Gamehelpcarnegie
Introducing Carnegie
NOTICE
These rules are a WORK IN PROGRESS and are subject to change. They are intended to enable Alpha testing. Please do not contact the designer or publisher about the rules posted here.
Introduction
This game is inspired by the life of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835; he and his parents emigrated to the United States in 1848. Although Carnegie started his career as a telegraph operator, his role as a major player in the rise of the United States’ steel industry made him one of the richest men in the world and an icon of the American dream.
Carnegie was also a benefactor and philanthropist. Upon his death in 1919, more than $350 million of his wealth was bequeathed to various foundations, with another $30 million going to various charities. His endowments created nearly 2,500 free public libraries that bear his name: the Carnegie libraries.
In Carnegie, players will recruit employees and expand their businesses by investing in real estate, producing goods, developing transport technology, and creating transport chains across the United States. Perhaps they will even become illustrious benefactors who contribute to the country’s greatness through their deeds and generosity!
The game takes place over 20 rounds, with players each having one turn per round. In each round the active player will choose one of four actions, which the other players will follow.
The success of a player’s Company is represented by their victory points (VP), and the player with the most VP at the end of the game will be declared the winner, known forevermore for their philanthropic works.
Game Setup
- Shuffle the 8 Timeline tiles. Draw 4 of these at random and place them in a row on the table. These tiles are double-sided; select sides at random. Add the Start and End tiles to the respective ends of the row, and return the 4 unused Timeline tiles to the box.
- Place one action disc on each of the 4 starting positions on the far left of the Timeline.
- Place the Department tiles on the table, next to the main game board.
- Place the Department tiles on the Department board. With 4 players, use all 32 tiles (2 tiles of each type). With 2 or 3 players, first shuffle these tiles face-down and randomly remove 16 or 8 of them (for 2 or 3 players, respectively) from the game.
- Create a supply of goods cubes and money tokens near the main game board.
- Provide each player with:
- 4 Goods cubes and $12.
- 1 Company board and its 4 project tabs. Slide each tab under the right side of the individual game board, with its first (rightmost) spot exposed.
- 15 Employee figurines. Each player places 1 employee standing up on each of their Company board’s 5 Departments, with another 5 employees lying down in the Company's Lobby. Set the remaining 5 employees aside; they will not be available at the beginning of the game.
- 30 player pawns. Each player places:
- 1 pawn on the “0” position of the score track
- 1 pawn on the first space of each of the 4 regional transport tracks
- 1 pawn on each of the 3 available locations on their project tabs (Housing, Commerce, Industry).
- The remaining 22 pawns form the player’s personal supply.
- In a 4-player game, give each player an Action Choice tile. In a 3-player game, only the third player receives an Action Choice tile. There are no Action Choice tiles in a 2-player game.
- Beginning with the player sitting to the right of the first player and going counter-clockwise, each player will place the project pawn on their Housing tab on a medium or major city on the map.
- Finally, starting with the first player and going in clockwise order, each player may move their employees up to total 6 steps on their own Company boards. Each movement must be made to an orthogonally adjacent (not diagonal) space. After these movements, employees can be activated.
Company Basics
Company Organization
Each Company is organized into four different Departments, which correspond to the four different types of actions, as follows:
- Human Resources: allows players to move employees to different Departments within their Companies.
- Management: allows players to acquire goods and money, and to build new Departments. Each Company begins the game with two Management Departments.
- Construction: allows players to build projects developed by their R&D Departments.
- Research & Development (“R&D”) allows players to design new projects and develop their transport networks.
At the beginning of the game, each Company has 1 Lobby and 5 Departments. During the game, players will be able to expand their Companies by building new Departments. Each Department may hold 1-3 employees; this is represented by the number of employee spaces illustrated on that Department. A Department cannot be used unless it contains at least one active employee. A Department may be used once for each active employee that it contains.
Recruiting Employees
Employees can be either active (standing) or inactive (lying down).
When an employee first enters a Company board, it always does so lying down. When an inactive (laid down) employee moves, it remains inactive. If an active (standing) employee is moved, it must be laid down. A Department may hold any number of inactive employees.
Employee activations always happen at the end of a player’s turn.
Many employee spaces on department tiles are marked with dollar values, representing the costs of that employee’s salary and training. To activate an employee, a player must pay the cost indicated and then place the employee in an upright (standing) position.
Sending an Employee on a Mission
Some departments require sending an active employee on a Mission. An employee on a Mission is moved from its Department onto one of the four Mission zones on the map; employees sent on Missions are not considered to be active.
