Dice City
Dice City Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Overview
Players are nobles in charge of a growing city, attempting to build it up into the most prestigious population center in the country. You start with a player board and five different dice that represent your city. During the game, you use dice to activate locations in order to gather resources, train armies, and build even more grandiose locations. Adding locations, defeating bandits, and exporting goods with trade ships can reward you with victory points (VP).
Goal
The player with the most VP at the end of the game wins.
Components
Your game of Dice City should include the following. If it does not, contact [email protected] for assistance.
- 4 Player boards
- 45 Harvest resource locations consisting of: 15 Lumber Mill, 15 Quarry, 15 Mine
- 15 Regular Army cards
- 60 Location cards
- 18 Bandits cards
- 11 Trade Ship cards
- 30 Resource tokens consisting of: 10 Stone, 10 Wood, 10 Iron
- 16 Deactivation tokens
- 1 Start Player token
- 16 Pass tokens
- 20 Dice consisting of: 4 White, 4 Yellow, 4 Red, 4 Blue, 4 Black
- VP tokens in various denominations: 8 x 1 VP, 8 x 2 VP, 8 x 3 VP, 6 x 5 VP
Location Anatomy
Each location card shows:
- Title — the location's name.
- Location Type: The colored wash on the bottom of the card and symbol indicates which type of location the card is. Locations are classified into five different types: resource (green), military (red), economic (yellow), cultural (purple), and civic (blue). See the Location Types chart below.
- Cost: These icons indicate the resources you need to spend in order to build the location.
- Ability: Most locations trigger their ability when you activate them with a die. Some locations feature an "Ongoing" ability that is always activated after they are built. Some locations may have abilities that activate when you build them.
- Defense: The number in the shield represents the location's defense. In order for players to attack the location, they need an army strength equal or greater than the defense. The greater the defense number, the more difficult it will be for opponents to attack.
- VP: This value indicates how many VP the location is worth at the end of the game.
Example card referenced in the rulebook: Blacksmith (military location) — Ability: "All your Army locations provide an additional sword," Defense 4, VP 2.
Bandits Card Anatomy
- Defense: The number in the shield represents the bandits' defense. In order for players to attack the Bandit, they need an army strength equal or greater than the defense.
- VP: This value indicates how many VP the player is awarded after attacking the bandit.
Trade Ship Card Anatomy
- Cost: These icons indicate the resources you need to spend in order to export goods.
- VP: This value indicates how many VP the player is awarded after exporting goods.
Setup
- Setup Players: Each player takes a player board and a set of five colored dice (1 white, 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue, and 1 black). Return the unused player boards and dice to the box.
- Setup Locations: Separate the Lumber Mill, Quarry, Mine, and Regular Army cards into four individual stacks and place them face-up. These are cards that are always available to build (unless they run out). Shuffle all of the location cards to form a face down location deck next to these card stacks. Then draw eight cards from the deck and place them face-up in a row next to the deck. This forms the display of cards that are available for players to build.
- Setup Bandits: Set up the bandits cards in three piles. Each pile, worth 2, 3 and 4 VP will have a number of cards equal to the total number of players plus 2.
- Setup Trade Ships: Set up the trade ship cards in three piles. 5 VP trade ships equal to the number of players plus 2, 10 VP trade ship cards equal to the number of players and one 20 VP trade ship card.
- Setup Resources, Pass Tokens, Deactivation Tokens, and VP Supply: Make three piles of the resource tokens (wood, stone, and iron) within easy reach of the players. Place the VP tokens nearby to form a supply. Make separate piles of the Pass and Deactivation tokens.
- Determine Starting Player: The player who last rolled a die in a game takes the starting player token.
- Setup Dice: Each player rolls all of their five dice and assigns them to their location on their player board. For example, if the white die rolls a "3" result, place it on the third space in the white row. See "Assigning Dice" below for more details on how to assign dice to your player board.
Example Setup
This page is a full-page illustration showing four player boards arranged around the shared components — the location deck and its face-up display of buildable cards, the three bandits piles, the three trade ship piles, the resource and VP token supplies, the pass and deactivation token piles, and the Start Player token — as they would appear at the start of a four-player game. Each player board shows five colored dice already rolled and assigned to their starting spaces.
Assigning Dice
The following is an example of a player rolling dice and assigning them to the corresponding spaces of their player board. Note that each color that corresponds to a dice has an associated row. Each number that can be rolled on the dice has an associated column.
In the example board shown, the six columns are headed Forest, Mountain, Cave, Forest, Mountain, Cave (each granting "Get" a resource), and the rows underneath show locations such as Mountain, Militia, Small House, Traveller, Militia, Forest; Cave, Militia, Traveller, Militia, Small House, Mountain; Forest, Small House, Militia, Traveller, Militia, Cave; and Mountain, Cave, Forest, Mountain, Cave, Forest — each column position corresponding to the die result rolled, with locations such as Militia and Small House granting "Add to your army" (Army ability) or "Reroll this die" when activated.
