Your Company
How Contracts, Buildings and Employees work, the card icons, training and upgrading, the Upkeep track, Credits and Loans, and open information.
Card abilities
Buildings, Contracts and Employees carry abilities (every card).
- Each ability works once per round, unless the card says otherwise; a pawn ability works once per pawn you have at that location.
- Every ability is optional.
- Sell abilities let you discard an item for its value or for the Cash shown.
- The icons on the left of a card say when it works:
| Icon | When |
|---|---|
 crossed-out pawn + number | When that location resolves, with or without your pawn there (Abilities without pawns) |
| Pawn + number | When you resolve your own pawn at that location |
| Cash register | In every Upkeep phase |
| Model in a dress | In Exhibition rounds (at the Show or Award phase — the card text says which) |
You may own several copies of the same card.
Contracts
Free, no Upkeep, placed left of your player board. At the end of each Exhibition round’s Upkeep, Contracts taken this quarter are flipped to their weaker side, and Contracts flipped at the previous Exhibition are discarded. Last Quarter Contracts don’t weaken: the game ends first.
Buildings
Bought at location 3 for the price on the card; each raises your Upkeep and gives a desk for one more Employee. You can’t discard a Building on your own (the With Audit Company Contract allows it). In the Growth phase you may upgrade one Building — pay the cost, flip it. Last Quarter Buildings can’t be upgraded.
Employees
Hiring is free, but each Employee raises your Upkeep.
- Your player board has three Starting Employees costing 1 each. Your first three hires cover them; the new Employee’s Upkeep replaces the old one. Covering a Starting Employee costs no severance.
- From the fourth hire on, each Employee needs an empty Building to sit under.
- No room? Fire a hired Employee and pay twice your current Upkeep, or give up the action.
- In the Growth phase you may train one Employee — pay, flip. Last Quarter Employees can’t be trained.
Upkeep
Your Upkeep track shows what your company costs each round: the sum of the Upkeep printed on your Buildings and Employees, plus 10 % of every Credit and Loan. It starts at −3 (three Starting Employees).
- Move the marker whenever you buy, hire, train, upgrade, or take or repay a Credit or Loan. You can always recount it from the cards.
- Below −9, add the −10 marker for the tens.
- Upkeep can be positive (for example with Accountants early on): flip the marker to its +1 side; you then gain that Cash.
- Pay it at the end of every round’s Upkeep phase, after using your Upkeep abilities.
Credits and loans
| Credit | Loan | |
|---|---|---|
| How | By choice, at the Bank (location 1) or by a card | Only when you can’t pay your Upkeep |
| Amount | Up to 10 × Designs in your largest Style; 10, 20 or 30 per card | Always 20 (or several 20s) |
| Interest | +10 % of its value to your Upkeep at once | +2 Upkeep at once — paid in that same round |
| Repay | In full, in the next Exhibition round’s Upkeep | 28 per Loan, in the next Exhibition round’s Upkeep |
- You can’t take a Loan just to buy something in the Action phase.
- In an Exhibition Upkeep, pay your Upkeep first, then repay. If you can’t repay, take new Loans of 18 each (the interest is already deducted); they must be repaid at the next Exhibition.
- Unpaid Loans at the very end mean bankruptcy (Final scoring).
Open information
Nothing is hidden: anyone may ask how much Cash you have or how many tokens a Collection could earn, and you should answer with the best outcome you can reach. Only your plans for location 9 stay secret. Putting the tokens a Design would give on the card itself makes this easy.