A player cannot send an employee on a Mission if they are unable to meet the requirements of that action.
Recovering Employees from Missions
When an employee returns from a Mission it must be placed in its Company’s Lobby, lying down. Returned employees are not immediately active; they must be moved and activated with the Human Resources action.
Employees return from Missions as action discs advance along the Timeline; this is explained in detail in the next chapter.
Playing the Game
The game takes place over 20 rounds. Each round consists of four parts, which take place in the following order:
- Select Action
- Events
- Use Departments
- End of Round – Activate Employees
Select Action
The first player selects the action they wish to perform: Human Resources, Management, Construction, or R&D, and then places the hat figurine on that action’s row on the Timeline, immediately to the right of that row’s action disc.
Note: A player may choose any action, even if that action’s disc has reached the last space of its Timeline. In this case, the first player must still place the hat figurine to the right of the chosen action disc. The first player must then also turn another action disc face-down; that action disc must still be able to move forward. When an action disc is turned face-down, it triggers an event as though it were the chosen action. At the end of the round, this second disc is turned face-up again and advanced along its Timeline.
Placing the hat will trigger an event. There are two possible events: Take Income or Make a Donation.
Take Income
If the hat is placed on a Timeline space illustrated with a region of the United States, that region becomes the active region. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player with one or more employees in the active region’s Mission area may:
- Return 1 or more of their employees from the active region to their Company’s Lobby. In this case, the player receives income from each project they have already built, from anywhere. These revenues are collected only once per player, per round (even if a player returns more than 1 employee to their Company’s Lobby, they only receive this income once).
- Generate a transport bonus for each recovered employee, according to how far they have developed their transport in the active region. At the beginning of the game, the transport bonus for each region is $1.
Note: If a player cannot (or does not want to) return an employee to their Company’s Lobby, that player does not receive any income or transport bonuses for that round.
Note: A player's transport bonus corresponds to their level of development in the active region. A player may not choose a bonus lower than that of the level they have reached.
Make a Donation
If the hat is placed on a “donation” symbol, the first player may choose to Make a Donation. Then, going in clockwise order, the other players may choose to make their own donations. A player’s first donation costs $5; each donation that player makes in the future will increase in price by $5 (ex: a second donation will cost $10; a third will cost $15). Donations are explained in more detail below.
Use Departments
The first player may use any of their Departments that correspond to their chosen action, in any order. Each Department may be used once for each active (standing) employee present in that Department.
Then, going in clockwise order, the other players may take the same action. As with the first player, these players may use any of their Departments that correspond to the chosen action once for each active employee in that Department.
All uses of a Department must be done as part of a single action; a player cannot return to a Department they have already used on that turn.
Example: Thomas has two active employees in his Commerce & Finance Department, and one in his Strategic Planning Department. He uses his Commerce & Finance Department once, and then uses his Strategic Planning Department. He cannot then take a second Commerce & Finance Action.
Note: By spending an Action Choice tile, a player can choose to take a different action and activate any of their Departments that correspond to this new action. Then, the Action Choice tile is discarded.
Players begin the game with a Lobby and 5 Departments, which are described below.
Human Resources
The Human Resources Department allows players to train employees and assign them to different Departments. When choosing this action, a player carries out the following steps, in order:
- Calculate the total number of possible moves that player’s employees can make. Each active employee in Human Resources provides 3 moves (right arrow symbol). This Department features a permanent active employee (employees may not be activated in this space); thus, each player is always entitled to a minimum of 3 moves.
- Move employees within the Company (including from the Company’s Lobby and any space that does not contain a Department) up to the total number of possible moves. Each move must be made orthogonally (horizontal or vertical, never diagonal), from Department to Department. Moving an active (standing) employee returns it to an inactive (laying down) state.
- At the end of a player’s turn, that player can activate (stand up) any inactive (laid down) employees on free spots in any of their Departments. The player must pay any costs associated with those activations.
Note: Inactive (laid down) employees are considered to be “in training”. A player may only activate employees at the end of their turn, after all other actions have been taken.
Note: The total number of possible moves is calculated at the beginning of a player’s turn. Moving an active employee from Human Resources during a turn will not reduce a player’s total number of possible moves for that turn.
Management
At the start of the game, each Company has two Management Departments; these help to generate resources and build new Departments that expand the Company. The first Management Department, "Commerce and Finance," provides one of the following for each active employee on this space:
- Receive $3;
- Receive a goods cube;
- Send the employee on a Mission and receive $6;
- Send the employee on a Mission and receive 2 goods cubes.
