Green Port

Contest entry for the 2018 Summer Design Contest

Green Port

Designer: Pedro Dias

[This ruleset is still a Work In Progress. While the core mechanic is pretty much set, some parts of the game are still experimental]

The Short Description: Push your luck game, 2-4 Players, inspired by Port Royal.

Do you just want the Quick Rules? Click here

Player Area

Theme

The gangs of Green Port are fighting for control of the city. In order to be recognized as the top boss, gang leaders must assert their dominance by completing the hardest heists. To do this, they must recruit members which focus on 1 of 4 specialities. If they can get the right amount of members with the right skills they will pull off difficult heists and earn Recognition Points. Likewise they can build Headquarters for their member, to take advantage of their skills and increase their presence, meaning even more Recognition! When all is said and done, the gang leader who earned the most Recognition will be crowded the Kingpin!

Terminology

For clarity purposes the following terms are identical.

Term(s)	Component(s)
Heist/Objective	Column of White or Black cards
Gang Members/Unit	Cubes
Headquarters	Green-background cards
Basic colors	Blue, Red, Green or Yellow
Unit Card	A numbered card of a Basic Color drawn from the deck

Setup

Remove the following cards from the deck.

• 9 white cards - These will be used to create Objectives
• 9 black cards - These will be used to create the Events and Objectives. Set one 1, one 2, one 4 and one 6 to the side - These will be used for extra Objectives, the remaining 5 black cards will be as Events.
• 12 green-background cards, 3 of each basic color (red, blue, yellow and green) - These will represent Headquarters that can be built.

Objective Creation

Objectives and Headquarters

Take all nine white cards, shuffle them and start creating an Objective by dealing cards into a column. Deal one card at a time until the sum of the value of all cards is 5 or higher.  Now repeat this 2 more times. Finally, deal a fourth column consisting of all remaining white cards. Next, using the black 1, 2 and 4 create another column and set the black 6 as the 6th and final Objective.
Take 2 cubes of each color and 4 more random cubes. Shuffle the cubes and randomly set one on top of each card in the columns. The Black 6 does not get a cube as it is a wild Objective (can be completed with any one color). You should have a total of 6 objectives consisting of 13 cards and 12 cubes.
An Objective may be completed if a player can pay the number of cubes matching the color+number combination presented. Objectives do not need to be completed in order.

Eg. Your first columns consists of a White 1, a White 2 and White 5. You take a red cube and place it one the 1, a blue clube and place it on the 2 and a second red cube and place it on the 5. This objective can be completed by paying 6 (1 + 5) red cubes and 2 blue cubes.

Headquarter Creation

Take the green-backgrounds cards and create a pile of each color, with the 2 on top followed by the two 1s.

Deck Creation

Take all remaining basic color cards the 5 Black cards previously set a side + the two X cards (orange and green) and shuffle the Deck. If ever the deck runs out, just reshuffle the discard.

Dominant profile

Take 1 tile of each symbol and randomly deal one to each player face up. The remaining tiles can be removed from the Game. It's effect is covered in "Powers" Section.

How to Play

Before the game starts, decide on who will be the first player and put in the center of the table a cube of each color. In reverse play order, players go around chosing one of the available cubes until each player has one. If playing with less than 4 players, return any leftover cubes to the suply. The first then starts with the first player's turn and proceeds in clockwise direction. A player's turn follows these steps:

• Hire Units
• Refer Units
• Utilize Units (Optional)
• Clear Unit Pool

Additionally a player may Specialize Units whenever and as many times as he wants.

Hire Units

This is the main part of a player's turn. The active player will draw cards, one by one, from the top of the deck and generate the pool of units available for the turn. After revealing a card the player can chose to stop and take all Units of a given color OR he can chose to reveal another card from the deck and add it to the pool.

Eg. Player A reveal a card from the deck: red card. He chooses to reveal a second card: blue card. He chooses to reveal a third card: blue card. He chooses to reveal a fourth card: red card. He decides to stop, take and discard the 2 red cards to gain 2 red cubes/units

The player may draw cards as many times as he wants, but every time he does he runs the risk of an Event occuring: 

• Green X (Rooting for the Underdog): After this player's turn, shuffle the discard and deck together. Additionally, the player(s) with the least Recognition Points gain a cube of their choice (EXCEPTION: This bonus does not happen if all players are tied or if a bonus has already been awarded this turn).
• Orange X (Police Dispersion): Any player over the Unit Limit (default limit is 7) must discard half his units. Additionally, the player(s) with the least Recognition Points gain a cube of their choice (EXCEPTION: This bonus does not happen if all players are tied or if a bonus has already been awarded this turn).
• Black Card (Police Bust): If a Unit card has already been revealed, the player has lost his progress and must skip to the Utilize Units phase without hiring or refering units.

