16 Investment level markers (4 banners, 4 for each banner)
Setup
Lay the main board at the center of the table:
1-1. Shuffle all arms resource markers face down; reveal 5 and place them on the round track on the board; remove the remaining unused arms resource marker and return it to the box.
1-2. Place all 4 price markers at the "3" spots on the cargo price tracks, and place the price marker of opium at "2".
1-3. Place the opium marker from the raid tokens on the top most spot on the pirate alert track; fill the pirate alert track with the remaining 4 raid markers in any order.
1-4. Shuffle all the cards and place the deck next to the main board.
Each player takes a player board and places it in front of them:
2-1. Take 4 investment level markers and put them on the "1" spot on the cargo investment level tracks.
2-2. Each player chooses a color and takes the corresponding set of wooden tokens:
A. Put a token on the cargo hold spot for spice, silk, tea, china and opium.
B. Put 5 tokens in the reserve area.
C. Put 5 tokens in the ship supply area to the side of the main board.
D. Put a token on the "0" spot on the arms level track on the main board.
Randomly choose a player to be the first player, who will take the starting player token:
3-1. The second player in the sequence places an additional token in the ship supply area.
3-2. The third player in the sequence places an additional token in his/her ship reserve area.
3-3. The fourth player in the sequence places an additional token in both the ship supply area and his/her ship reserve area.
Basic game concepts
Each wooden token represents a ship under a player's control.
Reserve area: tokens in this area represent the number of ships that players can deploy. (i.e. idle ships)
Cargo hold: tokens in these areas represent the ships that are carrying the corresponding cargoes.
Receive cargo: when a player receives a cargo of any type, he/she will move a ship from the reserve area to the corresponding cargo hold.
Use cargo: when a player uses a cargo, he/she will move a ship from the corresponding cargo hold back to the reserve area.
Use ship: when a player uses a ship, he/she will remove a ship from his/her reserve area permanently.
Flow of the game
Reveal 8 cards from the deck and place them to one side of the main board: this area will be the order cards area.
* During the 5th round of the game, reveal only the remaining 4 cards from the deck.
Starting from the first player, players will take turns in clockwise order. Each player will perform 2 actions during his/her turn until all players have chosen to pass the round.
Players can choose from the following 7 actions and perform them in any order. Additionally, you can choose to perform the same action twice:
a. Send ship to buy cargo: Choose this action to send ship(s) to purchase spice, silk, tea or china.
a-1. Check the pirate alert track on the main board. (refer to g. Ending your turn for the round)
a-2. From the player board, take a ship from the reserve area and place it on a harbor spot on the main board.
* During a round, a player only needs to send 1 ship to occupy a spot on the harbor; to occupy a second harbor spot, the player has to send 2 ships. For the 3rd spot, 3 ships will be needed and so forth.
* If a player owns a trade post at the coastal area of a harbor, each trade post will reduce the number of ships needed to occupy harbor by 1. (refer to e. Establishing a trade post)
* You need to send at least 1 ship to perform this action.
a-3. Receive a ship containing the cargo that corresponds to the harbor you have chosen.
* You can still perform this action even if you do not have enough ships in your reserve. However, you will not be able to receive the selected cargo.
* At no time during the game can player choose to give up a cargo in the cargo hold to move a ship from the cargo hold back to the reserve area.
Game end
The game will go on for a total of 5 rounds and at the end of the final round, scoring will take place:
a. Completed order cards will score corresponding to the investment level (1/2/3/4/5) shown on each player's own player board and receive 1/2/3/4/5 points for each order; the investment level for a cargo type will also be the cap for the number of order cards that one may score for that cargo.
Spice: Lv 2 X 1 order card = 2 points.
Silk: Lv 5 X 4 order cards = 20 points.
Tea: Lv 1 X 1 order card = 1 point. (Only 1 order can be scored.)
China: Lv 3 X 1 order card = 3 points. (The order will score higher if it is categorized under china.)
b. Influence from the trade posts that players have built over the course of the game will also be scored by comparing the number of trade posts in each of the 4 coastal areas; players will receive 5/3/1 points for having the most/second most/third most trade posts in one area.
