2212. Ginkgo Biloba, the oldest and strongest tree in the world, has become the symbol of a new method for building cities in symbiosis with nature. Humans have exhausted the resources that the Earth offered them, and humanity must now develop cities that maintain a delicate balance between resource production and consumption.

However, habitable space is scarce, and mankind must now face the challenge of building ever upwards. To develop this new type of city, you will gather a team of experts around you, and try to become the best urban planner for Ginkgopolis.

Components

• 60 Building tiles - 20 Building tiles of each color.
• 12 Urbanization cards from A to L
• 60 Building cards, 20 in each of the 3 color.
• 27 Character cards
• 125 resources in the player colors (25 per color).
• 10 New Hand tokens
• 12 Urbanization tokens from A to L
• 5 screens in the player colors
• Tokens for 1, 3, 5, and 10 success points
• 15 Construction Site pawns
• 1 First Player card
• 1 rulebook

Object of the Game

In Ginkgopolis, you are urban planners, who build and operate the buildings of the city in order to gain as many success points as you can. Each round, each player simultaneously chooses an action by each selecting one card from her hand.

A card played by itself permits you to operate one building in the city, while a card played with a Building tile permits you to construct a new building and operate one or more adjacent buildings.

Actions are then resolved in turn order. At the end of the game, the player who accrues the most success points wins the game.

Game Elements

Resources

The resources are necessary to construct and utilize buildings. They are the in the players' colors and are also used to identify the owner of a building.

Building Cards

Each Building card is associated with a Building tile. When played, the Building card designates the building of the city whose topmost tile displays the same color and the same number.

Building Tiles

The Building tiles represent the buildings that the players can build. A tile is characterized by its color and by number. Each tile is unique.

Several tiles can be stacked to form a single, multistory building. In such a case, the topmost tile defines the building's color and number. The number of floors in a building is always equal to the number of resources present on the building.

Red buildings are production buildings, which you can utilize to gain resources. Blue buildings are office buildings (academic, analysis, research, etc)., instrumental in developing real-estate projects; you can utilize them to gain Building tiles. Yellow buildings are buildings for daily life (housing, commerce, leisure, etc).; you can utilize them to gain success points.

Urbanization Tokens & Cards

The Urbanization tokens are situated on the outskirts of the city. They designate the ground on which new buildings can be constructed.

Each Urbanization card is associated with an Urbanization token.

Character Cards

Each player begins the game with 3 characters. In the introductory game, players take a predetermined set of cards.

The bio-city planners (yellow) help you gain success points, bioengineers (blue) aid in project design (building tiles), and bio-technicians (red) help to produce or recycle resources.

Setup

1 Randomly place the 9 Building tiles numbered 1, 2, and 3 (one such for each color) to form a 3x3 square. Place the 12 Urbanization tokens in alphabetical order, according to the illustration below.

2 Shuffle the remaining Building tiles, and place them in face-down piles. With 2 or 3 players, remove 6 random tiles from the game and return them to the box, without peeking. During the game, all the Building tiles the players gain will be taken from these piles, known as the general supply.

3 Put the success points and Construction Site pawns near the Building tiles.

4 Form a deck by shuffling together the 12 Urbanization cards (A to L) and the 9 Building cards that correspond to the starting buildings (the cards numbered 1-3). In a game with 2 or 3 players, discard the first 7 cards face- up next to the deck.

5 Sort the Building cards numbered 4-20 by color and by ascending order. Make 3 stacks with these cards, one for each color.

6 Each player chooses a color and places resources of that color in the general supply. Use 25 resources per player in a game with 2 players; 20 resources each with 3 players; 18 resources each with 4 players; 16 resources each with 5 players.

Return any unused resources to the box. During the game, all resources the players gain will come from this general supply.

7 Each player receives a screen in her color and 2 New Hand tokens.

8 Each player starts the game with 3 Character cards.

In an introductory game, each player receives a random set of 3 Character cards that are identified by the same number. In a normal game, you will draft your characters: Each player receives 4 Character cards from which she chooses one, and keeps it secret. She passes the remaining 3 cards to her left, and keeps one of the 3 cards passed to her from her right, and so on until each player has kept three cards.

Unselected Character cards are returned to the box. Next, all players simultaneously reveal their selected Character cards.

Place your 3 Character cards in front of your screen. In the top-left of each Character card, icons indicate how many items (Building tiles, resources, and success points) the character gives you for selecting it. Take these items, and place them behind your screen. All items you receive during the game will go behind your screen.

9 The player who has most recently planted a tree receives the First Player card. She deals 4 cards from the deck to each player.

