Your Turn and the Portfolio

How a turn of Lisboa works: political cards, docking ships, the emergency gold, playing cards into your portfolio, rubble sets, Influence, the Royal Treasury and the end of turn.

Lisboa has no rounds of actions to plan: each turn you play one card from your hand of five and take one action with it. The game runs over two periods; the pace is set by rubble sets and by the Political card decks running out (End of the game).

A turn at a glance

1. Dock your ships — your ships at sea come home.
2. Play a card — either Get 1 gold, or take an action:
   • into your portfolio, then Sell Goods or Trade with the Nobles;
   • into the Royal Court: a Noble card to Visit a Noble, a Treasury card to Sponsor an Event.
3. Take a Political card from the display, back to five in hand.
4. End of turn — refill the displays and clear the goods off the State actions.

Turn order never changes. Play goes clockwise from the Starting Player.

Political cards

There are 82 Political cards in four decks by period: blue (1755–1757, your starting hand), red (1758–1762, the first display), purple (1763–1768, the hand refill at the end of period 1) and brown (1769–1777, the second display). Each card is one of two kinds.

Kind	Top	Middle	Bottom
Noble card (Manuel, Marquis or King)	Influence, earned whenever you gain Influence	The Noble’s portrait (flavour)	A reward or, crossed out, a penalty
Treasury card	Subsidy and Treasury modifier	An event: the action or reward you get by sponsoring it	A money or sales benefit

A Noble card visits that Noble in the Royal Court, or goes into the top of your portfolio. A Treasury card sponsors its event in the Royal Court, or goes into the bottom of your portfolio. Every card shows a grey arrow at the end you tuck under your board. Rule of thumb from the player aid: covering an icon gives you what it shows.

Dock your ships

At the start of your turn, any of your ships that sailed (goods face down on its dock) comes home: return those goods to the supply. The ship can take goods again.

Get 1 gold

The emergency turn: discard any Political card from your hand and take 1 gold from the supply. Then take a new card as usual. Discarded cards always leave the game.

Take an action

Play a card and take one of four actions. You must be able to carry out the action you choose.

Where the card goes	Card	Action
Your portfolio	Any card	1 — Sell Goods or 2 — Trade with the Nobles
Royal Court	A Noble card	3 — Visit that Noble
Royal Court	A Treasury card	4 — Sponsor an Event

Your portfolio

The top of your player board has 3 wide slots (the docks, for Noble cards and Ships, which give Influence); the bottom has 3 narrow slots (your office, for Treasury cards and their money benefits). Each slot holds one card. Together they are your portfolio.

• Size: 2 cards at the start, +1 per completed rubble set, never more than 3 on top and 3 below. The size counts every card, top and bottom, Ships included.
• Full? Discard a portfolio card before you add a new one (even if the new card would make the portfolio bigger). If you discard a Ship, its goods go too.
• You can’t discard portfolio cards at any other time.

Playing a Noble card into your portfolio

1. Take the reward at the bottom of the card — or pay the penalty if it is crossed out (if you can’t pay a penalty, you still play the card; penalty cards carry more Influence).
2. Tuck the card into an empty top slot (or discard a card first), hiding the reward.
3. Sell Goods or Trade with the Nobles.

Playing a Treasury card into your portfolio

1. Take réis from the Royal Treasury equal to the Treasury value.
2. Move the Treasury marker down 1 space (not past the end).
3. Tuck the card into an empty bottom slot (or discard first). Its money/sales benefit now applies whenever it can, and adds to every other benefit you have.
4. Sell Goods or Trade with the Nobles.

Take a political card

To end your action, take any face-up card from the Political card display, back to 5 in hand. From left to right the decks are Manuel’s, the Marquis’, the King’s and the Treasury deck.

End of turn

After your action and any Follows:

1. Turn the top card of the deck you took from face up, if any.
2. Refill the City tile display (one tile per space).
3. Refill the Church track from the Clergy bag.
4. Refill the Decree display to 8 cards.
5. Return any goods on the State actions to the supply.
6. If the Cardinal was laid down, do Church scoring now.

Public Buildings are never refilled here: a new one moves up as soon as one is taken.

The player board

1. Player board — portfolio slots above and below, warehouses, rubble, houses. Your portfolio
2. Player Aid book — every action step by step. Take an action
3. Rubble Set markers — on the +1 spaces above the rubble columns. Rubble sets
4. Wooden houses — three groups that unlock abilities. Choosing a wooden house
5. State Officials — 8, sent to the Nobles’ offices. Recruit State Officials
6. Warehouses — one of each good to start. Produce goods
7. Réis — 10 to start. The Royal Treasury
8. Clergy spaces — up to 4 Clergy tiles. Meet the Cardinal
9. Royal Favor spaces — one per Noble. Follow a Visit
10. Plans — incomplete above, completed below. Open a Public Building