* Should players tie for having the most/second most/third most trade posts, the tied players will share the score for their placement equally, rounded up.
Printed examples (coastal areas 1 to 4): Area 1: Green 5, Yellow 3, Red 1. Area 2: Blue 4 and Red 4 tied for the first and second place, (5+3)/2=4; Yellow 1 third. Area 3: Red 5 first; Blue 2 and Yellow 2 tied for the second and third place, (3+1)/2=2. Area 4: Green 4 = Blue 4 at the top, Yellow 1 = Red 1 below, annotated "Tied for the third place", 1/2=0.5 (rounded up to the nearest whole number). (The printed example does not annotate the Green/Blue tie.)
c. Players will also score for their arms level based on their progress on the arms level track; players will receive points corresponding to the position of their arms level marker and compare with other players; in a 2/3/4 player game, for each player behind you on the track, you will receive 5/4/3 points respectively.
Printed example (4 players): Yellow Lv 6, ahead of three players: 3x3=9, total 15 points. Red Lv 5, ahead of one player: 3x1=3, total 8 points. Green Lv 5, ahead of one player: 3x1=3, total 8 points. Blue Lv 3, last place: 3 points.
3-4. Remove all remaining wooden tokens from the game and return them to the game box.
b. Exchange cargo: Choose this action to exchange cargo A with cargo B.
b-1. Refer to the price of cargo A on the main board and use n ships of cargo A.
b-2. Refer to the price of cargo B on the main board and receive m ships of cargo B.
* You can still perform this action even if you do not have enough ships in your reserve; however, you will not be able to receive the cargoes in full. (i.e. excess cargo that you do not have ships for will be lost)
* When exchanging cargo, you must use up all the ships you have containing the cargo you are exchanging.
* When the price marker for spice or tea reaches the highest spot on the track, you will receive an additional ship of cargo B when you use either spice or tea as cargo A in the exchange; conversely, if the two cargoes were traded as cargo B, you will receive 1 ship of spice/tea less for the exchange.
* When you exchange opium as cargo A, you will receive an additional ship of cargo B. However, opium can only be exchanged as cargo A into other cargoes and you may never receive opium from cargo exchanges.
* Cargo exchanges cannot be consolidated. Suppose the ratio of prices for cargo A and B is at 2:4; you will not be able to perform a single exchange to trade 4 cargo A for 8 cargo B. It will require two separate exchanges to complete.
c. Complete an order: Use cargoes in your possession to complete orders.
c-1. Use the corresponding cargoes shown on any of the order cards displayed to the side of the main board.
c-2. Take the corresponding order card and place it next to your player board.
* For dual colored orders, you can choose the type of cargo that offers better scoring efficiency for the order to be scored at the end of the game.
* The arms resource icons on the order cards can be accumulated by players to increase their arms level. Orders bearing two icons will provide 2 icons worth of arms resource when completed. (refer to 3-5 on increasing arms level)
* In order to score more points, players are advised to pay equal attention to completing orders and increasing their investment levels. (refer to game end a. Scoring order cards)
* Order cards you have completed are open information and all other players can check them at any time during the game.
d. Increase investment level: Use cargoes in your possession to increase your investment level and receive a new ship.
d-1. Refer to the requirement shown on the corresponding investment level track and use the required number of cargoes.
d-2. Push the investment level marker for that cargo type up by 1 spot.
d-3. Take a new ship of your color from the ship supply area next to the main board and place it in your reserve area.
* You can still perform this action even if you have no ship remaining in the supply area, but you will not be able to receive any ship for doing so.
* You can immediately increase your arms level by one when any one of your investment markers reaches the highest spot on the track.
