Overview

In London (Second Edition), players are prominent architects rebuilding the city after the Great Fire, guiding development up to the dawn of the 20th century. You balance buildings, money, land, and poverty to accumulate prestige. Play cards to build your city, buy boroughs for land, and run your city to activate card effects. The player with the most prestige when the city deck runs out wins.

Components

• 1 Development board
• 101 City cards (sets A, B, C)
• 20 Borough cards (including 3 starters)
• 4 Score trackers
• 48 Coin tokens
• 12 Loan tokens
• 44 Poverty tokens (30x1, 10x5, 4x15)

Setup

1. Place the development board centrally. Each player takes a score tracker on “0.”
2. Place coin, poverty, and loan tokens as supply.
3. Each player takes £5.
4. Separate city cards into A, B, C decks; shuffle each. Stack C face-down, B on top, A on top to form the city deck.
5. Deal 6 cards to each player.
6. Place three starter boroughs (City, Westminster, Southwark & Bermondsey) face-up beside the board.
7. Shuffle remaining boroughs into a face-down borough deck.
8. The player who set up the game goes first.

Development board spaces: 2 players = 3 per row; 3 players = 4; 4 players = 5.

Turn Structure

On your turn:

1. Draw 1 city card (from city deck or development board).
2. Take one action:
   • Develop your city
   • Buy land
   • Run your city
   • Draw 3 more city cards
3. Discard if you have more than 9 cards in hand.

Actions

1. Develop Your City

Play one or more city cards to your building display:

• For each card played, discard a card of the same colour from your hand.
• Pay any additional cost on the card.
• Place cards in stacks (piles). A card cannot be placed on top of another card placed this same turn.
• Ongoing abilities activate immediately.
• Action cards are played directly from hand without discarding a matching colour.

Card colours: Brown (economic), Blue (science/culture), Pink (politics), Grey (paupers — cause poverty).

2. Buy Land

• Choose a face-up borough card or draw from the borough deck.
• Pay the borough’s cost.
• Place it overlapping your previous borough (old borough’s left edge stays visible).
• Gain the borough’s immediate benefits (draw cards, prestige, lose poverty).
• Only the top borough’s abilities are active.

3. Run Your City

Activate face-up city cards in your display:

• Pay each card’s activation cost (money or discard from hand).
• Gain the card’s benefit.
• Cards marked with the flip symbol turn face-down after activation.
• Gain poverty based on: (a) number of cards in hand, (b) loan tokens owned, and (c) your top borough’s negative effects.
• Activate borough abilities if applicable.

4. Draw 3 City Cards

Simply draw 3 more cards (from deck or development board).

Scoring / Victory Conditions

Game ends when the city deck runs out and a player cannot draw. Finish the current round.

Final scoring:

1. Prestige from face-up city cards and boroughs.
2. Subtract prestige for poverty (escalating scale):

Poverty	Prestige Lost
1-2	-1
3	-2
4	-5
5	-7
6	-9
7	-11
8	-13
9	-15
10+	-15, then -2 per additional poverty

1. Lose 7 prestige per unpaid loan (each loan costs £15 to repay; those unpaid cost 7 prestige).

Winner: Most prestige. Tiebreaker: most money remaining.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Loans: Take £10 any time you need money. Each loan generates poverty when you run your city. Repay £15 at the start of your turn. Unpaid loans at game end cost 7 prestige each.
• Discarding cards: Place on the development board’s top row first, then bottom row. If full, remove all bottom-row cards from the game, move top-row to bottom, then discard.
• Drawing cards: Draw from either the city deck or the development board (any visible card).
• Borough stacking: Only the top borough’s abilities are active; previous boroughs still count for prestige from card effects that reference location.
• Poverty from running your city: Equal to number of cards in hand (after running) + poverty from loans + borough effects.

Player Reference

Turn Summary:

1. Draw 1 card
2. Take 1 action (Develop / Buy Land / Run City / Draw 3)
3. Discard to 9 if needed

Card Colours: | Colour | Type | |——–|——| | Brown | Economic | | Blue | Science/Culture | | Pink | Politics | | Grey | Paupers |

Loan Summary: Borrow £10 → Pay £15 to repay → Generates poverty while active → -7 prestige if unpaid at game end