Lisboa Rules: How to Play

Lisboa

1–4 players

60–120 min

8.2

Lisboa is a game about the reconstruction of Lisboa after the great earthquake of 1755. On November 1, 1755, Lisbon suffered an earthquake of an estimated magnitude of 8.5–9.0, followed by a tsunami and three days of fires. The city was almost totally destroyed. The Marques of Pombal — Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo — was the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and the King put him in charge of the reconstruction of Lisbon. The Marques of Pombal gathered a team of engineers and architects and you, the players, are members of the nobility; members who will use your influence in the reconstruction and business development of the new city. You will work with the architects to build Lisbon anew, with the Marquis to develop commerce and with the King to open all the buildings, but the true reason you do all this is not for greatness or fame or even fortune, but for the most important thing of all in that time: wigs. Lisboa is played on a real map of downtown Lisbon. During the planning of the downtown project, the type of business permitted in each street was previously determined. The economic motor is driven by the wealth of the royal treasure and this treasure is controlled by player actions during the game, making each game a totally different experience. The game ends after a fixed number of rounds and whoever gathers the most wigs by the end of the game wins. Lisboa is played in rounds. Each round, all players play one turn. They may place one card on their display or replace one card from this display. During the game, players schedule hearings to get character favors, such as commerce, construction, and openings. The iconic buildings score the stores and stores provide income to the players. Players need to manage influence, construction licenses, store permits, church power, workers and money, with the workers' cost being dependent on the prestige of the players.

How to play

Setup, how a turn works and how the game ends, summarised from the rulebook by Eko, Meepzy's rules assistant.

Here is a general overview of how to play based on the rules:

Setup

Players receive starting cards from the blue deck (1755–1757) and place rubble cubes onto the Downtown map, Public Building sites, and the Rubble pile according to the destruction layout (p. 7).
The Decree deck is shuffled, and a face-up display of 8 cards is laid out next to the gameboard (p. 7).
Political card decks are separated by color and set aside, while the red deck (1758–1762) is placed in the Event display (p. 7).

How a Turn Works

On your turn, you first Dock Your Ships, then either Get 1 Gold or Take an Action, then Take a Political Card, and finally perform basic upkeep for your End of Turn (p. 8).
To Take an Action, you play a card from your hand into either your Portfolio or the Royal Court to perform one of four main actions (p. 9):
1. Play any card into your Portfolio to Sell Goods (p. 9, 12).
2. Play any card into your Portfolio to Trade with the Nobles (p. 9, 12).
3. Play a Noble card into the Royal Court to Visit a Noble's Office (p. 9, 16).
4. Play a Treasury card into the Royal Court to Sponsor an Event (p. 9, 21).
Alternatively, as an act of desperation, you can discard a Political card from your hand instead of taking an action to Get 1 Gold from the general supply (p. 13).
After taking your action, you take a new card into your hand from the Political card display, and the turn passes to the player on your left (p. 8).

How the Game Ends

The game is divided into 2 time periods, each spanning a variable number of rounds (p. 8).
The first time period ends at the end of a player's turn when someone completes 2 sets of rubble or 3 decks of Political cards are exhausted (whichever comes first) (p. 8).
The game ends when a player completes 4 sets of rubble or 3 decks of Political cards are exhausted again (p. 3, 5). At the end of that round, players take one final turn, followed by endgame scoring (p. 3, 5).
The player with the most wigs wins the game (p. 3).

This summary was written by Eko from the game's own rulebook. It covers the essentials, not every edge case. For a specific rule, ask Eko and get the page it came from, or open the manual in the Archive.