Der Wanderzirkus Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Idea and Goal
• Game Material
  • Overview of Effect Symbols
  • Overview of Purchase Costs
• Setup
• Course of Play
  • 1. Travel
  • 2. Give a Show
    • Preparation
    • Announcement
    • The Show
  • 3. Round Scoring
    • Scoring Conditions of the Artists
    • Example Scoring
  • 4. Spend Coins
• End of the Game and Scoring
• Helping Luck Along
  • Swap Token
  • Pause Card
• The Pro Mode: Region Scoring
• The Simplified Game
• Solo Artist?

Game Idea and Goal

Der Wanderzirkus is a so-called deck-building game. That means you start with a small number of cards, the deck, and keep building it up. The deck holds the artists of your circus. In each of the five rounds you travel to a city, hire further artists and give a show. Your artists should fit well together and match the wishes of the audience. The high art of the circus lies in finding the perfect place for every artist in your show.

Whoever has the most victory points at the end wins.

Game Material

148 cards:

• 90 artist cards (Acrobatics, Clowns, Fire Dancing, Juggling, Magic), of which 6x5 are starting cards
• 12 overview cards
• 40 city cards
• 6 Pause cards
• 26 coins in values 1, 3 and 5
• 6 swap tokens
• 1 scoring pad

Overview of Effect Symbols

• Copy the effect symbol (not the scoring condition) of a card that is already in your show.
• Once, draw cards until you have 4 cards in hand. Afterwards you again draw, as usual, only until you have 3 cards in hand.
• Look at the top card of your deck and decide whether to put it under the deck or leave it on top.
• Look at the bottom card of your deck and decide whether to put it on top of the deck or leave it at the bottom.
• Put 1 of your hand cards under your deck.
• Put 1 or more of your hand cards on top of your deck. Shuffle the deck and draw back up to 3 hand cards.

Overview of Purchase Costs

• Artist: 5 coins
• City: 3 coins
• Swap token: 3 coins

Setup

1. Each player takes 1 overview card "Effect Symbols", 1 overview card "Purchase Costs", 1 swap token and 5 starting cards of different colors. You recognize starting cards by the stop signs shown in the upper corners. Put all remaining overview cards, swap tokens and starting cards back in the box.
2. Shuffle all remaining artist cards and, separately, the city cards. Form two face-down stacks in the middle of the table. In a game with two or three players, remove all artists marked at the bottom right with the player-count symbol (the "4+" marking) and put them back in the box.
3. Each player draws 4 artists and chooses 2 of them, which they add face down to their starting cards. Put the two artists not chosen back under the artist stack in the middle of the table.
4. Each player draws 2 cities and chooses 1 of them, which they lay out face up in front of them. Put the city not chosen under the city stack in the middle of the table.
5. Place the Pause cards, the scoring pad and the coins as a supply at the edge of the play area.

The following pages explain the normal game. Variants for a simplified game as well as the Pro and Solo modes are found from page 13.

Course of Play

A game consists of five rounds. In each round you carry out the following phases:

1. TRAVEL
2. GIVE A SHOW
3. ROUND SCORING
4. SPEND COINS

1. Travel

Skip this phase in round 1.

Draw as many artist cards and city cards from the stacks in the middle of the table as there are players plus 2, and lay them out in pairs.

(Illustration: card selection in a three-player game, five pairs, each of one artist and one city.)

The player who scored the fewest victory points in the last round begins the selection and takes one pair, consisting of 1 artist and 1 city. Then follows whoever had the second fewest in the last round, etc. In case of a tie, look at who had fewer in the round before last. If necessary, draw lots.

• Add the artist to your card deck.
• Lay the city face up in front of you. It shows which artists your audience would like to see in the show.

The cards in the middle of the table are not refilled, so the first player has the largest choice and the last can only choose from three pairs of cards. After everyone has chosen, put the remaining cards from the middle of the table back under their respective stacks.

2. Give a Show

You all carry out this phase simultaneously.

Preparation

Shuffle your deck. It always consists of the 5 starting cards and all further artists that have been added during the game. In round 1 your deck consists of exactly 7 artists. Place your deck to your left as a face-down stack. Then draw the top 3 cards of the deck into your hand.

Announcement

Your audience wants to know what it is getting into. So announce how many artists your show will consist of at least. Write the stated number on the scoring pad.