Refer Units

After the active player has Hired Units (assuming no Black card was drawn), other players in clockwise order may pay a cube of any color to the active player to be able to claim units for himself.

Eg. Following the example in "Hire Units", after Player A has taken the red cards, only the two blue cards are available. If Player B has cubes of any color he can chose to pay a cube to Player A to discard the two blue cards and take two Blue Units from the supply. If Player B does this, the "Refer Units" step is over since no more cards are available. If Player B does not use this opportunity, the choice of whether to take cards or pass moves to  Player C, and so on until it reaches Player A again.

Utilize Units

The active player may chose to use Units in the following ways:

Complete Objectives

As already mentioned, a player may complete Objectives by paying a number of Units matching the card+number combination of every cards in a column.  Additionally, the Black 6 - a Wild Objective -  may be completed by paying 6 cubes of any one color.

Eg. A column contains a red 2, blue 1, green 1, red 3. The active Player may chose to complete this objective by paying 5 (2+3) red cubes, 1 blue cube and 1 green cube.

Buy Headquarters

A player may chose to buy Headquarters of the ones still available. To do this he must pay a number of Unit of the chosen Headquarters color. The cost is equal to 2 + X, where X is the number of cards still available in the Objective columns which match the desired color.

Eg. There are 2 Objective still available. Objective A: 1 red, 4 blue. Objective B: 1 green, 1 red, 1 blue, 5 red. If a player wants to buy a red Headquarters he must pay 5 (2 + 3) red units. If he opts for the blue Headquarters, he must pay 4 (2 + 2) blue units. Green would cost 3 (2 + 1) and yellow is at its lowest costing 2 (2 + 0) since no yellow cards remain in the objectives.

Specialize Units

At any point during his turn (except if the Orange X was revealed) a player may trade 3 cubes of the same color or 3 cubes of different colors for 1 cube. The color of the cube taken may not match any of the colors of the discarded cubes.

Eg. A player may trade 3 red (or blue or yellow) cubes for a green cube, or he may trade a red, blue AND yellow (3 total) cubes for a green cube.

Powers

Headquarters 

[TIP: To help players remember the powers you can use the aid provided or copy it into a piece of paper and place it in the center of the table]

Depending on the color of the Headquarter you will have a special ability available

Headquarters Aid

• Red (The Traders): This player may use the Specialize Units power by paying 2 cubes, instead of 3, to trade them in for 1.

• Yellow (The Spies): For each yellow Headquarter the Unit limit of this player is increased by 3.

• Green (The Family): When taking the Headquarter card, take a cube and place it below the card so that it is still visible but not confused with a usable Unit (TIP: form a ramp by placing it underneath the top edge). From now on, whenever you take cards of the chosen color, you can take one extra Unit of that color. 

• Blue (The Snitches): The first time each turn a Black card is drawn, the Active player may choose to discard a number of cubes equal to the already revealed Unit cards minus 1, in order to discard all revealed cards and continue drawing, thereby having a second opportunity to have a successful turn.

Dominating Profile

Whenever in the Hire or Refer Units phase a player discards a card from the pool whose symbol matches the symbol on his tile, he takes one extra cube of that color.

In Sync

If the 4 basic colors are present on the pool when the active player selects the cards to discard, in addition to taking the cubes of the selected color, takes one cube of each of the other colors.

Game End

The game ends is triggered when all Objectives are completed. The round continues until it's completion, upon which the "End Game Purchase" starts.

End Game Purchase

Go around the table checking which player has the most cubes of a single color. That player can purchase any remaining Headquarters by paying its cost. After that player is not able or willing to buy any more Headquarters of that color, the next player with the most cubes of that color may chose to buy it. Repeat this process until no one can buy any Headquarters. In case of a tie for most cubes, the last player (round wise) has priority.

