Gameplay

Grand Austria Hotel's components, the 7 rounds, the snake turn order, your turn, guests, the dice, passing and re-rolling, and the end of a round.

Overview

Vienna, around 1900. You run a small hotel and want to make it the best in town. Guests sit in your café and order dishes and drinks; once their order is served they move into a room of their colour, pay you points and give you a reward. Staff help you along the way, and you must keep the Emperor pleased or pay for it.

The game lasts 7 rounds. After rounds 3, 5 and 7 comes an Emperor scoring; after round 7 the final scoring. Most points wins.

Components

Component	What it is for
	Game board — the guest queue, the Emperor track, the Round track, the score track and the spaces for 3 Politics cards and 3 Emperor tiles. FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ
	Action board — 6 Action spaces, one per die number (Actions). FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ
	4 Hotel boards (two-sided) — rooms, kitchen, café and money track (Your Hotel). FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ
	56 Guest cards — order, points, reward and colour (Guests). FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ
	48 Staff cards — cost, timing and effect (Staff). FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ FAQ
	12 Politics cards — goals worth points (Politics cards).
	12 Emperor tiles — bonus above, penalty below (Emperor tiles).
	9 Turn Order tiles — two numbers each; the dice you take cover them (Turn order).
	Dustbin — holds dice removed when someone passes (Passing).
	4 victory point markers — for scores past 75 and 150.

Also: 84 Room tiles in blue, red and yellow (front: free room, back: occupied), 120 dishes and drinks — strudel (light brown), cake (white), wine (red), coffee (black) — 14 dice, 24 wooden disks in 4 colours, a Round marker and 4 Overview cards.

Guests

Each guest card shows, top left, the order — the dishes and drinks they want — and top right the points they pay. The table cloth colour is the guest’s category:

At the bottom is their reward, the bonus you take when they move into a room. Symbols are explained on the Cards & Components page.

Turn order

The start player holds Turn Order tile 1, the next player clockwise tile 2, and so on. Each tile shows two numbers (4 players: 1/8, 2/7, 3/6, 4/5). Play always goes to the lowest number still showing. When you take a die you cover your lowest visible number with it.

So the order snakes: 1-2-3-4 then 4-3-2-1. The last player takes two turns in a row.

A round

1. The start player rolls all dice still in play and sorts them onto the Action spaces by number.
2. Players take turns in turn order — two turns each — or pass.
3. End of the round.

Your turn

1. Take a guest (optional) — details.
2. Take a die and carry out its action (mandatory, unless you pass) — Actions.

You may also take any number of additional actions at any moment of your turn — before the guest, in between, or after the die — but never in the middle of the die action.

Taking a guest

Take one of the 5 face-up guests and pay the cost printed below it on the board (3, 2, 1, 0 or 0 krones, from left to right). Put it on a free table of your café. With 3 guests already there, you cannot take one.

Slide the remaining guests to the right and draw a new one onto the empty space on the left. If nobody takes a guest, nothing slides.

Passing

Instead of taking a die you may pass — usually because the dice left are of no use to you. You then wait until every other player has taken both turns or passed too.

Then the player with the lowest number still showing takes all dice left on the board, puts one in the dustbin, rolls the rest and sorts them onto the spaces. That player takes a turn or passes again, then the others who still have a number showing, in turn order. Someone passing again repeats the process with one more die to the dustbin.

The round goes on until every player has covered both numbers or no dice are left.

End of a round

1. After rounds 3, 5 and 7: Emperor scoring.
2. Turn your used once-per-round Staff cards face up again.
3. Pass your Turn Order tile to the next player clockwise.
4. The new start player takes all dice and moves the Round marker one space.

After round 7 and its Emperor scoring, go to the final scoring.