Whoever made the most victory points in the previous round announces first, then whoever had the second most, etc. In case of a tie, look at who had the most in the round before last. If necessary, draw lots. In the first round you announce clockwise, beginning with the person who most recently visited a circus.

(Example: Max announces that his show will include at least 5 artists. Tina's circus even announces 6 artists.)

Note: Because at the end at most four stop signs may lie in your show (see below), the maximum length of your show is the number of cards in your deck minus 1. In the first round, 6 is therefore the maximum announcement.

The Show

Now you play artists one after another from your hand in front of you. Lay them out to the right of your deck. Played artists form your show. When playing, observe the following rules:

• You always play only 1 card at a time.
• After playing 1 card, you draw cards from the draw pile until you again have 3 cards in hand.
• The first card you can simply lay out in front of you. All further cards must be placed to the right of the last card laid, so that a row is formed. You may only place a card, however, if there is at least one matching colored connection between the two cards.

(Illustration: matching colored connections.)

• On many artists (all except the starting cards and yellow artists) an effect symbol is shown at the top. You always trigger effects immediately after playing the card. Triggering effects is voluntary. Sometimes you also cannot trigger effects, e.g. because your deck is already empty. Then the effect lapses. All effect symbols are explained on the last page of the rulebook and on the overview cards.

The show can end in three ways:

• You voluntarily stop placing further cards.
• You cannot place any further cards because none of your hand cards has a matching colored connection to the card laid last.
• If you lay out the 4th card with a stop sign, your show ends immediately.

Tip: In the first round of your first game, it is a good idea not to carry out this phase simultaneously but one after another, until you get the hang of it.

3. Round Scoring

Now go through your shows one after another.

• Whoever managed to play at least as many cards as previously announced receives the number of the announcement in victory points.
• Check the condition of your own city card(s). Each city card shows two, three or four artist types (colors). Only if your show contains at least 1 artist of each indicated color do you receive as many victory points as shown at the bottom of the city card. The artists do not have to lie directly next to each other or in a particular order.
• Then add up the victory points you each receive through the scoring conditions of the artists (see below).

Write the sum of all your victory points of this round on the scoring pad.

(Illustration: scoring pad example with Max and Tina.)

• Finally, check the yellow cards in your own show and take coins according to the coin symbols (see Scoring Condition Yellow).

Scoring Conditions of the Artists

Green - Fire Dancing

If a green card lies in last place (far right) in the show, all green cards in the show bring 3 victory points each. If a green card lies in second-to-last place in the show, all green cards in the show bring 2 victory points each. If a green card lies in third-to-last place in the show, all green cards in the show bring 1 victory point each. Special case: If a green card lies in both last and third-to-last place, all green cards in the show bring 4 victory points each.

Blue - Magic

Blue cards only bring victory points if the 2 cards before them are not blue. The 1st blue card in the show brings 1 victory point, the 2nd blue card brings 2 victory points, the 3rd and further blue cards each bring 7 victory points. Important: Even if blue cards lie at the beginning of the show (i.e. far left or second position from the left), you receive the victory points if the condition is met.

Example: The first blue card gives 1 victory point, the second 2 (because between the first and second blue card there are two cards of other colors). For the third card there are no victory points, because between the previous and this blue card there are fewer than two cards of other colors.

Red - Clowns

Red cards always give 1 victory point. But the more clowns, the funnier! If you place red cards directly next to each other, you receive 2 additional victory points. With two red cards you therefore receive 4 victory points in total, with three red cards 7, etc. If you attach cards of other colors to the red connection, you receive no further victory points.

Example: Three red cards next to each other bring 7 victory points in total.

Purple - Acrobatics

Acrobats turn your show upside down. They are the only cards that you can place not only to the right but also on top of one another, if you have several of them. Each purple card that you place over another brings you 3 victory points.

And there is one particularity: If you have placed several purple cards on top of one another and then want to attach a card of another artist color again, you may freely choose at which position the show continues to the right. You may only continue the show at one purple card, however, not at several! It is of course not allowed to place purple cards on top if your show has already been continued to the right of the purple card with other artists. Then you must again place normally to the right.

