Components
- 1 Game board
- 75 Floor tiles
- 15 Ground Floor tiles
- Clerigos tower 1 First Player Token
- 4 Point Trackers
- 14 Roof tiles
- 14 VP tokens
- 4 Score Markers
- 4 Reference Cards
- 50 Construction Cards
- 35 Public Contract Cards
- 39 Private Contract Cards
- Rulebook
Object of the Game
In the Portuguese city of Porto, the Ribeirinha neighborhood is famous for its colorful houses. In Porto, players will have an opportunity to build those houses.
Players will strategically place new floors, take advantage of available bonuses, and complete Contracts, receiving Victory Points (VP) for their efforts. At the end of the game, players will reveal their Private Contracts in order to earn additional VP. The winner will be the player with the most VP!
Setup
1 Place the game board on the center of the table.
2 Arrange the Floor and Ground Floor tiles by type and color. Place them off the side of the board.
3 Place the Roof tiles on the board. Place three Roof tiles in the last Roof tiles space.
4 Shuffle the Construction cards into a face-down deck. Place these on the game board.
5 Draw 5 Construction cards. Place one on each of the 5 spaces on the board, face-up.
6 Randomly assign one face-up VP token to each Ground Floor space.
7 Shuffle the Public Contract cards into a face-down deck. Place these on the game board.
8 Draw 4 Public Contract cards and place one on each of the 4 designated spaces on the board.
9 Choose a first player. Give that player the first player token. (This token will not change hands during the course of the game).
10 Give each player the reference card and VP tracker of their chosen player color.
11 Shuffle the Private Contract cards and deal 5 to each player. Each player then secretly chooses 3 cards to keep and discards the remaining 2. Return all discarded or unused Private Contract cards to the box.
Playing with newbies?
Ignore step 11 of the setup and ignore everything in the rules that mentions Private Contracts.
2 or 3 Player Game
With 3 players, the leftmost and rightmost houses of the board cannot be built. Treat them as though do not exist; place no VP tokens in these houses.
With 2 players, the 2 leftmost and the 2 rightmost houses on the board are not available to be built. Treat them as though they do not exist; place no VP tokens in these houses.
Game Play
Porto is played over the course of several rounds. In each round, starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player performs 1 action:
- Draw Cards or
- Build Floors
The end of the game is triggered when a certain number of houses are complete.
Draw Cards
A player may draw up to 3 Construction cards from the 5 face-up cards on the board, as long as the total value of the drawn cards does not exceed 3.
Example: a player can draw up to 3 value-1 cards, or a value-1 card and a value-2 card, or only a value-2 card, or a value-3 card.
AFTER a player draws Construction cards from the board, refill the board with cards drawn from the deck.
If you run out of Construction cards, shuffle the discards into a new draw deck.
There is no limit to the number of Construction cards a player can have in their hand.
Examples
On his turn, Afonso decides to draw cards. Looking at the cards on the board, he decides to add the blue 3 to his hand. A new card is then drawn from the deck to replace the card that Afonso took. His turn is now over.
Later, Ines also decides also to draw cards. She adds the red 2 and the blue 1 to her hand, and then 2 new cards are put onto the board from the draw deck. Her turn is now over.
Later in the game, Afonso decides to draw more cards. Unfortunately, he can only draw 1 card, since all cards on the board have values of 2. He decides to draw a green 2. After this, a new card is drawn from the deck to replace the card that Afonso took. His turn is now over.
Build Floors - Place Tiles
To build floors a player MUST play exactly 2 Construction cards from their hand.
The player chooses which card to use for each purpose.
After determining the number and color of floors, the player then places that specific number of floors of the appropriate color and places them on the board.
If you cannot or do not want to, you CANNOT do the BUILD FLOORS action. You must DRAW CARDS instead.
The rules for placing tiles are:
- Tiles must be placed on an empty space of a house.
- Ground Floor tiles must be placed on the first (lowest) space of an empty house -
A1. - Floor tiles are placed on the next empty spaces of the house -
A2. - Roof tiles are placed on the tops of houses, on the triangular spaces -
A3.
- Houses are built from the ground floor all the way up to the roof -
B1. - When placing a Ground Floor tile, the player collects the VP token on that space and places it on an empty roof of their choice (it even can be in the same building) -
B2. The player scores those VP on the score track. - If there are no empty roofs, discard the VP token.
