In Raccoon Tycoon, players try to produce the most valuable commodities in an ever-changing marketplace. They then use those commodities to build towns, or sell them at the best price to secure great profits.
These profits can be used to win auctions for all-important railroads or to buy buildings that can give players power-ups or bonuses in production. Owning the best towns and railroads determines victory.
There can be only one 'top dog' in Astoria. Will it be you?
Components
- Game Board
- 180 Commodity Tokens
- Start Player Token
- Money
- 27 Building tiles
- 24 Railroad cards
- 16 Town cards
- 54 Price & Production cards
- 12 Mission cards
- Rulebook
Setup
A Shuffle the Price & Production cards and deal 3 cards to each player. B Place the remaining cards near the board as a draw deck.
C Place one of each Commodity Token on the lowest price of their corresponding Market: $1 for Wheat and Wood, $2 for Iron and Coal, and $3 for Goods and Luxuries.
D Place the remaining Commodity Tokens near the board to act as the Supply.
E Give each player $10 as their starting Money. F Place the remaining money near the board to act as the Bank.
Create the Railroad Deck by removing certain Railroads based on the number of players:
- 2 Players: Remove Skunkworks, Sly Fox, and Tycoon Railroads
- 3 Players: Remove Skunkworks and Tycoon Railroads
- 4 Players: Skunkworks Railroad
- 5 Players: None
G Shuffle the remaining Railroad Cards to make the Railroad Deck.
H Turn 2 cards face up and place them each on one of the 'Railroad' spots on the game board. These cards are available for selection to start an auction.
I Create the Town Deck by placing the cards in order based on their VP value: the four 2 VP cards on top (in any order), then the four 3 VP cards, and so on. Once the deck is in order, place it near the board and turn up the top card, and place it on the 'Town' spot on the game board.
2 Players: Remove one town from each Victory Point Value (one with 2 VP, one with 3 VP, one with 4 VP, and one with 5 VP).
J Shuffle the 6 Basic Commodity Bonus Building Tiles (Double-Sided +1/ +2 tiles with one of the six commodities) with the +1 side face up. Randomly draw and place four of them on the Building locations on the game board. These are available for purchase.
Place the remaining two Basic Commodity Bonus Building Tiles out of the game.
K Shuffle the remaining Building Tiles (The Advanced Building Tiles) and place them face down in a single stack. This stack will be used to fill in an empty location whenever a Building is purchased so that there are always 4 Buildings available for purchase.
Optional Rule: Draw and place Basic Commodity Building Tiles equal to the number of players (if there are 5 players, place 4 buildings), and remove any remaining. Fill in the open Building spots on the board with Advanced Buildings drawn from the stack.
L Select a start player randomly and place the Start Player Token in front of them. The start player gains one free Commodity Token of their choice.
The second player (the player to left of the start player) gains two free Commodity Tokens of their choice, and so on around the table. The free Commodity Tokens chosen at the beginning of the game must all be different (no player may have two of the same commodity).
Game Play
The start player will take the first turn each round and may perform ONE action (see below), followed likewise by each player around the table clockwise to complete the Round.
Actions
On a player's turn, they may perform one of the following five Actions:
1. Production
Play one of your Price & Production cards from your hand. Take three (3) of the commodity tokens shown in the 'Production' area of the card from the supply and place them in front of you.
This means that on some cards, you may not get all of the commodity tokens shown; you will have to choose the three that you want. This maximum may be increased if you own the Cottage Industry (4) or Factory (5) buildings.
After producing, increase the Commodity Market prices of the commodities shown in the 'Price' area of the card by $1 for each icon shown.
After taking your commodity tokens and increasing the prices, place the played card in the discard pile face up next to the Price & Production draw deck, and draw a new Price & Production card from the deck to refill your hand to your maximum.
Players have a maximum hand of 3 Price & Production cards unless they own the Smuggler card (4 maximum), or the Black Market card (5 maximum).
Note: The player may not use the Smuggler or Black Market buildings to take more commodities than are shown on the card.
Example
Jacoby plays a card that has wood, wood, coal, iron, goods commodities in the Production area, and luxury and goods commodities in the Price area.
He doesn't own any buildings yet, so he has to choose 3 of the 5 commodities on the card to produce.
AHe chooses the 2 wood and the goods and takes those commodities from the supply.
BHe then raises the prices of luxury and goods by $1 each.
Commodity Bonus 
and Production 
Buildings
Commodity Bonus buildings give production bonuses (+1 or +2) and are marked with a 
(Bonus Production).
When a player uses the Production action, they get the extra commodity token(s) shown on the Bonus Building in addition to the commodity tokens that they would normally receive from the card. However, the player may gain the benefit from only one Building in any given Production action.
Note: If a player owns more than one
Example: Ethan owns the +1 Wheat (Wheat Field) and the +1 Coal (Coal Deposit) Buildings. He chooses the Production action and plays a Price/ Production Card that gives him 1 Wood, 1 Luxury, and 1 Coal.
He may also take an additional Coal or a Wheat (but not both).
Note: The Bonus Production commodity is in addition to the player' s usual 'Maximum Production'.
Example: Ethan started the game with a Maximum Production of 3, but now owns the Cottage Industry Building, so his Maximum Production is 4 Commodities shown on the Price/ Production Card.
