Forbidden City

About the game

What is Forbidden City?

The new Chinese Emperor Wei Zu Yang is still too young to rule. His advisors hope to strengthen their influence throughout the imperial palace – better known as the Forbidden City. In turn in Forbidden City, the advisors place down room tiles in an attempt to close off the rooms when their influence is the biggest. To increase their power, they also need as many imperial dragons as possible on their side. The advisor with the most influence in the Forbidden City wins this exciting game of power! During your turn, you play the tile from your face-down pile and place it face up on the table. You may place your tile only against a tile of the same color, unless they are divided by a wall. When you close off a room — that is, when it's completely surrounded by walls with or without archways — you calculate its total value. Each tile forming part of the room generates 1 point, each dragon in the room generates 3 bonus points, and any other rooms directly accessible from the closed off room through an archway are also added to the score. The player with the most advisors in a closed-off room receives the total value in Chinese coins. The player who has the second-most advisors in the closed off room receives half the total score. In the event of an uneven total score, the amount is rounded down. If there are two or more players with the most advisors in the closed off room, each of these players is awarded half the total value. The player who has the highest amount in coins at the end of the game is the most powerful advisor of the Forbidden City and therefore wins the game! —description from the publisher

How it plays

Mechanics

On the shelf

Categories

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

• How do setup and the first turn work in Forbidden City?
• When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
• How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?