How to Play
The starting player takes the first turn of the game. When a player finishes his or her turn, the next player clockwise around the table takes a turn. Players continue taking turns until the end of the game.
Taking a Turn
When a player is taking a turn, they are considered the active player. During your turn, you must take the following steps in order:
- Use Dice Step
- Attack Step
- Building and Trade Step
- End of Turn Step
1. Use Dice Step
When you start your turn, your dice are already on your player board on their corresponding spaces. With each die you may take one of the following actions, in any order, by removing the die from its location:
- Use the location beneath the die and resolve its ability.
- Move another die to an adjacent space on that die's own row.
- Discard four of the location cards in the display that are available to build and reveal four new ones. Important: You may only take this action once per turn.
- Reactivate a deactivated location anywhere in your city.
- Pass and gain a pass token. Important: You may only take this action once per turn.
In addition to using dice, you may also spend two pass tokens to take one of the following actions (as many times as you have the two pass tokens to do so):
- Gain one resource of your choice
- Increase your army strength by +1 for the turn. See "Army Strength" below.
- Force all other players to re-roll one of their dice of your choice (this happens in clockwise order starting from your left).
After you use each die, remove it from the location and place it to the side of your player board.
When you finish using all of your five dice, this step ends and you proceed to the Attack Step.
Each time you use a location that produces one or more resources those resources are added to your stock.
Each time that you use a location that generates VP take a VP token from the supply and place it face down in front of you.
2. Attack Step
Army Strength
Some military (red) locations feature a sword icon in their text ability (which may be preceded by a number). These are considered Army locations. When you use such a location, it adds the number of swords to your army strength. Activating additional locations with sword icons adds to your total army's attack strength. Your army strength only lasts for the duration of your turn and automatically returns to zero at the end of your turn.
Example card: Catapult — "Add 3 to your army." Defense 4, VP 2.
If you have enough army strength from used locations, you may perform one or more attacks during this step. There are three kinds of attacks: attack bandits, attack locations, and attack stock.
Attack Bandits
Choose a bandits card for which you have an army strength equal or greater than its defense and take that bandits card, placing it face down in front of you. If all of the bandits cards in one pile have been taken, then those bandits cannot be attacked.
Attack Locations
Choose one or more locations on another player's board for which you have an army strength equal or higher than the locations' defense. Then place a deactivation token on each location chosen and gain VP from the supply equal to each location's VP value, placing the tokens face down in front of you. If a location doesn't have VP value (for example the Harvest resource locations), then you simply place a deactivation token on it without gaining any VP.
You cannot attack a location that already has a deactivation token. You cannot attack a location that does not have a defense value, such as the starting locations on a player board.
Attack Stock
Choose another player and take one or more of the player's resources in his or her stock. For each resource, an army strength of 2 is required. For example, if you want to take two resources from a player, you would need an army attack strength of 4 or more.
Your army strength is spent after each attack. However, if there is still enough army strength from your remaining total left after each individual attack, you may use it to perform additional attacks. For example, if you manage to gather an army strength of 8 during a turn, you may use 3 strength to attack a bandit, 3 strength to attack another player's location, and 2 strength to attack a player's stock and take a resource. You may attack the same player multiple times during a turn, or attack different players as long as you have enough army strength to do so.
3. Building and Trade Step
You may build new locations in your city from those available in the display. Choose a location and spend resources from your stock, according to the location's cost. Spent resources are returned to their supply piles. Then take the newly built location and place it anywhere on your player board. You may even place the new location on top of another card. However, only the top card is considered in play — discard the previous location card. After a location is built, immediately draw a card from the top of the location deck and add it to the display face-up.
You may build as many locations as you have resources for; there is no limit to the number of locations you may build during your turn.
During this step, you may also use trade ships to export goods in order to gain VP. Choose a trade ship and spend your resources according to the trade ship's cost. Spent resources are returned to their supply piles. Then take that trade ship card and place it face down in front of you. For example, if you export goods on the trade ship that requires 2 wood, 2 stone, and 2 iron, you would take a 5 VP trade ship card. If all of one value of trade ship cards has been taken, the players can no longer use that trade ship.
4. End of Turn Step
If you have any resources remaining, you may store one of each type, i.e., one wood, one stone, one iron. The resources are considered to be in stock. Any resources not stored are returned to their piles.
You may keep any number of pass tokens — there is no limit to the number of pass tokens you may have. Note that pass tokens are not considered to be in stock; only resources are kept in stock.
Then roll all of your dice and assign them to their place on your player board (see "Assigning Dice" above).