- To build in an empty house, a player must first build a Ground Floor tile, as determined by their choice of cards. Afterward, any Floor tiles built on that house MUST share the SAME color as the Ground Floor tile.
- If there are no Ground Floor tiles of a certain color, you may not start a new house of that color.
D When starting a new house, its tiles must be different from the color of tiles in any immediately adjacent houses.
E All tiles placed on a player's turn must be placed in the SAME house. Tiles played on a turn may not be split between houses.
F Players can place tiles in a house with previously built Ground Floors, if those tiles match the color of the tiles already placed on that house.
G A player cannot play a combination of cards that would allow them to build more floors than can be built in the house they are attempting to build.
Example: a player cannot play a combination of cards that would allow him to build 2 floors in a house that has only space for 1 floor.
Build Floors - Completing a House
A house is complete when a player builds the last floor of that house. Note that Roof tiles NEVER count as floors.
When a player builds the last floor of a house, he or she immediately places a Roof tile on that house and collects the VP token on that house (if there is one), gaining the VP indicated by the token.
Building Floors - Score VP
When building, there are 5 ways to earn VP. VP scored are immediately on the scoring track.
Whenever you gain VP, advance your score marker.
A Score 1 VP for each floor in the house, including floors built this turn. Note that Roof tiles NEVER count as floors.
The floors that were just built on a player's turn are marked with a dotted red line.
B Score 1 VP for each Floor and Ground Floor adjacent to any Floor or Ground Floor built on your turn.
Do not count adjacent roof tiles.
C If you built a Ground Floor tile, collect the VP token from that space and place it on an empty roof of your choice (it can be in the same building). Score those VP on the score track. If there are no empty roofs, score the VP but discard the token to the game box.
If you place a Roof tile and there is a VP token at the top of that house, discard the token to the game box and score the points shown on that token.
E Completing Public Contracts.
Historical Note: Because houses in Porto's historical center often shared walls, their construction costs could be reduced. That's why in this game, players gain extra points when they build adjacent to previously-built floors.
Building Floors - Completing Public Contract
After building floors, a player MAY fulfill Public Contracts.
To fulfill Public Contracts, the player announces which Public Contracts (from the 4 face-up on the board) they wish to fulfill, keeping in mind that contract requirements must be met after floors have been built.
Example: if Afonso built 3 blue floors and at the same time completed a blue house, he could fulfill a Public Contract whose requirement was to build 3 blue floors and another Public Contract whose requirement was the completion of a blue house.
Important: To fulfill a Public Contract, its requirements MUST be met EXACTLY.
Example: if a player builds 3 blue floors he cannot fulfill a Public Contract whose requirement was to build 2 blue floors.
When completing a Public Contract, the player scores the VP depicted on that card and then places it into a face-down pile next to him or herself. Fulfilled Public Contracts may later be used as tiebreakers.
AFTER Public Contracts have been fulfilled, replace them on the board with new ones drawn from the deck.
Example:
A Joana decides to build floors. She decides that her red 3 will allow her to build 3 floors. Playing a blue 1 means that those floors will be blue.
B When building the 3 blue floors Joana scores 5 VP (1 VP for each tile on the house, including the just-built floors) and an extra 3 VP (1 VP for each floor adjacent to the tiles that were just built), for a total of 8 VP.
C Because Joana completed a house, she builds the roof tile...
D ...and collects the 2 VP that was there.
E She fulfills the first Public Contract and scores 2 VP because she built 3 blue floors.
F She also fulfills the second Contract and scores another 2 VP because she played a blue and a red card.
In total on her turn, Joana scored 14 VP. She advances her scoring marker 14 spaces on the scoring track.
Joana fulfills also 2 of the 4 Public Contracts available:
End of the Game
The penultimate round takes place ...
Players will then finish the current round - all players that have not yet taken a turn in this round will complete their turns, followed by one final round and the end of the game.
Each player reveals the 3 Private Contracts they have in hand and scores any VP gained by those contracts.
If you exceed 50VP, take the +50 score marker and place your score marker back at the beginning of the score track. Turn the marker around, if you exceed 100 points.
The player with the most VP wins the game.
In the event of a tie, the winner is: the tied player who fulfilled the most Public Contracts. If there is still a tie, the winner is: the tied player furthest (in player order) from the first player.
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