The second Management Department, “Strategic Planning,” makes it possible to build new Departments. This Department provides one of the following for each active employee on this space:
- Pay 1 goods cube and place a new Department on a free space (one that does not already contain a Department) of the player’s Company board; that space must already contain at least one employee;
- Pay 2 goods cubes and place the new Department on a free space of the player’s Company board.
Note: A Company may never contain two identical Departments.
Construction
The Construction Department allows players to carry out projects in the following areas: Housing, Commerce, Industry, and Public Infrastructure. When this action is chosen, the player who activates this Department:
- Sends an employee to the Mission area of the region where he wishes to build.
- Pays 1 or 2 goods cubes, then moves a pawn from one of their tabs onto a construction site in the same region.
- If a player builds a project in a small city, that player immediately receives a transport bonus according to their position on that region’s transport track.
Notes:
- If more than one pawn is available on a project tab, the player must build the one farthest to the right.
- The project must be built:
- in the region where the employee was sent on a Mission, AND
- on a spot matching the chosen project type (with a symbol of Housing, Commerce, Industry or Public Infrastructure), OR in a small town that accepts all types of projects;
Research & Development
The R&D Department allows players to develop new construction projects in Housing, Commerce, Industry, Public Infrastructure, and Transport. When this action is chosen, each player will receive study points for each of their active employees in their R&D Departments.
Study points can be spent in two different ways:
- A player may move one of their project tabs one place to the right and place a construction pawn on the tab’s just-revealed space (circle), OR
- A player may move one of their transport cubes on a regional transport track one space to the right.
Note: A player may advance tabs or transport cubes more than one step in a turn. At the end of the turn, any unused study points are lost. Note: If a player advances a tab beyond the spaces for construction projects, they will receive the VP indicated on that tab at the end of the game.
End of Round - Activate Employees
At the end of each player’s turn, that player can activate inactive employees in any of their Departments; any associated activation costs must be paid at this time.
Once each player has taken a turn, the first player must move the action disc on the Timeline one space to the right (displacing the hat figurine). Then, the first player must pass the hat figurine and first-player marker to the next player in clockwise order. A new round can now begin.
End of the Game
Connections between Major Cities
At the end of the game, players can each earn up to 36 VP for establishing connections between the 4 major cities of New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco. To gain these points, a player must have connected at least two major cities through a continuous line of their own construction pawns. Each player counts how many major cities they have connected as part of an uninterrupted line; to earn this bonus, a player must connect at least 2 major cities. If San Francisco is connected to at least one other major city, count it twice. Players will earn these points based on the number of cities connected AND the lowest level of transportation they have achieved across all connected regions. This scoring is illustrated on the game board. If a player has two unconnected networks of connections between major cities (for instance, San Francisco to Chicago and New Orleans to New York), only the highest-scoring connection will count for that player’s score.
Final Scoring
The game ends after 20 rounds. Once all 4 action discs have reached the final boxes of their Timelines and all players have finished their actions, victory points (VP) can be tallied as described below. Scoring includes:
- VP earned during the game;
- 1 VP for each active (standing) employee, to a maximum of 15 VP;
- Departments built during the game are worth 2 or 3 VP each, depending on their locations. Each Department in a Company’s first line (top) scores 3 VP, while every other Department built during the game scores 2 VP, to a maximum of 24 VP;
- Any VP earned from project tabs, to a maximum of 42 VP;
- VP earned from connections between major cities, to a maximum of 36 VP, as explained below;
- 0-3 VP for each Construction project built in a small, medium or major city (as indicated on the map), with a maximum of 45 VP;
- VP provided by donations (max. 12 VP per donation).
- 3 VP for an unused Action Choice tile.
The player with the most points is the winner of the game. There are no tiebreakers; tied players must shake hands and savor their shared victory.
Transport Tracks, Donations, and Departments
Transportation Development Tracks
Each region of the country has a transport track that players can develop over the course of the game.
At the beginning of the game, players’ transport tracks in the South, Midwest, and Far West start at the “Cart” level; in the East, they start at "Stagecoach." By progressing along each region’s transport track, players can reach “Railroad” level or beyond.
Whenever a player reaches the final box of a transport track, they immediately receive a special reward of 3 goods cubes OR $10.
Note: Only one player may occupy the final box of each transport track.
