Xanadú
Xanadú Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
The game includes:
- 70 game cards (24 brown, 24 blue, 12 yellow an 10 green)
- 6 quick reference cards and 1 End Game card
- 60 tong bao chips
- 1 instructions manual
Objective and End of Game
The players will compete to earn the highest quantity of tong baos (coins) by selling cards to the Khan. The game ends when the End of Game card is revealed after playing the deck for the second (or third) time. When that happens, all players sell their remaining built cards on the table and count their chips.
The Game Cards
The game cards consist of the following elements, printed on each card:
- Cost — The resources requirement that a player must meet to build a card (play it to the table).
- Passive Resource — Some cards give a resource that becomes available at all time for the use of the owner of the card, as long as it remains in play. It's worth 1 resource of its kind.
- Selling Price — When selling a card to the Khan, he'll pay the first uncovered price from bottom to top. The price of the card can be raised (upgrade, color green), lowered (sabotage, color red) or remain the same (trade, color yellow). Actual selling prices must be public at all time.
- Available Resources — Each card has 4 squares with available resources, that can be used by any player (including the owner of the card). Only the resources on uncovered squares are available. To take those resources, a player may assign a worker to that square (see Assign Workers and Build a Card).
- Favors of the Khan — The Khan is always eager to help his underlings, offering resources as rewards for their work. Each time a player assigns a worker to a square of resources, the resource to the left becomes available as a passive resource for the owner of the card. This sector must never be covered with a worker.
- The Colors — Each color of card represents a type of structure and a different arrangement of selling prices, costs and resources. Here's a brief explanation of the colors available in the game.
Also printed on the card: its Name and a Color Icon matching its color.
Brown
Base cost: Wood, Clay
They're the basic resource trading cards. Their selling price is low, but they offer more resources than other color types. They rarely can be sabotaged and they give favors of the Khan.
Blue
Base cost: Silk, Porcelain, Ink
They have a higher cultural value than brown. Their selling price raises depending on the building stage, but can be sabotaged. They give fewer resources and favors than browns.
Yellow
Base cost: Gold, Bronze
They're luxury and wonder cards. The Khan will pay well if completely built, but they attract saboteurs in search of valuable pieces. They offer few resources.
Green
Base cost: Jade
They represent the summer palace of the Khan. Kublai will allow the construction of his palace only to those that can give an offering of Jade and he will pay well if it's not sabotaged before.
Start Building
To begin playing, put aside the End of Game card, mix the deck and deal 7 cards to each player and choose by any means the starting player. Then, each player must choose a brown card form his hand and play it face-down on the table (if the player doesn't have a brown card, he can play blue instead; in the rare case he doesn't have blue either, he can start with yellow). The cards are revealed at the same time and the starting player begins his turn.
The Turn
A player's turn consists of three phases: 1. selling cards to the Khan, 2. assign workers and build a card, and 3. draw cards (recruit) and end of turn. Play continues clockwise after a player has played.
1. Selling Cards to the Khan
Before doing any other action, the active player may sell one or more built cards that he owns to the Khan. If he chooses to do so, he must sum up the selling prices of the cards (see Selling Price), and take that number in tong baos (coins). Then he must discard those cards and all workers over it to the discard pile, face-up. A player may sell cards with a selling price of 0. If all cards in the game are sold, each player takes cards from the deck until they have 7 and then must choose a brown card and play it simultaneously, as if beginning a game.
Example 1: Alexander begins his turn with three built cards. Thus, he decides to sell the Tailor's Shop (1) and the Kublai's Four Elephants (6). Then he takes a number of tong baos that sum up 7 and discards both cards and the five workers over them. Alexander prefers not to sell Chuang-Mu's Chamber, waiting to see if he can first raise its score to 3.
2. Assign Workers and Build a Card
In this phase, the active player may play to the table as many workers as he can (cards face down), and assign them to an available resources square of any card by any player on the table, covering the space that has the available resources and the selling price, but not the favors of the Khan. A worker can occupy only one square at a time and they're placed from bottom to top.
1. Assign workers: When a space containing a required resource for building a card is covered, the player must say it out loud. If a square has more than one resource required for a building, he can use all of them.
The unused resources of a square covered by a worker are lost and can't be accumulated for other rounds. It is recommended that the active player reveals the card to build in the center of the playing area so all players can verify if the resources taken by the active player meet the cost of the card. Place the card where it can't be confused with currently built cards.
Example 2. Caroline wants to build a card which requires one Jade, two Bronzes and one Stone. For that purpose, she places three workers over Alexander's Barracks, reducing its selling price from 6 to 2. After building, she can keep placing workers on other cards only to affect their selling price or to cover resources.
2. Build a card: A player may play one, and only one card to the table, regarded he manages to get all required resources to pay for the cost on that turn (via passive resources, favors of the Khan and resources gathered by worker placement). This card will be placed horizontally in his play area. A player will never be able to place workers on a horizontal card.
Example 3: Carolina gets the resources to build the Meeting Room and places it horizontally in her play area, which means it has been built but no workers can be placed over it. She will rotate it only after drawing new cards.
3. Upgrade, sabotage, or trade: After or instead of building, a player may assign workers to other cards, his or another player's, just to affect their scores or to cover valuable resources.
Forced selling: After or instead of assigning workers a card has no more available squares (as in Example 2), then that card must be sold at the end of the active player's turn for the selling price shown over the card's illustration. In this case, the owner of the card will not receive the benefits of selling cards when drawing for new cards at the end of the turn (see Drawing Cards). Until the turn is over and the card is discarded, Passive resources and Favors of the Khan will remain in play.
Built cards limit: At any time a player may only have 5 cards built on the table. It's important that a player frees space in his playing area in the selling phase to allow other cards to be built.
3. Draw Cards (Recruit) and End of Turn
After building, the active player will take cards from the deck following these rules: 1 card if he didn't sell cards in the selling phase, 3 cards if he did sell cards in the selling phase (how many is irrelevant), or until having 7 if no action was taken in the two previous phases. A player can't have, for any reason, more than 7 cards in his hand, even if he would draw over this limit. Then he will rotate the horizontal cards in his play area to their vertical position and finally all players sell and discard their forced sold cards.
End of Deck and End of Game
When the deck is depleted for the first time, shuffle the discard pile and create a new deck. Then, take apart 10 cards and place the End of Game card in this pile and shuffle it. Place the pile of cards with the End of Game card beneath the other pile to form a new deck. If a player draws the End of Game card, he must reveal it and the game will be over. Every player will sell all the cards built in his playing area and count their tong baos. The player with more tong baos will be the winner.
You can optionally play the deck thrice for a longer game.
Variants
Variant for 2 players: When dealing cards at the beginning of the cards, give 8 to each player instead of 7. Each player will place on the table 2 brown cards face down (if he only has 1 brown, the second one can be blue. If he doesn't have brown cards, he can place two blue ones. If he has no blue cards, use yellows). After revealing the cards, gameplay continues normally.
Variant for 5 or 6 players: Play the deck thrice instead of twice. Each time a player sells a yellow card, he grabs an additional tong bao. Each time a player sells a green card, he take two extra tong baos. A player can never have more than 4 cards in play on the table. In this mode, the game is more aggressive and volatile. It's not recommended for players that like to have strategic control over the game.
Advanced game: If you want a more challenging game, ignore the rule that forbids building more than one card in a turn, but each card needs it's own resources and cannot share (the same resource can't be used to build two or more cards). Each player can build up to 6 buildings in his play area. Finally, each player begins with 8 cards and places two brown cards, as explained in the 2-player variant. Optionally, play the deck thrice. Play in this mode with up to 4 players.