Learn Oranges & Lemons

Welcome to London

Oranges & Lemons is a worker-placement game about building trade and reputation in eighteenth-century London. You begin with two workers, one storage space and a little gold. The goal is to turn those into points through cargo contracts, bells, loans, shares, votes and end-game majorities.

Each round starts with worker placement and then resolves all sixteen locations in order. Most choices are shared: another player may take a spot you wanted, use the high-price market slot first, or claim a cargo before you can reach it.

Start with the setup checklist.

Set up the game

Use the setup checklist. Give players starting gold by turn order (5 through 9), set up the resource locations and market, prepare the East India Company bag, then build the cargo stack with five face-up Level I contracts and the correct numbers of Level II and III tiles. Put each player’s first two workers on the order track in a snake; keep three more in reserve.

Choose the optional shorter or longer cargo setup before play if your group wants a different length. The advanced career tiles and the expansion modules are optional.

Read the turn and locations.

Place workers and plan actions

Workers are placed one at a time in the current order-track sequence. Paid spaces cost gold immediately. Once all workers are placed, resolve each location from 1 to 16, and resolve several workers at one location from left to right.

Think of your first turns as a chain: acquire a good, make sure you can store or use it, then sell it or complete a contract. Starting capacity is only one cube, so avoid collecting goods with no open space or immediate use.

Review the location actions.

Use the locations

The early locations supply lemons, bricks, pancakes and pans, or provide gold, loans, bells and royal favour. St Katherine’s sells goods and advances your transaction marker. Aldgate expands transport and storage. St Helen’s trades shares; Old Bailey invests in ships; Shoreditch trades any goods; Stepney pays rewards for cargo deliveries; St Paul’s recruits workers; Bow awards votes.

Location 12 is always activated. Its ships move the share price each turn, even if no player placed a worker there. Ships can provide a one-time benefit or recurring goods and income.

See game end and scoring.

Finish and score

At turn end, refill goods, collect recurring benefits and refresh the cargo display. When the cargo stack is exhausted, complete that turn and score. Players choose whether to sell shares before counting points.

Score votes, loans, money, shares, cargoes, transport and storage, goods remaining in storage, bells, the transaction track and bonus tokens. Then award first- and second-place bonuses in the eight majority categories. See Game End and Scoring for the exact values and tie rules.