* Likewise, you may not consolidate two investment level increase actions into one. For example, you cannot use 5 cargoes of the same type to increase its investment level from 1 to 3; it will require two actions to do so.
e. Build a trade post: Use ships to build a trade post and adjust the prices of cargoes.
e-1. Check the pirate alert track on the main board. (refer to g. Ending your turn for the round)
e-2. Refer to the minimum requirement printed on the desired coastal area spot on the main board and use the corresponding number of ships from your reserve.
e-3. Take 1 of the ships you use on the corresponding trade post spot and return the rest to the ship supply area next to the main board. In addition, move the price marker for the corresponding cargo up one level.
* If the selected cargo has already reached its highest price level, do not move the marker.
* When a player controls 3 trade posts in one coastal area, he/she will move up his/her arms level by one.
e-4. Next, choose another type of cargo and move its price marker down by 1 level.
* You can only skip this step if the prices for all other cargoes have reached the lowest level.
* It is recommended to raise your investment level accordingly when you build trade posts in order to maintain sufficient ships in your reserve, which will provide greater versatility in your development strategies.
f. Smuggle opium: Send ships to smuggle opium.
f-1. Check the pirate alert track on the main board. (refer to g. Ending your turn for the round)
f-2. From your reserve area, place ships from your reserve in the opium harbor spot on the main board.
* You can send any number of ships to the opium harbor spot with only one requirement: you must have the most number of ships on the opium harbor spot after performing this action. (ties do not count)
* You need to send at least 1 ship to perform this action.
* By performing this action, you will receive opium when the current round ends. (refer to 3-2. Receiving opium)
* Opium works as any type of cargo with a fixed price level of 2.
g. Ending your turn for the round: End your turns for the round and take a raid token.
g-1. Declare that you finished your actions for the turn and take one raid token from the pirate alert track on the main board other than the opium marker. (you will take no further action for the remainder of the round)
* You may take the opium marker instead if you fulfill one of the two following conditions:
i. You have chosen to perform this action as your first action for the turn. In this case, you will basically skip this turn.
ii. You are the last player in the current turn to perform this action.
g-2. When spots on the pirate alert track become available as raid tokens are claimed, it would interfere with the actions of other players who haven't finished their turn. When a player buys cargo, builds a trade post or smuggle opium, he/she will have to send a ship from his/her reserve for each empty spot on the alert track first in order to perform any of the aforementioned actions.
* For each empty spot on the pirate alert track, you have to send your own ship to fill it; ships belonging to other players on the pirate alert track do not apply to you.
* No action is needed to send ships to the pirate alert track; you are also not required to send additional ships to a spot on the pirate alert track that already has your ship on it.
A round will end when all players have finished their actions for the round. Now players will perform the following steps before the next round begins:
3-1. Discard all the order cards that remain in the order card area next to the board.
* At the end of the 4th round (i.e. the following round being round 5), all non-completed order cards will remain in play instead.
3-2. Check the opium harbor spot on the main board; the player with the most number of ships on the spot will receive a ship of opium by taking a ship from the opium harbor spot and placing it in his/her opium cargo hold.
3-3. Clear all harbor and pirate alert spaces on the main board; each player retrieves all the ships he/she had placed in the previous round from the board and puts them in their reserve area.
3-4. All players return the raid tokens they have and takes a new ship from the supply area and places it on the cargo hold space that corresponds to the raid token they have returned.
* Put the opium marker on the top most space on the pirate alert track and fill the remaining 4 spots on the track with the 4 raid tokens in any order.
* If a player does not have sufficient ship in the supply, he/she will not be able to receive the ship and will in turn lose the cargo from the raid.
3-5. Refer to the arms resource marker that corresponds to the round that was just completed and check the arms resource icons printed on order cards that players have completed so far. Players who have the most icons for the corresponding arms resource will get to push their arms level token forward by one spot. Flip the arms resource token face down for the current round.
* When counting the number of icons, ALL order cards in your play area will count, not just the order cards that were completed for the current round.
3-6. Pass the first player marker clockwise to the next player to begin the next round.
Player with the highest total score wins the game. If players are tied for the highest score, then the player with the higher arms level wins; if they are tied yet again, the player with the higher score from trade post influence wins. If the players are still tied, they will share the victory.
