Gameplay

How a game of Nippon: Zaibatsu flows — Periods and rounds, your turn, the Hiring area and Worker Queue, the end of a round, the final rounds and the general rules.

Overview

Meiji Japan is racing to industrialise, and each player runs a zaibatsu — a family of companies. You build Factories and fit them with Machines, produce Goods, sell them in the Local Markets for Influence, send Ships abroad for experts, lay railways, and fulfil Contracts.

The game lasts 3 Periods. Each Period has rounds, and each round is made of turns. Points come from two places:

• Influence Scoring at the end of each Period — who has the most Influence in each Region;
• Final Scoring — the Personal Objectives of your Zaibatsu and your leftovers.

The most victory points wins.

Your turn

Going clockwise from the first player, on your turn you do one of two things:

• perform an action, or
• make a Consolidation (Consolidation) — you must, if you cannot or do not want to perform an action.

Take a Worker

1. Choose an action on the main board. Take 1 Worker from the Hiring space above it.
2. Put that Worker on the lowest empty space of the Workers area on your Zaibatsu.

You cannot choose an action that you cannot activate at least once, and with no empty space in your Workers area you cannot act at all — you must consolidate. The Worker’s colour does not matter for the action; it matters later, when you consolidate.

Activations

An action has 1 to 3 activations; the icon on the board shows how many. Each activation is paid separately — Resources, Money and/or Goods — and gives its effect. Several activations are still one action and cost one Worker. The ≠ sign on a board action means each activation must go to a different Factory, Destination or Region.

What you gain in one activation can pay for the next.

End of your turn

At the very end of your turn, look at the Hiring area. If any one Hiring space is empty, move all the Workers of the topmost filled row of the Worker Queue onto that empty space.

If the Worker Queue has no Workers left to move, the round ends.

End of a round

In order:

1. If the first Round marker is on the last space of the current Period, run Influence Scoring now.
2. Move the first Round marker 1 space forward.
3. Add 1 random Worker from the bag to each Hiring space that has fewer than 3. Do not clear the Workers already there first.
4. Refill the Worker Queue from the bag, as in setup: the top area with 2 players, top and middle with 3, all three areas with 4.
5. The player to the left of whoever ended the round takes the next turn.

If the bag runs out, fill what you can and add the missing Workers as soon as Workers return to the bag.

Periods and the Round track

• Period I — rounds 1 and 2, then Influence Scoring worth 10 / 8 / 6 / 2.
• Period II — rounds 3 and 4, then Influence Scoring worth 18 / 14 / 10 / 3.
• Period III — round 5, then the final rounds, then Influence Scoring worth 26 / 20 / 14 / 4 and the end of the game.

Final rounds

At the end of round 5 the Hiring spaces and the Worker Queue are refilled as usual. When the first Round marker reaches the first bright space (where the second Round marker waits), the player who ended the round hands the second Round marker to the player on their left.

• From now on, everyone has exactly 3 more turns.
• A round is now one turn each, starting with the holder of the Round marker. At its end, advance the Round marker 1 space — but do not add Workers to the Hiring spaces and do not refill the Worker Queue. Workers still move from the queue to an empty Hiring space at the end of each turn.
• After the third final round comes the last Influence Scoring and the end of the game.

General rules

• Effects of your pieces affect only your Zaibatsu, and only on your turn, unless they say otherwise.
• Apply effects in any order you like, but finish each one before the next. Gaining a bonus counts as an effect.
• Gained Goods, Resources and Money come from the general supply; spent ones go back to it. The supply is unlimited — use substitutes if you run out.
• Money comes as notes of 1, 3 and 5 (¥1,000, ¥3,000 and ¥5,000). Red numbers on icons are costs; white numbers are gains.
• An effect that takes a Ship, Machine or Train from your Zaibatsu always takes the leftmost one.

Tracks

Your Zaibatsu has three tracks: R&D , Mining and Finance . Markers never move past the last or first space; extra steps are lost.

• R&D is your technology level: Factories need level 2, 4 or 6.
• Mining sets the Coal you gain at each Consolidation.
• Finance sets the Money you gain at each Consolidation.

Bonuses

• A bonus printed on a track space is gained when your marker reaches or passes it.
• A bonus printed between two spaces of the Ships, Machines and Trains area is gained once both spaces next to it are empty — when you have built the piece above and the piece below.
• Bonus icons: a Department colour (gain that Department bonus), a blank Department (any Department bonus you like), a green arrow (advance on Finance), or an Influence token (move that locked token from your Zaibatsu to your supply).

Silk

Silk stands for Japan’s silk trade, as good as money:

• At any moment of your turn — Consolidation included — you may turn 1 Silk into 1 Money, as often as you like.
• When building a Factory, you may spend 1 / 3 / 6 Silk to count your R&D level 1 / 2 / 3 higher for that Factory only. Your marker does not move.