Example

The setup for a 4-player game has been completed up through Step 7 (see illustration below). Because this is an introductory game, each player takes a set of 3 Character cards. Nell receives the #2 set of cards. The three cards she got enable her to start the game with 4 resources, 2 tiles, and 2 success points.

Note: We recommend keeping your Character cards per column, depending on the icon to the left of the arrow. Proceed in the same way when you earn cards with the Constructing a floor action.

Game Play

The game is divided into a variable number of turns. A turn comprises 3 steps:

1. Choose a card
2. Resolve actions
3. Prepare for the next round

1. Choose A Card

Everyone does this step simultaneously. Look at your hand of 4 cards, choose one, and place it face-down in front of your screen. This card can be played by itself, or with a Building tile, depending on the action you wish to perform. If you are playing a tile with it, select the tile behind your screen, and place it face-down on the card that you played.

Place the 3 unused cards face-down in front of your screen. If you have the First Player card, put it on top of your unused cards, so that the first player is easily identifiable.

Two times per game, you may discard a New Hand token in order to discard all 4 cards and draw 4 new cards. You must announce, «I'm getting a new hand».

If several players want to get a new hand during the same round, they do so in the order they announced it. Changing hand does not prevent a player from playing her turn normally . Each unspent New and token is worth 2 success points at the end of the game.

2. Resolve Actions

Starting with the first player, then proceeding in clockwise order, each player reveals her chosen card (and tile, if she included one), then resolves the corresponding action. The action is defined entirely by the type of card (Urbanization or Building) and by whether the card has been played alone or with a tile:

1. Exploiting: Playing a card by itself
2. Urbanizing: Playing an Urbanization card with a tile
3. Constructing a floor: Playing a Building card with a tile

A. Exploiting: Playing a card by itself

If you played only an Urbanization card, take either a resource or a tile from the general supply.

If you played only a Building card, operate the city building designated by the card.

Then you gain the items indicated by the color of the card:

• red card: you get resources,
• blue card: you get tiles,
• yellow card: you get success points.

The number of items you gain is determined by the height of the designated building. For each floor of the building, you get one item: a 1-floor building generates 1 item, a 2-floor building generates 2, etc.

If you have any cards with an Exploiting bonus in your area, you receive the items specified by these cards. These bonus cards are Character cards obtained early in the game, or cards earned through the Constructing a floor action.

After resolving the action, place the played card in the discard pile.

Example

Faye played the Red 7 by itself. Thus, she uses red number 7 building, which is a two-floor building. She gains 2 resources from the general supply and puts them behind her screen.

Faye has two cards with an Exploiting bonus in her area. The first allows her to gain 1 tile, while the second grants her 1 success point. Finally, she discards the card

B. Urbanizing: Playing an Urbanization card with a tile

When you play an Urbanization card with a tile, you expand the city by adding a new building on the outskirts. This is how it works:

Find the Urbanization token that corresponds to the card, and replace it with the tile.

Place a resource from behind your screen on this tile in order to mark that you own the building. Also place a Construction Site pawn to indicate that the corresponding card has not yet been added to the deck

Move the Urbanization token to an empty space orthogonally adjacent to the new tile (not diagonally). In rare cases in which no adjacent space is empty, you can place the Urbanization token elsewhere, provided you respect the alphabetical order of the Urbanization tokens.

In this and any other case, you can move one or more other Urbanization tokens, if necessary, in order to respect this rule.

You utilize the buildings orthogonally adjacent to the one you just placed (but not diagonally). "Utilizing a building" allows you to earn the items as if you had played those buildings' cards by themselves.

If you have any cards with an Urbanizing bonus in front of your screen, you receive the items specified by these cards (see Card Bonuses).

After resolving the action, place the played card in the discard pile.

Example

Miley has played the Urbanization card with the letter A along with the red number 4 tile. Therefore, she replaces Urbanization token A with her tile, and puts a resource and a Construction Site pawn on the tile.

She moves the Urbanization token to an empty space adjacent to the tile she just played. Next, she utilizes the two adjacent buildings: She gains 1 resource and 2 tiles that she puts behind her screen.

Miley has 1 red card with an Urbanizing bonus, so she gets 1 more resource. Finally, she discards the Urbanization card she played.

C. Constructing a floor: Playing a Building card with a tile

When you play a Building card with a tile, you add a floor by placing the new tile on the building in the city indicated by the card. This is how it works:

Return the resources present on the building designated by the card to their owner, who places them behind her screen. If the owner of the building is another player, she receives 1 success point per resource returned to her.

Note: You don't receive any success points for building onto one of your own buildings.

Place the tile you played atop the building designated by the card.

Additional Costs :

If the number on the tile you are playing is less than the number on the tile you are covering, you must pay the difference in success points (e.g.: if you place an 4 on an 5, you must pay 1 success point).

