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Purpose of the Game
Architects gradually develop their three streets by building houses, identified by their numbers.
Houses will be grouped into housing estates, but only fully-completed estates count at the end of the game.
Parks and pools help to improve the neighborhood.
Architects can raise the quality of their constructions in order to promote their estates’ value.
All of this while trying to be the first to complete the City Plans!
Finally, by increasing recruitment through temp agencies, architects can hasten the construction and get in the mayor’s good graces.
Gameplay
At the beginning of each turn, three pairs of cards will be drawn. These pairs create three combinations, comprised of a House Number and an Effect. These combinations are used to perform actions.
Players take turns simultaneously. Each player individually chooses one of the three combinations available to perform an action on their sheet. Multiple players can pick the same combination.
Each player must write the number from the chosen combination in a house on one of the three streets on their sheet. Numbers must always be written in an empty house and must be written in ascending order from left to right. The same number can never appear twice in the same street (except for the "Bis" effect).
When filling in houses, players may leave as many empty houses between two built houses, and then fill them in later. Numbers must still be in ascending order. Also, players may skip numbers when filling in houses, like placing a 10 directly after a 7.
If a chosen house number cannot be played because it cannot fit anywhere while preserving ascending order, this is marked as a building permit refusal.
The player’s chosen combination also allows them to perform an effect. Players may perform the effect only if they did not receive a building permit refusal.
Note: performing an effect is optional.
Once all players have built their houses and carried out effects, a new turn begins.
EFFECTS:
Surveyor (Symbol is a White Fence)
Allows the player to build a fence between two houses on the same street. To build a fence, choose any available, white-dotted space and draw a line on it.
Permanent fences are present on both sides of each street. Fences determine the boundaries of housing estates. A completed housing estate is a row of 1 to 6 neighboring houses, all numbered (no blank spaces between them) and built between two fences. Completed housing estates may be split further, as long as they have not previously fulfilled a City Plan.
Score: Completed housing estates score two ways. The first is that completed housing estates are necessary to fulfill City Plans which provide points—see that section below. The second is when scoring is done for the Real Estate Agent—the Real Estate Agent’s scoring (see its section below) is only applied to completed housing estates.
Real Estate Agent (Symbol is Purple Three Stacks of Money with an Upward-Pointing Arrow Behind)
Promotes and increases the value of completed housing estates. To use the Real Estate Agent, choose a Real Estate column and mark off the top-most (also lowest-numbered) unmarked space.
Score: At the end of the game, each completed housing estate (size 1, 2, 3, etc...) on your board scores as many points as the top-most unmarked number from the column corresponding to that completed housing estate size. A completed estate has all houses assigned a number and assigning a completed estate to a city plan does not stop it from being scored here.
Landscaper (Symbol is a Green Background with Two Palm Trees)
Allows the player to build a park. To use the Landscaper, the player marks off the left-most (also lowest-numbered) unmarked of the nine-sided “trees/parks” number-spaces just above the right end of the same street that the player used their chosen house number.
Score: At the end of the game, each street scores as many points as the number on the left-most unmarked number on the nine-sided “trees/parks” number-spaces for that street.
Pool Manufacturer (Symbol is a Blue Pool Area)
Allows a player to score points when building houses that have a planned pool. To use the Pool Manufacturer, a player must write their chosen house number on a house with a planned pool, in which case the pool is then built. Also then the player marks off lowest-numbered unmarked number in their pools scoring area.
Score: At the end of the game, score as many points as the lowest-numbered unmarked number in the pools scoring area.
Temp Agency (Symbol is an Orange Background Construction Zone Barricade)
Allows the player to add or subtract 1 or 2 to the house number they are building. The Temp Agency allows the player to write numbers from 0 to 17. For each use of the Temp Agency, mark off one space in the Temp Agency scoring area.
Score: At the end of the game, the player who marked off the most Temp Agency spaces in their scoring area scores 7 points. The player with the second most marked off scores 4 points, and the third-highest scores 1 point. In case of a tie, players score the same amount of points.
Bis (Symbol is a Red Mailbox labelled "Bis")
Allows the player to duplicate a house number on any street. Select any empty house that is adjacent to an existing house and on the same street. Duplicated house numbering can never be separated by fences.
A house number can be duplicated multiple times, and the duplicated number does NOT have to be associated with the chosen number-effect combination. Mark off the lowest-numbered space in the Bis scoring area.
Score: At the end of the game, SUBTRACT the lowest-numbered, unmarked number in the Bis scoring area from the final score.
You are not required to build the second house, and will only have to pay the Bis penalty if you did build it.
(The word "bis" means "again", as in using the address number again.)
City Plans (The Three Off-White and Gray Cards with “n•1”, “n•2”, etc. in Red on Them)
A City Plan presents a goal set by the City to its architects, as in building a certain number of completed housing estates with mandated sizes. Points are awarded for accomplishing a City Plan, and the most points are given to the first player who accomplishes it.
The first player who completes a goal can choose to reshuffle the 81 Construction cards and deal three new stacks of cards as in game setup.