At the end of your turn, your army strength reverts to zero. Then the next player clockwise around the table takes a turn.
5. Additional Notes
Pass tokens, resource tokens, deactivation tokens, and VP tokens are considered infinite. There is plenty of each in the game to cover most circumstances, but if for any reason you run out, you should use proxies if players require to access additional tokens.
End of Game
The game ends after any of the following conditions is met:
- All of the cards have been taken from all three of the bandits piles.
- All of the cards have been taken on two or more trade ship piles.
- The location deck runs out of cards.
- Two or more rows in a player's city have been filled with built locations and none of them have any deactivation tokens (optional — the player that meets this condition chooses if he or she wishes the game to end or not).
When one of the conditions is met, the players continue until everyone has had an equal number of turns.
Scoring
When the final round ends, each player counts the VP tokens they have in front of them and the VP from the trade ship and bandits cards they have taken, and adds the VP values of all the locations in their city, both active and deactivated. Locations that have been discarded by building other locations on top of them are not considered to be part of the city any more so they do not count towards scoring.
The player with the most VP wins the game! In case of ties, the player with the most location cards in his or her city wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most VP from trade ships and bandits wins. If there is still a tie, closest to the starting player wins.
Scoring Example
Angela, the last player in the game, has just ended the game by defeating the final bandits card. Charles is now ready to add up his VP total. Charles has pursued a much more pacifistic approach to winning the game, combining some trade with a magnificent central row in his city.
The example city row shown consists of: Grand Statue ("Pay up to 3 stone or iron when you build Grand Statue. Get 1 VP for each resource paid," VP 2), Manor (Get 2, VP 4), Great Wall ("ONGOING — Other cards on this row have +2," VP 5), Manor (Get 2, VP 4), Small House (Get 1, VP 0), and Cathedral ("Cathedral is worth 1 VP for each cultural location on this row," VP 6/X). Below the row are trade ship cards worth 5 VP each.
First, Charles looks at his trade ships. He has managed to secure two of the 5 VP ships. In addition, he has secured a total of 9 VP from his Manor, Small Houses and from an extra stone and iron resource that he paid when he erected his Grand Statue. With his early commitment to an economic and cultural strategy, Charles has not secured any VP from bandits leaving that to Angela and Beth.
With a total of 19 VP from tokens and cards, it is now time for Charles to add in his major source of VP — his built locations.
The Harvest locations, whilst being very useful to his strategy do not gain any VP. However his economic and civic buildings have not only helped his strategy, but add a total of 7 VP (3, 3 and 1 respectively for the Town Hall, Merchant Guild and Storehouse). However, his red row is going to score most heavily for him. The Statue, Manor, Wall and second Manor score 2, 2, 3 and 2 VP. Although the Small House is worth no VP, it is still a cultural location and so does add to the value of the Cathedral, which will score even though it was deactivated in an earlier attack from Beth. The magnificent Cathedral is therefore worth 6 VP, meaning that his red row is worth a total of 15 VP.
His final total is therefore 41 VP — 10 from trade ships, 9 from activated abilities in the game and 22 from locations built. A good score!
Solo Variant
To play a solitaire game of Dice City, you will need to make the following adjustments:
- Setup the game as normal but place a single bandit and trade ship card of each value. Each bandit and trade ship card is considered to be always available and every time you are supposed to take one, simply take the VP directly from the supply.
- The solo variant can be played in one of two modes: normal and hard. To play the normal mode, shuffle the location deck and draw eight cards, placing them in two rows of 4 cards. For the hard mode, draw ten cards, placing them in two rows of 5 cards. These are the available cards in the display that you may build.
- Whenever you build a location, do not draw a new location from the top of the deck. Instead, at the end of every turn, discard the bottom row of cards and draw a new row of cards (either four or five cards depending on the mode) placing them above the existing cards. Thus the top row becomes the bottom row at the end of each turn.
- When you discard the last cards in the bottom row (after 15 turns in the normal mode and 12 turns in the hard mode), the game ends. In order to win, your score must total 50 VP or more. If you manage to beat it, then increase the score to beat by 5VP next time you play.
Rules Clarifications
Armies
Any location that produces one or more army strength (sword icons) is considered to be an Army location (it is also identified by the Army keyword).
Deactivated Locations
When a location has the deactivation symbol in its text, it means that you need to deactivate it in order to perform its ability. To do that, you take a deactivation token and you place it on the card.
When a location is deactivated for any reason (either from using its ability or as a result of an attack from another player) its abilities cannot then be used. This includes using its abilities from other locations, such as Town Hall or Church. It also does not count towards a completed row for purposes of ending the game (although it does score its VP at the end of the game).