If the color of the tile you are playing is different than the color of the tile you are covering, you must discard 1 resource to the general supply.

Place your resources on the tile: 1 resource per level of the new building. All the resources on any given building will always belong to only one player, and will always match the number of tiles in that building.

You also place a Construction Site pawn on it, which indicates that the corresponding card has not yet been added to the deck.

If you have any cards with a Constructing a floor bonus in your area, you receive the items specified by these cards (see Card Bonuses)

Keep the played card face-up in your area. This card will give you its bonus for the rest of the game. There are 2 types of bonuses: permanent bonuses (with black arrow), which are activated throughout the game, endgame bonuses (with the "=" icon), which will give you success points in the final scoring.

Example

Nell played the blue number 5 Building card, and the red number 4 Building tile. The blue 5 building belongs to Faye, so she retrieves the two resources placed there and gets 2 success points. Nell places the number 4 tile on the blue 5 building.

She must pay 1 success point because 4 is less than 5. She must discard a resource because the color of the new tile is different than the one it's covering.

She places 3 of her resources and a Construction Site pawn on the new building. Because she has two Constructing a floor bonus cards, she earns 1 success point and 1 resource. She places the blue number 5 Building card face-up in front of her screen.

Note: If you play a card and a tile, but you do not have the items necessary to place the tile in the city, you take the tile back and put it behind your screen. You perform the action as if you had played the card by itself.

3. Prepare For The Next Round

After resolving all the players' actions, each player takes the unused cards (including the First Player card, if present) from her right-hand neighbor. Then, starting with the new first player and continuing in player order, each player draws a card from the deck to once again have a hand of 4 cards.

At any time, if the deck is exhausted, the first player immediately reconstitutes it in the following way:

1. For each color, she announces the numbers of those tiles with a Construction Site pawn on them. Another player finds the announced cards in the 3 stacks of Building cards, and adds them to the discard pile.

2. She shuffles the discard pile, and makes a new deck with these cards.

3. In a game with 2 or 3 players, she discards the top 7 cards from the deck. (In a game with 4 or 5 players, do not discard any cards).

4. Remove the Construction Site pawns, and put them back in the general supply.

Example

The players have finished their actions, and have taken their right-hand neighbors' unused cards. The first player, Miley, draws the last card from the deck in order to get back to 4 cards in her hand. The deck has been exhausted, and must be reconstituted.

She begins by announcing the numbers of the yellow tiles with a Construction Site token on them, which in this case are tiles 4, 5, and 9. Nell adds the yellow 4, 5, and 9 Building cards to the discard. They do the same for the red and blue Building tiles, then Miley shuffles the discards into a new deck.

Next, she discards the first 7 cards (because there are only two players), and then removes all the Construction Site pawns from the city. Nell can finally draw her card.

End of the Game

When the supply of tiles is exhausted for the first time, each player can add as many tiles to the game as she wishes. Players simultaneously prepare a group of tiles behind their screens. They simultaneously reveal all those groups of tiles.

Each player receives 1 success point per tile revealed in this way. All the revealed tiles are mixed together face-down to form a new general supply of tiles. Then the game continues normally.

The game ends when:

• the supply of tiles has been exhausted for the second time, or

• a player has placed all her resources (25, 20, 18, or 16, for 2, 3, 4, or 5 players) in the city.

As soon as one of those two conditions is met, finish the current round (resolve actions), and the game is over.

Note: The game ends even if the player who has placed all her resources ends up retrieving them, due to another player's action.

The winner is the player with the most success points. Add up the following success points:

• those earned during the game in the form of tokens,

• those from cards with an endgame bonus (cards with the "=" icon ),

• 2 success points for each unused New Hand token,

• the success points according to players' presence in the districts of the city.

A district is an area of the city formed by at least 2 adjacent buildings of the same color. An isolated building is never considered to be a district.

In each district, the players compare the number of resources in their respective colors. The player with the highest number gains as many success points as the total number of resources in the district (all colors).

Second place gains as many points as the number of resources of her color in the district. In the case of a tie, the player with the tallest building in the district has the advantage. If it's still a tie, the player with the tallest building showing the highest number in the district has the advantage.

Note : If all the resources in a district belong to the same player, she receives the points for both first and second place, which works out to 2 success points per resource in that district.

Example

The tiles in the illustration form two districts: one blue and one yellow. The red number 20 tile does not form a district, because it is all by itself.

In the yellow district, Miley is all alone with her 3 resources; she earns 6 points. In the blue district, Faye has the most resources out of the 7 resources in the district; she earns 7points.

Miley and Nell are tied for both the number of resources and the heights of their buildings. Miley earns 2 points, because she has the building with the higher number. Nell earns no points.

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