Example: Tina places the red card next to the middle purple card. Afterwards the show continues to the right of the red card. If she plays a further purple card later on, she may no longer place it on the already laid purple cards, but must continue the row to the right of the card laid last.

Yellow - Juggling

Yellow cards have more colored connections than all other cards and are therefore more flexible. They give no victory points, but instead coins with which you can expand your circus during the game. For each colored connection you used that shows a coin symbol, take 1 coin (value 1) from the supply. If, in addition, a coin symbol is shown at the bottom of the card (this is the case for all yellow cards except the starting card), take one further coin (value 1).

Example: Tobias may take coins worth 4 from the supply.

Example Scoring

Max announced a show with 5 artists this round. He receives: 5 for fulfilling the announcement, 1 for the red card, 1 for the blue card, 3 for purple, 6 for green, 4 for fulfilling the city card, 2 coins for the yellow card. In total that is 20 victory points and 2 coins.

4. Spend Coins

If you own enough coins, you can now spend them:

• Return coins worth 5 to the supply to draw 2 artists from the stack in the middle of the table. Add one of them to your deck and put the other back under the stack.
• Return coins worth 3 to the supply to draw 2 cities from the stack in the middle of the table. Keep one of them and put the other back under the stack. Because you receive another one in the "Travel" step, two cities will then lie in front of you next round. If a condition appears on both city cards, you can fulfil both with a single artist.

Example: Both cities demand a green artist. To fulfil both, it is enough to have a single green artist in the show.

• Return coins worth 3 to the supply to take a swap token (see next page) from the supply.

Note: You may buy at most 1 artist and 1 city per round and own at most 1 swap token.

Coins not spent are kept and can be spent in the next round. Note: The coin supply is not limited. In the rare case that you run out of coin tokens, make do with other material.

The round ends with you collecting your own artist cards and placing them again as a deck in front of you. Lay the city cards on display back under the stack in the middle of the table.

End of the Game and Scoring

After the 5th round the game ends. Add up the victory points of all rounds on the scoring pad. For every three coins you receive 1 more victory point.

Whoever has the most victory points wins.

Congratulations: you have delighted the audience and put together the most successful travelling circus in Europe.

In case of a tie, whoever has the highest value in coins wins. If there is also a tie here, you share the victory.

Helping Luck Along

In your travelling circus you should not leave everything to chance. That is why there are several tactical options to influence your show.

Swap Token

Your swap token can be a clever tool if you are unhappy with your selection of hand cards. You can return it to the general supply at any time to draw 2 additional cards from the deck. Then immediately put 2 hand cards of your choice back on the deck and shuffle it.

Pause Card

Pauses are the last resort for your show if you cannot or do not want to place the artists in your hand. You may at any time, but only once per round, take a Pause card from the middle of the table and place it to the right of the artist laid last. At round scoring, Pauses are 4 minus points! Put it back in the middle of the table at the end of the round.

• The Pause card does not count toward the length of your show (see Announcement).
• For the scoring conditions of Green and Blue, however, it counts like an ordinary artist card.
• If it connects to a yellow card, you receive a coin through the corresponding coin connection.

The Pro Mode: Region Scoring

If you already know the game well, you can include this additional scoring, which rewards you if your circus travels to many different regions of Europe. There are 5 regions: Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western and Central Europe. You recognize which region a city belongs to by the compass symbol in the upper part of the city card.

All rules of the normal game apply. You only have to make sure that after a show you keep the fulfilled city cards face down with you. The unfulfilled ones you put back under the stack as usual, as well as city cards of regions you have already fulfilled. At the end of the game you reveal all fulfilled city cards and receive 2 victory points for each different region on your city cards.

Example: In the course of the game Max has travelled to the three regions Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. He receives 6 victory points.

The Simplified Game

For an easier start we recommend the following rule changes:

• Ignore all stop signs on the artists.
• Leave out the announcement.
• After each show you get your swap token back for free, if you used it.

Solo Artist?

You can also play alone. Try to beat your best performance with every game. How many victory points does your circus achieve?

Victory points	Rating
Under 70	At least nobody got hurt
70-80	Breadless circus art
80-90	Restrained applause
90-100	Aspiring clowning
100-110	Victory-point acrobatics at its finest
110-120	The audience is thrilled
120-130	A magical show
130-140	That is true circus art!
Over 140	Living circus legends!