My City – Hints & Tips – Chapter 4

Gold! Rich veins of gold have been discovered at the edge of your city. This will have a major impact on the city’s growth. Luckily, the flood has receded, and land – which is urgently needed for building – is now more plentiful than ever, because the forested areas are being developed.

All the Rules from episodes 1 to 9 apply. The special rule from episode 9 (and episode 6), that you can not pass a turn, no longer applies. As the Flood has subsided, you can now build on both sides of the river, and you will lose a point for each unfilled light green space, and each rock, on both sides. Now on to the new stuff.

New Stuff

There are 2 sets of stickers in Envelope 4. The first one has the gold veins, 2 of which are to be affixed to each players board.

The are affixed at A8, under the mountain, and at K1, the top right corner of your board. They cover rocks at those locations. Therefore, at the very least, they cover up negative points that you can no longer lose.

The second sticker sheet contains “cabinets”.

These are affixed to the space under each players icon and city name.

The cabinet is where you place your gold nuggets, when you collect them, found on Sticker Sheet 1. The remainder of Sticker Sheet 2 are the bonus stickers used at the end of each game to alter your player board.

Collecting Gold Nuggets

The 2 gold veins that have been placed on your board, can be built over. In fact the point of the Gold Rush chapter is to be the first player to build over both of them in the following 3 episodes. The first player to do so, gets a gold nugget for their cabinet. If more than 1 player does this on the same turn, they all get a gold nugget.

Place the gold nugget in the bottom, left most, available space in your cabinet. The first row of the cabinet has 4 spaces in it, and the remaining 5 have 3. When you complete the lower 4 rows in your cabinet, you colour in the number of circles showed, on your progress track. So, after you have collected 4 nuggets, you get to colour in 1 circle.

Important: Now that you are in direct competition with another player, there are times when might want to know if another player is covering their second gold vein on their turn. If this is a possibility, you might want to take turns 1 at a time, to see what another player has done on their turn. If so, a player order is set in the following manner.

• The player with the most progress circles coloured in goes first.
• If there is a tie, then the player with the most progress circles AND the most gold nuggets goes first.
• If there is still a tie, then the player with the most progress circles AND the most gold nuggets AND is the oldest goes first.
• Turns continue clockwise from the player who has gone first.

End of Chapter Bonus

It is important to keep in mind that there is a bonus to be gained at the end of Chapter 4. This is to see who has been most successful in  collecting Gold Nuggets during episodes 10, 11 & 12. The player with the most colours in 2 progress symbols. The player with the second most colours in 1 progress symbol. In the case of a tie for the most, then all tied players colour in 2 progress symbols, and there is no award for second most. In the case of a tie for the second most, all of those players colour in 1 progress symbol.

A quick recap of the Rules …

Rules

• You first building must be built next to the Sawmill.
• You may build over forests.
• But Forest spaces that you do not build over, do not count as negative points.
• Churches must be built. You cannot pass when you draw a Church.
• You cannot pass if your score is already on 0. If you pass 10 times, you must place each successive building OR you end your play in the episode.
• Negative points are not capped when you reach 0. If you are losing points for rocks, or empty green spaces, and you drop below 0, you must keep track of the negative number, to take it off any future points you earn. An alternative is to add all points for trees, building groups, wells and churches, and then take off the negative points, but keep an eye on things if points might go above the maximum 50 for one of the players.

Scoring

The scoring rules are the same as Episode 9.

The player with the most points colours in 2 circles. In a game with 3 or more players, the player with the second most points colours in 1 circle.

Then, the player with the most points gets 1 blank green square to cover a forest space with a small square in the center of it. The player with the second most points gets 2 blank squares to cover forest spaces. All other players get 2 blank squares and 1 tree square, to cover 3 forest spaces with a small square in the center of it.

Think about the placements of these stickers. Now that we can build over trees, we have a lot more flexibility of building placement. The empty light green squares you place need to be covered so you don’t lose points. Likewise with the tree stickers, try and place them somewhere that doesn’t need to be covered, to give you the bonus points at the end of the episode.

Episode 11 has just one small change from Episode 10. The first player to cover all their forest with buildings gets 1 gold nugget.

Like episode 10, a gold nugget goes to the first player to build on both gold veins. This means it is possible for a player to get 4 gold nuggets during this chapter, and complete the bottom row of their cabinet.

Scoring

The scoring is identical to episode 10. Mark your circles and place your stickers in the same way.

Episode 12 plays the same as Episode 11, but there is 1 scoring difference. If you cover all your forest spaces, you gain an extra 10 points during scoring.

Scoring

Scoring is identical to the other 2 episodes in this chapter. And circles are coloured in, and stickers placed, in the same way as Episodes 10 & 11.

And finally, award the Bonus for the most and second-most gold gained during this chapter. Colour in the progress circles accordingly.