hand, are returned to the players so as to be available for the next round.

Use the following sequence to award the contract cards:

1. Players who have played bribes on Swiss bank accounts assign them to specific contracts. A bribe played on a Swiss bank account can be assigned to any contract controlled by the same government body. However, the values of bribes played on Swiss bank accounts are divided by two, as printed sideways on the bribe cards.

   Example: The first bribe played in the city government's Swiss bank account is Player 1's $8,000 bribe. Since it is on a Swiss bank account, it is only worth $4,000 in this situation (fig. 3). Player 1 can choose to allocate it to the Monument contract or the Opera House contract. Knowing that the Opera House is going to be delayed due to the district attorney's intervention, the player's best choice is to put it on the Monument (fig. 4).

2. Hit men are resolved. Any player who played a hit man must kill a district attorney, reporter, or other hit man that has been played on the same contract. A hit man with no legal targets is simply removed from play.

   Example: No hit man has been played.

3. Contracts with one or more district attorneys are cancelled. These contracts remain on the table and will be open for new bribes in the next round of the game. Return the now-irrelevant bribe cards to their owners.

   Example: The Opera House contract is cancelled for now and deferred to the next round.

4. Each reporter enables his owner to remove one bribe of his choice from the contract where the reporter was played. Bribes from Swiss bank accounts, which remain horizontal when allocated to contracts, cannot be cancelled.

   Example: Two journalists have been played on the Airport contract. Player 3 removes Player 1's $10,000 bribe (going first because he played his reporter first), then Player 4 removes Player 3's $10,000 bribe.

5. Award each contract to the player with the highest sum of bribes for that contract. The cards that were played on the Swiss bank accounts (which should still be horizontal), remember, are only half value — the number printed sideways. In the case of a tie, no one wins the contract; it is deferred to the next round and the bribes on it are returned to their players.

   Example: The Monument goes to Player 1, the Opera House is won by no one, the Stadium is taken by Player 3, the Subway goes to Player 4, and the University and Airport are won by Player 2. Player 2 will be the leading player in the second round.

(Figure 3: All cards turned face up. Figure 4 / contracts awarded.)

Victory

After the fourth round, the player whose contracts have the greatest total value is the winner.

Variants

Down the River

During the first round, the third card is played face up (rather than the first). During the second round, the third and fourth cards are played face up. During the third round, the second, third, and fourth cards are played face up. During the last round, the second, third, fourth, and fifth cards are played face up.

Free Stud

At the beginning of each round, the player who goes first decides how many cards, and which ones, are played face up.

Closed

All cards are played face down, and the game is played without the character cards.

Little Black Book

Each player gets two Little Black Book cards at the start of the game. (These cards are not used in the regular game or the other variants.) At any time during the game, a player can use a little black book card to look at a face down card that has been played on a contract. Little black book cards cannot be used to look at cards played on Swiss bank accounts.