When a completed housing estate or a house has been used for a Plan, it cannot fulfill another City Plan. The player marks out the fence above each house to indicate it has already fulfilled a City Plan. However, a pool used for a City Plan does not invalidate its corresponding house for another City Plan.
Score: The first player(s) who meet the required conditions of a City Plan during the same turn immediately score the points indicated. Write the higher amount from the "Project" side of the City Plan card in the corresponding box (n°1, 2, or 3) in their Plans scoring area. Turn over the City Plan to its "Approved" side.
A player can only score each City Plan once.
Other players who later achieve the same City Plan score the lower point amount.
Housing Estates Plans
To fulfill these City Plans, the player must complete all of the required housing estates.
The estates do not have to be in the same street. There is no restriction to the location of a Plan’s estates.
The game ends immediately when:
- A player crosses off their third Building Permit Refusal
- A player achieves all three City Plans
- A player has built all of the houses on their streets.
Add up the points for City Plans, parks on each street, pools, temps, and real estate agents’ completed housing estates. Then subtract the points from the BIS scoring area and the Building Permit Refusal column.
The player with the most points wins!
In case of a tie, the player with the most completed estates wins. In case of another tie, the player with the most 1-house estates wins, then 2-house, etc... In case of another tie, (seriously?) players play another game of Welcome To.
Additional Info
Distribution of cards
Effect side of cards:
- 9x Pool Manufacturer cards
- 9x Temp Agency cards
- 9x "Bis" cards
- 18x Landscaper cards
- 18x Real Estate cards
- 18x Surveyor cards
House Number side of cards:
- 3x 1,2,14,15
- 4x 3,13
- 5x 4,12
- 6x 5,11
- 7x 6,10
- 8x 7,9
- 9x 8
Expert Rules and Advanced Variant:
Optionally, games can be set up to use Expert Rules, Advanced Variant, or both.
1. With the Advanced Variant, there are additional city plans with requirements involving parks and pools. Players may also build a roundabout as an additional action. By placing a roundabout on your street, you can have one set of numbers to the right of the roundabout (0 to 17) and one set to the left (0 to 17). Creating a roundabout uses a house space, and automatically adds a fence to the right and left of the roundabout. You can build up to two roundabouts, and fill in the lowest scored circle in the red section of the scorepad marked with an asterisk (unused in the normal version) — roundabouts cost points.
2. With Expert Rules, rather than all players collectively using the same cards, each player gets dealt three cards of his own, and chooses a number from one, and an action from another. The third, unused, card gets passed to the next player. On each subsequent turn, each player gets dealt two new cards, and again chooses a number from one, an action from another, and passes the third.
Expansions
Ice Cream Truck
Own the best ice cream truck in the neighborhood! Score the most points by filling house numbers in the order that the truck moves.
There is one ice cream truck for each street; any truck can move on a turn. The top street's truck moves from right to left. The middle street's truck moves from left to right. The first time you number a house on the bottom street, you can choose which direction the bottom street's truck moves.
Movement
An ice cream truck drives only once through their street, and all missed ice cream orders are therefore lost.
When you write a number in a house, the truck drives from its current location to that house, unless it has already passed it. This is represented by a line in the street from the ice cream truck's starting point to that house. If the house just numbered has an ice cream cone, circle it and cross off any other ice cream cones passed on the truck’s trip.
Scoring
You earn one point for each scoop of ice cream circled during the game.
If you are the first to circle or cross off the last ice cream cone on a street, you earn a bonus of one point for each ice cream cone circled in that street. All other players must cross off this bonus, but can keep selling ice cream cones on that street.
When you start numbering the bottom street, pick the ice cream truck you want on either side and cross off the other. Only one bonus applies for this street, even if different players move in opposite directions.
Christmas Lights
Decorate the streets for Christmas with the longest lights possible.
Gameplay
To decorate the houses, you must write numbers in consecutive order in the streets. When two adjacent numbers are consecutive, you can connect them with a string of Christmas lights.
A Bis number is considered consecutive to the identical number next to it.
Scoring
You can have multiples strings of lights in one street but at the end of the game, only the longest string of lights in each street will score additional points.
For each street, earn as many points as there are houses connected by the longest string of lights.
Example
2 4 [empty] 6-7-8-8bis-9 11-12-13
This would end up scoring five points for the six through nine chain of lights and nothing for the 11-13.
City Plans
Build two estates of three houses without any string of lights.
Build two estates of six houses connected to each other by a single string of lights.
Connect all the houses of one street with a single string of lights.
Spring (Easter Eggs)
Find eggs and circle them with a number to collect them.
6,9,16 - circle one egg
0,8,10 - circle (up to) two eggs
Gameplay
To collect an egg, write a 0, 6, 8, 9, 10, or 16 on the house containing the egg(s).
Scoring
Count the total number of eggs collected:
- 6 eggs: 5 points
- 10 eggs: 10 points
- 14 eggs: 20 points
- 18 eggs: 35 points