Variants and The Great Bazaar

Istanbul's Big Box variants: Random Layout, Neutral Assistants and The Great Bazaar with both expansions in a 5 × 5 grid.

These variants come with the Big Box rulebook and can be combined freely.

Random Layout

• Shuffle the Places and lay them out.
• The Fountain must be an inner Place; swap it if needed.
• The Black Market (8) and the Tea House (9) must be at least 3 Places apart and not in the same row or column; swap Places if needed.

Neutral Assistants

For experienced players:

• At setup, replace the bottom Assistant of each stack with an Assistant of a neutral colour (for instance white).
• Ending your move on a Place with a neutral Assistant, you may pick it up as if it were yours. If one of yours is there too, choose which one to pick up.
• You may carry several neutral Assistants.
• At the Fountain you only call back your own Assistants.

The Great Bazaar

Base game plus both expansions — for players who know them well.

• Lay out Places 1–25 at random in a 5 × 5 grid, the Fountain in the centre.
• The Black Market and Tea House rule above applies (at least 3 apart, different row and column).
• Use all Bonus cards; all base and expansion rules apply.
• The Tavern’s Encounter tile also covers the Courier. The Secret Society may also take a Ruby from the Coffee House.
• Coffee beans printed on Letters, Kiosk tiles and cards only matter in this variant: there, coffee is an option wherever it is shown.