Eg. Player A has 6 red cubes and 5 blue Cubes. Player B has 3 red cubes and 5 blue Cubes. Player C has 4 red Cubes, green 1. Assume all Headquarters are still available.
Since Player A's Red cubes are the most available of a single color, the Red Headquarters are sold first. Player A buys 2 Red Headquarters, 1 remains. The next player with most red cubes is Player C so he takes the last red headquarter. The next color is selected and it's blue. Since Player A is tied with Player B for 5 cubes, player B will go first and buy one Blue Headquarter and Player A will buy the second Headquarter. One remains unpurchased. Player C has  a green cube but that is not enough to buy any Headquarters so the "End Game Purchase" phase is over.

After the End Game Purchase phase, players sum the value present on every Objective card they completed, as well as on every Headquarter they bought. The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most cubes win. If player are still tied, the player with the highest single Objective card wins (keep following to the second highest if the first is a tie, and so on).

Variants

Playing with 3 players

Remove a Headquarter of each color with value 1.

Playing with 2 players

Remove two Headquarter of each color with value 1. Remove the Black Objectives.

Simpler Game

For a simplified version, you may remove the Dominant Profile tiles and/or ignore the Headquarter Powers. Removing the Dominant Profile makes the game a bit longer but more controlled, but at the cost of less player interaction.

Quick Rules

This are meant for players who want a quick start without focusing on theme or the details. If you have any question check the detailed rules above.

Setup

Take all white cards and the black 1,2,4 and 6. They will be used to create objectives. Shuffle the white cards and deal 1 at a time face-up into a column, once the sum of the values is equal or bigger than 5 move on to the next column. The fourth white column takes all remaining white cards. Create a fifth column with the 1, 2 and 4 black and a sixth with the 6 black. Each column is an objective. Then take 2 cubes of each color plus 4 random cubes. Randomly deal this cubes into each card on the objective column except the 6 which is a wild.

Take all green-background cards from the basic colors (blue, red, green, yellow) and form a stack of each color with the 2 on top. This are the headquarters.

Take the rest of the cards and shuffle them together to form the deck.

Take 1 tile of each symbol, shuffle them and give 1 to each player face-up. discard the rest.

Choose a starting player and from last-to-first players take a cube to start with. Two players may not chose the same color.

Play

On a player's turn he will draw cards from the deck. He draws cards one at a time and may stop whenever he wishes. When he stops he discards all cards of a chosen color and takes a cube for each card discarded. If any of the cards discarded this way matches his tile's symbol he gets 1 extra cube of that color. Additionally, if he had revealed a card of each of the 4 colors he takes a cube of every color he did not select. Then going around the table, other players may pay the active player a cube of any color to get cubes (by discarding cards).

If, when a player is drawing cards, he draws a black card he must discard all cards revealed and skip to the complete objective phase (or pass). If the Green X or the Orange X is revealed when drawing, the player with the least points gets a cube of his choice (max. 1 per turn) - if all players are tied ignore this effect. Additionally, if the X was:

• Green -> Reshuffle the deck+discard when the turn is over;

• Orange -> Any player with more cubes than the limit (7) immediately loses half his cubes rounded down.

At any time (except when a Orange X is revealed) a player may discard 3 cubes of a color or 3 of different colors to get 1 cube of a color that does not matched the 3 discarded cubes.

After the cube acquisition phase is done, the player may spend cubes to complete objectives or buy headquarters:

• To complete an objective he must pay a number of cubes equal to an existing objective. He takes the objective and discards the cubes on the cards and the cubes spent. Eg: if there is an objective with red 1, blue 2 and red 3, this objective can be completed by paying 4 red cubes and 2 blue cubes.

• To buy an headquarter a player chooses a color and must pay 2 + X, where X is the number of objective cards with the cube of that color. Eg. if there are the following objectives [red 4 and blue 2] and [red 1, green 2 and green 3] then red/green headquarters costs 4 (2+2), blue costs 3 (2+1) and yellow costs 2 (2+0)

Headquarters give you powers:

• Red: Player may trade 2 cubes for 1 (instead of 3).
• Yellow: The player cube limit is increase by 3 per yellow headquarter.
• Green: Chose a color, from now on when you discard cards of that color to take cubes you get an extra cube of that color.
• Blue: The first time each turn this player reveals a black card he may pay X to discard all cards revealed and try again. X = the number of basic color cards already revealed minus one.

Game End

When the last objective is completed the round is played to its completion. Now, the last headquarters will be auction: starting with the color with the most cubes, the players with the most cubes of that color can buy any remaining headquarters (repeat for every color). When this is done, sum all the numbers on completed objective cards and headquarters - these are your points. The player with the most points wins.