City and Trade

City Directives, production, caravans, and export ships.

City Directives

Use the bottom half of an Order card with one or more Overseers. Move all Overseers on it to one City Quarter with none of your Overseers. You may use a different City Quarter for each of your three City Directives this round. The Overseers you place set the number of times you perform its action. You may move Overseers from the City Entrance upper space to reinforce it, to a maximum of four. You cannot take an action in either City Entrance space.

Imperial Palace Quarter

Choose a request, place the required Overseers, gain two Sapeques and resolve its benefit. The four spaces offer Palace Maintenance (one Overseer; each player can claim it once each round), Establish a New Trade Route (two Overseers; draw three Caravans, keep one face up, put the rest under the pile), Build an Irrigation Canal (three; advance Transport Capacity), and Build Bridges (four; build or upgrade a Workshop for free). Other requests can be claimed by only one player at a time.

Materials Market

Pay one Sapeque for each of your Overseers in the space. For each paid Overseer, take one Wood or one Stone from the reserve.

Trade Port

Each action loads one Peasant from a Crop or one Good into a matching vacant Ship slot at the Port. Salt can replace any required Good or Crop. Pay Transport Capacity for movement, then gain one Yínzi. Asia Ships have two cargo slots; Europe Ships have three. When all slots are full, the Ship immediately sails and interrupts the current action. Resolve destination benefits, place its Goods in the corresponding Foreign Market, return Peasants to their owners, remove the Ship and replace it from the Open Sea. Continue the interrupted action with the replacement Ship available.

When a Ship sails, a player with a Peasant or Good on it may also use an Overseer in Corrupt Administration’s matching Trade space: remove that Overseer from the game and advance an Ambassador one space on the Negotiation track.

Artisan Quarter

Produce in each Workshop at most once per round. A Level I Workshop needs two Overseers; Level II and III need one or two Overseers, as shown on the Player Aid. Pay one Yínzi to another player if using their Workshop. Move matching-color Peasants from Local Markets to it, using Transport Capacity. Level I and II use one Peasant and produce one Good. Level III can use one or two Peasants and produces one or two Goods respectively. Return those Peasants to their owner’s supply. A Workshop cannot produce beyond its storage capacity. Any Goods produced belong to the player taking the action, not the Workshop owner.

Caravanserai

Place your Overseers in the leftmost empty Caravanserai spaces. For each action, choose a displayed Caravan you can complete; move the matching Crops, Salt or Goods onto it. No Transport Capacity is needed. It becomes yours, no one else may add to it, and you immediately take its printed Sapeque or Yínzi reward. Caravans not completed remain displayed and still count when checking the Mongol escort.

In Regulation, the combined Overseer total is compared with the sum of Steppe Mongol values on all displayed Caravans. If the escort succeeds, the player with the most Overseers places one beside the 4 WP space; otherwise, the leader places one beside 2 WP. A tie goes to the player who placed an Overseer earliest. Other Caravanserai Overseers return to supplies. Up to four scoring Overseers remain beside the two spaces until game end.

City Entrance and Corrupt Administration

If an action cannot be fully resolved, move its Overseers to the City Entrance lower space. During Maintenance, move these to the upper space; in the next round they may reinforce a City Quarter but cannot take a City action alone. Corrupt Administration benefits move existing Overseers among quarters, grant resources or actions, create an extra Caravan, or prepare a Ship trade. Read each printed benefit; some remove an Overseer from the game when its Ship sails.

The printed benefits are: Imperial Favor moves an Overseer to your Imperial Palace Quarter; Mass Production moves one to Artisan, Trade Port or Materials Market; Trade to Europe / Trade to Asia moves one to the Caravanserai and, when that destination’s Ship sails, can remove it from the game to advance your Negotiation Ambassador; Grand Administrator adds two to your Caravanserai presence for the escort check; Mass Exodus moves up to two Palace Overseers to City Entrance upper; Workforce supplies a virtual Peasant for immediate use in Workshop production; Food Surplus loads two Peasants from different food Fields onto a Ship and gains one Yínzi; Private Caravan draws three, keeps one face up and ignores its disaster and Mongol effects; Overexploitation gives one Wood or Stone for immediate use; Exceptional Harvest repeats Deploy Peasants, including the Crop purchase even if already used this round; Shrewd Merchant repeats one Local Market sale; Saltworks sends one Peasant from your supply to a Market, Caravan or Ship for immediate use without Transport Capacity; and Opulence gives two Rice for immediate use. Benefits that move an Overseer require you to already have an Overseer in the named Quarter.