Resource Locations
There are six resource locations in the game: Forest, Mountain, Cave, Lumber Mill, Quarry and Mine. The Lumber Mill, Quarry and Mine may also be referred to as Harvest locations. They provide two of their respective resource.
Ongoing Abilities
An Ongoing ability is always in effect, regardless of where a die lands or which player's turn it is. If a location has an ongoing ability but a deactivation token is placed on it, the location's ability is inactive. If the deactivation token is removed, the location's ongoing ability immediately takes effect.
Duration
Non-Ongoing abilities that affect other cards and locations (such as Training Camp and Mint) only last for the turn they are used.
Hidden VP
When you gain VP tokens or cards, you should place them face down to keep their values hidden from other players. You may look at your own VP but should be careful not to reveal their values to other players.
Location Types
- Resource (green)
- Military (red)
- Economic (yellow)
- Cultural (purple)
- Civic (blue)
Location Clarifications
Barracks
If I use a Barracks, can I put a Regular Army on a space with a die on it and use it immediately? Yes, you can.
Blacksmith and Watchtower
If I use the Blacksmith ability on the same turn as the Watchtower can the additional army strength be used against any target, or just the bandits? It can be used against any target, as the Blacksmith provides an additional army strength that is not limited by the ability of the Watchtower.
Cathedral
Do the printed Small Houses on the board count for the Cathedral's ability? Yes, they do.
If the Cathedral is deactivated at the end of the game does its text still count for ascertaining its VP? Yes it does, the text is considered to be a clarification of its VP value.
Church / Town Hall
Can I use a Church or Town Hall to use the ability of a deactivated location? No, a card must always be active in order for its ability to be used.
What happens if I use Church or Town Hall to copy a Cemetery/Merchant Guild/Bazaar/Catapult? Which card is deactivated? The Cemetery/Merchant Guild/Bazaar/Catapult is the card that becomes deactivated. This means that if the ability is copied using the Church, then the die on top of the Cemetery/Merchant Guild/Bazaar/Catapult cannot be also used to activate the card (it will now be deactivated), unless another die is used to reactivate it first.
Grand Statue
When I build the Grand Statue do I spend the extra resources immediately, and do I have to spend 3 stone or 3 iron, or can I use any combination of those two resources? The resources have to be paid when you build the statue, but you may use any combination of stone and iron, up to a maximum of three. For example, 2 additional stone and 1 additional iron could be used to get you 3 VP extra.
Great Wall
How does Great Wall work? Do I need to use a die to activate it and what does it affect? This is an ongoing ability — it is always on, unless it has been deactivated. If a die lands on top of it, nothing more happens. Note that the Great Wall only affects other locations in its row, it does not affect itself.
Market Place
If I trade in 2 resources at the Market Place, can I get additional resources of more than one type? Yes, for example if you traded in 2 wood, you could get 2 stone and 2 iron in return.
Merchant Guild
If a Harvest location on the same row is deactivated, do I get a resource for it when I land on a Merchant Guild? No, you don't. You only take resources for the active Harvest locations on the same row.
Credits
Game Design: Vangelis Bagiartakis Project Lead and Development: Mark Wootton Art Direction: Todd Rowland Graphic Design: Garrett Weinzierl Rules and Writing: John Goodenough, Mark Wootton Layout: John Goodenough, Garrett Weinzierl Proofreading: Vangelis Bagiartakis, Nicolas Bongiu, Todd Rowland, John Goodenough Editing: Nicolas Bongiu, Mark Wootton Production: Dave Lepore Artwork: Gong Studios
Playtesting: Nikos Argyros, Yiannis Avramandis, Maryne Blanchetière, Nicolas Bongiu, Vincent Carassus, Nikos Chondropoulos, Antonis Georgountzos, Thetis Gouliou, Anastasios Grigoriadis, Kyle Huibers, Andreas Katelanos, Alex Kokkalas, Konstantinos Kokkinis, Jean Le Bail, George Michelogiannakis, Mike McDonald, Rita Mulligan, Sean Mulligan, Nick Niotis, Mike Papagathangelou, Thanassis Patsios, Kostas Retalis, Todd Rowland, Nikolas Sakaloglou, Sotirios Tsantilas, Petros Tzimas, Helena Tzioti, Manolis Velivassakis, Vangelis Velles, Giannis Vidalis, Dimitris Vlachos, Chris Yialouris, Panagiotis Zinoviadis, John Zinser.
Copyright & Contact
© 2015 Dice City and all related marks are ™ and © Alderac Entertainment Group, Inc. 4045 E. Guasti Road #210, Ontario, CA 91761 USA and ™ and © 2015 Artipia Games 1 Profiti Ilia str. Aghia Paraskevi, Athens, Greece. All rights reserved. Made in China.
Warning: Choking Hazard! Not for use by children under 3 years of age.
Any questions, contact: [email protected]