Vizier and Actions

Moving your Vizier around Baghdad's four quadrants, the City tile, Building and Palace actions, Building effects, tuition and Shame, and drafting a new Character card.

Move Vizier

The places in the City where your Vizier can stop are locations: City tile slots (hexes), Building sites (the outer ring) and the Palace site of each quadrant (green, near the centre).

• First turn: put your Vizier on any location.
• Later turns: move it to any location in the next quadrant clockwise.
• Never a location with another player’s Vizier, and never a Building site that already has a Building.
• With 3 players, Building sites marked are closed. With 1–2 players, sites marked or are closed too.

You cannot stop on a City tile slot unless you can place that tile on your board.

Step tokens

While moving, you may spend up to three Step tokens: each moves your Vizier one quadrant further clockwise. Use them to skip a crowded quadrant or to reach a location you need.

[Public Works] Passing the Black Gate, from south-east to south-west, makes you contribute to the Civic board (Public Works). [Objectives] Passing the Golden Gate, from north-west to north-east, makes you place a marker on an Objective card (Objectives).

Take Action

After moving, do these two things in either order, finishing one before the other: take the action of your location and resolve your Building effects.

City Tile Action

Take the City tile from your Vizier’s slot and put it on a free spot of the matching colour on your player board. Each spot shows how many skill icons it needs. You must have at least that many:

Tile	Skill icon needed
Patient	Rod
Student	Abacus
Book	Quill
Artefact	Anvil

The icons come from your face-up cards, plus Students, Wild tokens and Skill tiles. Any free spot of that colour will do, not just the leftmost. Each tile type then does something:

• Books: your second, third, fourth and fifth Book each put a Library token from your supply into the Wisdom area and give you that reward.
• Patients: gain the Goods token shown on the tile at once, then flip the tile to its side without Goods.
• Artefacts: score at the end. An Artefact you already have goes face down, showing its crate, and scores nothing: collect different ones.
• Students: spend them later as one skill or Boat icon (Spend a Student).

If the new tile leaves a City tile both above and below one of the bonus effects printed between the rows of your board, resolve that bonus. If one tile completes two bonuses, resolve both, in either order.

Building Site Action

1. Find the lowest level of Building you have not built yet: you build each level once, 1 to 5.
2. Choose one of the two face-up Buildings of that level in the Building area and pay its cost:

Level	Cost
1	1
2	2
3	3
4	4
5	5

3. Put it on the Building site under your Vizier, and put one of your Houses on it. Each House slot on your board needs (1, 1, 2, 3 and 4 from top to bottom); take any House whose requirement you meet.
4. If you took the Building from the bottom row, slide the top tile of that level down to replace it.

You cannot take this action without the Coins and the .

[Public Works] You may make the Building public instead: a Public House goes on it and your House goes on the Public Houses board (Public Works).

Palace Site Action

1. Choose an unbuilt piece in the Palace area and pay the Goods printed beside it:

2. Put one of your Architects on the slot beside that piece. Architect slots need like Houses (1, 1, 2, 3 and 4); take any Architect whose requirement you meet.
3. Put a Foundation, Wall or Minaret on a matching empty space of the Palace and gain the reward it covers. The Base goes on top of the four Foundations, the Dome on top of the Base.

Each Architect gives its multiplier to the Palace Scoring tile of its section. The Base scores 15 points and the Dome 12.

Solo and two-player Palace rule

As soon as the third Foundation, Wall or Minaret is built, the fourth piece of that type is built automatically: put a neutral Architect beside it and the piece in the last empty Palace space of that type. When someone builds the Base, the Dome goes on with it. Neutral Architects only block slots and never score.

Resolve Building Effects

Each of your Buildings in your Vizier’s quadrant triggers once, before or after your action, in any order, even one you built this turn.

Level	What it does
1	Gain something small: a Goods token, a Boat move, a Step token or a Favour
2	Gain more: a Wild token, two Goods, two Boat moves or 2
3	Take a Student, Book, Patient or Artefact from anywhere in the City
4	Gain 1 per Patient, Artefact, Book or Student on your board
5	No effect during play: 3 points per item at the end

Each Building is listed on Cards & Components.

Pay Tuition and Gain Shame

Look at the City tile slots joined to your Vizier’s location by a road, in this quadrant or the next:

• each Patient: lose 1 . Each Favour you cannot lose becomes a Shame token.
• each Student: pay 1 . Each Coin you cannot pay costs 2 instead.

At the bottom of the Favour track, each Favour you would lose becomes a Shame token (−3 points). With no Coins but some Favour above the start, Spend Favour for the Coin instead: it costs 1 Favour rather than 2.

Draw a Character Card and Refill the City

Take one Character card from the Wisdom area into your hand.

• From one of the three left slots: refill it from the Day deck, or from the Night deck when the Day deck is empty.
• From one of the three right slots: refill it from the Night deck, or from the Day deck when the Night deck is empty.
• Both decks empty: leave the slot empty.

Then draw a City tile from the bag for every empty City tile slot without a Vizier. When the bag runs out, put all the tiles marked 2 into it.

When the Wisdom area is empty, the end is near.