Siberia Card - Rules of the card game
Objective of the game
In Siberia card, you will be extracting resources.
And you will hire men to help you in that task.
The player who can make the most money will be the winner.
Resource cards and action cards
There are two types of cards:
- resource cards (gas, charcoal, oil, gold, diamond)
- action cards (each showing a resource and a man)
Setup
Each player receives 5 action cards from the action deck.
8 resource cards are drawn from the resource deck and laid in a row (called the resource row). The first 3 cards are face up which means they are discovered.
Each player receives one worker.
Player's turn
A player's turn has two phases:
- Resource discovery
- Cards playing or cards drawing
Resource discovery
When there are 3 or more resource cards face down, the player must turn one of them face up.
If there are 0, 1 or 2 resource cards face down, then this is optional.
Drawing cards
After the discovery phase, the player can choose between drawing cards and playing cards.
If he chooses to draw cards, he can take two cards from the action deck.
However, he can never have more than 8 cards. So:
- If he already has 8 cards, he is not allowed to draw any cards (only skip his turn).
- If he already has 7 cards, he can only draw 1 card.
Playing cards
Playing cards is done by making combinations of cards.
The usual way is to play two identical symbols.
For example, if you play 2 action cards containing gold, you can get gold from the resource row.
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Similarly, if you play 2 action cards containing a worker, you can hire a worker.
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The second symbol can always be replaced by any two cards.
For example, you could play: 1 gold + any 2 cards.
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After playing cards, you will always draw one new action card.
Playing cards with an investor
There is one investor (and only one) for each type of resources.
If you hold the investor for a resource, you can save the first card of a combination for getting that resource.
So, for example, if you have the investor for gold, you can play one of these combinations to get gold:
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Hiring workers, salesmen and investors
All workers are the same. You can get a maximum of 5 workers (this is a special rule for the digital version).
Salesmen and investors all apply to a specific category of resources (or of staff for the salesmen). So when you play a combination of cards to hire a salesman or an investor, you must choose one among those who are still available.
Workers
When you play a combination to get resources from the resource row, you are allowed to take as many resource cards as your number of workers.
So if you have 3 workers, you can take at most 3 resource cards at the same time.
Of course, you can only take the resources if they are discovered. If there is only one Gold resource available, you can only take this one (even if you have 5 workers!).
Salesmen
Resources are normally worth the value on the card while all men are worth $1000.
Salesmen improve the value of your resources and staff.
When you have a salesman for a category, all your cards in that category have the same improved value at the end of the game.
Improved values with salesman:
| Gas | $4000 |
| Charcoal | $5000 |
| Oil | $6000 |
| Gold | $7000 |
| Diamond | $8000 |
| - | - |
| Worker | $2000 |
| Salesman | $3000 |
| Investor | $4000 |
During the game, you can click on the 'S' button to get a summary of this information and more.
Investors
As seen above, investors are used to save cards when playing combinations.
Resource row
After a player has taken resource cards from the resource row, the row is filled up with cards from the resource deck if there are enough left.
So for most of the game, there are 8 cards in the resource row.
The new resource cards are placed face down (they are not yet discovered).
Players must take resources from left to right. You cannot pick the most valuable ones.
Action deck
Played cards are discarded face up in a discard pile.
If at any moment the action deck is depleted and a player needs to draw a card from it, the discard pile is shuffled to form a new action deck.
End of the game
The end of the game is triggered by the discovery of the last resource card.
The player who discovers that last card can finish his turn.
Then, each player has one more turn.
Each player adds the values of all his cards (resources and staff). The richest player is the winner.
Credits
We would like to thank Reiner Stockhausen for giving us the opportunity to offer Siberia Card on Happy Meeple.