He also owns the +1 Wheat (Wheat Field) and the +1 Coal (Coal Deposit) Building Tiles. He plays a Price/ Production Card that has 2 Wheat, 1 Goods, and 1 Iron.
He takes all four of those Commodities as well as one Coal for his Bonus Building.
Production Building Tiles (Factory and Cottage Industry Buildings) (marked with a 
) are similar to Bonus Building Tiles: A player may only gain the benefit of one Production Building Tile in any given Production action.
Example: If Ethan owned both a factory AND the Cottage Industry Buildings, he would only benefit from one of them in any single Production action.
Storage Limit: Each player may only have up to 10 Commodity Tokens at any one time. If a player's Production action brings their Commodity total to more than 10 in front of them, they must immediately discard their choice of Tokens back into the supply to get back down to 10.
This limit is raised by '1' for each Building Tile that the player owns. The Warehouse Building increases the limit by 4 (3 for the special power of the Warehouse Building + 1 for its normal bonus).
Example: Dan owns three Building Tiles, which allows him to have up to 13 Commodity Tokens. If one of Dan's Building Tiles was a Warehouse, then he could have up to 16 Commodity Tokens.
2. Sell a Commodity
Any quantity of a single type of Commodity owned by the player may be sold (from one to all).
The Commodity Tokens being sold are returned to the supply and the player is paid the current value shown in The Market for each token of that Commodity sold. Then the price for that Commodity drops by the number of units sold.
Example:
The player sells 4 Wood Commodity Tokens. The Value shown in the Wood Market is $6. The player is paid 4 x $6 = $24 from the Bank. Sold Commodity Tokens are placed back into the Supply.
After the sale, the value of the sold commodity is reduced by the number of units sold.
Wood is valued at $6 and 4 units are sold. The new value of Wood in the Market is $2.
3. Start a Railroad Auction (Select a Railroad Card)
Select one of the Railroad Cards from the two on offer and begin an Auction for that Railroad Card. The minimum bid for the Railroad is shown on the Card.
Starting with the player that started the auction, each player bids in turn (clockwise around the table) or passes. Once a player has passed, they may not bid again.
The highest bid wins the Railroad Card and pays the bid. The Railroad Card is placed in front of them to show that they own it.
The empty spot in the offer is then filled with a new card from the deck. There must always be two cards on offer (unless the deck is exhausted).
If the player that started the auction does not win the auction, then they may perform any action, including another auction. If the player who started the auction wins the auction, then their turn ends.
Note: No player may bid more than the money that they have.
Two Player Variant: When playing in a two player game, the player that starts the auction may only bid once. The other player may either bid more, or pass.
4. Purchase a Building Tile
The player selects one of the four Building Tiles on Offer and pays the cost shown on the Tile. That Building Tile is then placed in front of the player to show that they own it. The owning player gains the benefit shown on the Building Tile for the rest of the game.
A new Building Tile is then taken from the top of the stack of face down tiles and placed in the offer so that there are always 4 Buildings available for purchase (unless the stack is exhausted).
The six Commodity Building Tiles as well as the Machine Shop/ Water Mill Advanced Building Tile are double-sided. When they are purchased, the +1 side is face-up and active.
However, the player may use a Purchase Building Tile action later to upgrade the tile by paying the cost on the +2 side. The tile is then flipped over to show the new value.
5. Purchase a Town (with Commodity Tokens)
Purchase the available Town Card by paying either the number of the specified Commodity displayed on the bottom left of the card or the number of 'Any Commodity' displayed on the bottom right of the card.
The Commodity tokens used for payment are placed back in the supply near the board.
The purchased card is placed in front of the player who purchased it and a new card from the deck is turned up and placed in the offer so that there is always one Town available for purchase (unless the deck is exhausted).
Note: When using the 'Any Commodity' option to buy a Town Card, the commodities used to make the purchase do not have to be the same type. They can be a mixture of any Commodities.
End of the Game
Play continues around the table until:
- Either the last Town Card is purchased
- Or the last Railroad is auctioned
When either of these occurs, finish the current Round until all players who have not yet taken their turn have done so.
Note: The last player in every game is the player to the right of the 'Starting Player' who went first at the beginning of the game).
Then the game ends.
Information
During the game, all cards and building tiles owned by the players must be placed so that all players may see them (public information). Each player's money, on the other hand, is secret, and does not have to be shared.
Scoring
Each player will get the VP (Victory Points) shown on:
- Their Town Cards
- Their Railroad Cards
- Each Building owned by a player is also worth 1 VP
- Every Town + Railroad pair owned by a player is worth 2 VP EXAMPLE: A player owns 3 Railroads and 6 Towns. They can make 3 pairs, and so they gain 6 VP,
Note: Having more than one of a particular Railroad gives that player more Victory Points as shown on the Railroad Card.
The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game is the winner.
In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most money is the winner.
Optional Rules
Sudden Death Victory:
If, at any point during the game, any player has $1,000, they can end the game and declare themselves the winner.
Beginning Gamers:
If any of the players is young or new to these kinds of games, remove the 'Advanced Buildings' from play. This will make the game easier to learn and play.
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