Overview

Cities is a city-building game where players are tasked by the city council to transform a neighborhood. Over 8 rounds (4 in a 2-player game), players use workers to collect scoring cards, city tiles, feature tiles, and building pieces. Players build neighborhoods on a 3x3 tile grid, constructing buildings up to 4 stories high and placing features in parks and waterfront areas. The player with the most Victory Points wins.

Components

• 1 game board
• 100 building pieces (25 each in red, blue, green, and yellow)
• 48 feature tiles
• 32 city tiles
• 32 worker pawns and 12 achievement rings (8 + 3 each in 4 player colors)
• 4 player aid cards
• 32 scoring cards
• 1 cloth bag
• 1 star token
• 4 starting tiles (with colorless back)
• 4 scoring tokens (1 in 4 player colors)
• 4 city achievement boards (double sided)

Setup

1. Each player chooses a color and takes 4 worker pawns (8 in 2-player), 3 achievement rings, 1 scoring token, and 1 player aid card.
2. Choose a city achievement board and place it above the game board (use New York City or Rio de Janeiro for first game). In 2-player games, cover the middle achievement space with a ring of an unused color.
3. Shuffle all scoring cards into a face-down draw pile to the left of the game board.
4. Shuffle all city tiles into face-down draw piles below the scoring cards.
5. Place feature tiles face-down, mix them, arrange into stacks below city tiles.
6. Place all building pieces in the bag.
7. Randomly choose a start player who takes the star token.
8. Lay out the 4 starting tiles. Starting with the player to the right of the start player going counter-clockwise, each player chooses a starting city tile to begin their neighborhood.
9. Populate the game board rows for the first round (see Start of a Round).

Turn Structure

Start of a Round

Populate the game board:

• Row A (Scoring Cards): Draw 4 scoring cards; place 3 face-up and 1 face-down.
• Row B (City Tiles): Draw 4 city tiles; place 3 face-up and 1 face-down.
• Row C (Feature Tiles): Draw 6 feature tiles; place 5 face-up and 1 face-down.
• Row D (Building Pieces): Pull pieces from the bag, placing 1 in each of the first 10 squares (not on question mark spaces).

Player Turn

Play begins with the star holder and moves clockwise. On each turn, the active player:

1. Takes an item (or group of items) from one row of the board.
2. Places 1 of their workers in the designated worker space next to the taken item(s).
3. After the start player’s first turn, they place the star token on the bottom right space.

Restriction: In 3-4 player games, each player may place only 1 worker per row each round. In 2-player games, they must place 2 workers per row over the course of the round. Workers may be placed in any order.

End of Round

Once all workers are used, the round ends. The player with the worker closest to the star space (rightmost worker in Row D) takes the star token and becomes first player next round. In a 3-player game, remaining items on the board are removed from the game.

Actions

Take a Scoring Card (Row A)

Take the scoring card and place it face-up beside your neighborhood.

Take a City Tile (Row B)

Take the city tile and place it into your neighborhood. It must be placed fully adjacent to an existing tile and may be rotated to any orientation. Tiles have 3 types of spaces: city (building), park, and water. Any type may be placed next to any other type. A neighborhood may never exceed 3x3 tiles.

Take Feature Tile(s) (Row C)

Take the feature tile(s) and place each on a space of the same type in your neighborhood:

• Blue background feature tiles go on water spaces
• Green background feature tiles go on park spaces
• Grey background feature tiles go on building spaces with no building pieces

Only 1 feature tile per space. If you cannot legally place a tile or choose not to, it is removed from the game.

Special Feature Tile: The tile with the grey box changes any space to a “wild” space, allowing any color building piece to be placed. Once a piece is placed, only pieces of the same color may stack on it.

Take Building Pieces (Row D)

Take all building pieces from 1 space (or from the last space, draw 2 random pieces from the bag). Each piece can be placed on a building space of the corresponding color or stacked on top of a piece of the same color (up to 4 pieces high). If you cannot legally place a piece or choose not to, it is removed from the game.

Check Achievements

At the end of each turn, check if you fulfilled any achievements on the city achievement board. Place 1 ring on the highest vacant number under that achievement. You may claim multiple achievements on the same turn but only each achievement once per game.

Achievement rules:

• “Adjacent” means orthogonal, not diagonal
• An “area” means a group of orthogonally connected spaces
• All number requirements are minimums, not exact (unless stated)
• A special feature tile counts as an empty city space of any color for achievements
• If you claim an achievement but later no longer meet its requirements, you keep it

Scoring / Victory Conditions

After the 8th round (4th in 2-player), calculate scores:

Category	Points
City Achievement Board	Points listed under your placed achievement rings
Scoring Cards	VP listed on each card whose requirements are met (scores for every occurrence)
Water Areas	1/3/6/10 VP for 1/2/3/4 different feature tiles in each connected water area
Park Areas	1/3/6/10 VP for 1/2/3/4 different feature tiles in each connected park area
Monument Feature Tiles	2 VP each

The same configuration of spaces or building pieces may be scored by multiple scoring cards. The player with the most VP wins. Tiebreaker: most VP from achievements.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Face-down items: Players may not look at face-down items until chosen. When chosen, they are turned face-up and taken.
• 2-Player Variant: Play 4 rounds (or 7 rounds for a longer game with a 3x5 neighborhood). Each player uses 8 workers and must place 2 per row.
• The same spaces/pieces may contribute to multiple scoring cards.
• Items that cannot be legally placed are removed from the game, not kept.

Player Reference

Round Structure	Details
Rounds	8 (standard) / 4 (2-player) / 7 (long 2-player)
Workers per player	4 (standard) / 8 (2-player)
Workers per row per round	1 (3-4 players) / 2 (2-player)
Max neighborhood size	3x3 tiles (standard) / 3x5 (long 2-player)
Max building height	4 stories

Water/Park Scoring	VP
1 feature tile	1
2 different feature tiles	3
3 different feature tiles	6
4 different feature tiles	10