Transport Bonus
Boxes on transportation tracks that are occupied by players’ transport discs indicate which transport bonuses those players receive every time they recover an employee who has gone on a Mission in the corresponding region.
Donation Chart
As we saw in the “Playing the Game” section, if a donation symbol is present on the space where the active player placed the hat figurine, starting with the first player and going in clockwise order, each player may make one donation.
Donations represent players’ support of various financial, material, and technical projects; they help to increase players’ reputations, as well as those of their Companies.
To Make a Donation:
- A player must place a pawn on an unoccupied space of the donation chart (on the top of the game board), then pay:
- $5 for their 1st donation. Each subsequent donation costs an additional $5, so:
- $10 for their 2nd donation,
- $15 for their 3rd donation, and so on.
At the end of the game, donations earn VP according to certain factors. These may include projects built, actions taken, Company development, and accumulated wealth. A maximum of 12 VP may be earned for each donation.
The Department Board
There are 16 different Departments that players can add to their Companies
Training and Partnerships
This Department is a powerful way to bring more flexibility in allocating employees. It also allows its owner to supplement their financial resources.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). The player then receives any combination of $ and employee moves, to a maximum of 8. (For example, a player could take $2 and 6 employee moves, $4 and 4 employee moves, $7 and 1 employee move, etc., as long at the total is no greater than 8.)
Recruiting
This Department offers a very efficient way to reach the maximum of 15 employees.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). Then, that player immediately places a new employee from the supply into their Company’s Lobby. This Department has no further effect once the player has recruited all 5 employees from the supply.
Safety and Quality
This Department helps to ensure the quality of manufacturing processes and products, as well as ensuring employees’ safety and well-being.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). Then, the player receives 1 VP for every two active employees in their Company, rounded down.
New Lobby
A new Lobby allows faster access to certain Departments, minimizing the need for moves.
Rules: Once this Department has been built, it can hold new recruits and returning employees; employees can be divided between the two Lobbies as desired. This Department has an ongoing effect; it functions without an active employee.
Purchasing
This Department makes it possible to produce a large quantity of goods quickly, and free of charge.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). The player may then take 3 goods cubes from the supply.
Sales
If a Company produces a lot of goods, this Department can sell them for the best price.
Rules: Each time a player activates this Department, they may pay 1 to 3 goods cubes to the supply. For each cube paid in this way, the player receives $5.
Logistics
This Department improves a Company’s reliability and delivery time.
Rules: Each time a player activates this Department, they may pay 1 to 3 goods cubes to the supply. For each cube paid in this way, the player receives $3 and 1 VP.
Property Management
This Department allows a player to immediately assign an employee to a newly-built Department.
Rules: This Department has an ongoing effect as long as it contains an active employee. When a player adds a new Department to their Company, they may immediately move one of their employees from any Department to the new Department. This employee can be activated at the end of the turn, as normal.
Construction
This Department provides new construction capabilities and reduces building costs.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). That player then pays only 1 goods cube to build a new project (even if it is an Industry or Public Infrastructure project, which normally cost 2 goods cubes).
Construction Outsourcing
This Department allows a player to build without sending an employee on a Mission.
Rules: Whenever a player activates this Department, they may pay $4 and 1-2 goods cubes to build a new project, depending on the type of project being built.
Supply Chain
This Department makes it possible to buy goods at a reduced cost.
Rules: Whenever a player activates this Department, they may purchase up to 3 goods cubes at a cost of $1 each.
Communications
This Department increases the efficiency of donations.
Rules: This Department has an ongoing effect as long as it contains an active employee. The cost of new donations is calculated on the basis of $3 per donation, instead of $5.
Example: Before building the Communications Department, Thomas had already made 2 donations. The next donation he makes will cost him $9 (3 x $3), instead of $15 (3 x $5).
Advanced Research
This Department is an effective way to accelerate employees’ studies.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). The player then gains 8 study points.
Advanced Design
A new design Department allows improves a Company’s study efficiency.
Rules: Whenever this Department is activated, its owner gains 4 study points.
Charitable Giving
This Department allows a player to duplicate a donation that another player has already made.
Rules: To use this Department, the player must send an active employee from this Department on a Mission (move it to a Mission area on the map). After paying the appropriate donation cost, the player may then place one of their donation pawns on top of another player’s donation pawn, rather than on an unoccupied space; a player may not make the same donation twice.
Telegraph Operators
This Department reduces the costs of transport development.
Rules: This Department has an ongoing effect – as long as it contains an active employee. The player’s study-point costs to progress along transport tracks are reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0).