Introduction[]
Players are communities that participate in the development of Little Big Town by building residential areas, industry, offices, parks, etc., that in turn will offer accommodation, leisure and working opportunities to their citizens.
Like in real towns, each player will have to learn to cooperate with other parties to further their own interests, as each community has different needs and no one can build Little Big Town alone.
The game includes tile/cube placement, stacking, and card management. The players will have to navigate a changing economic situation while trying to place their citizens at the best positions and achieving their long term goals.
Setup[]
Tiles represent the 6 different developments of the city. They are shuffled and made into a pile with their backs visible. A row of 4 visible tiles is made
The game uses all the cards with pink and green backgrounds (values 1-3). The 6 black cards are secret Goal cards used for end game scoring. The white cards define the economic climate, facilitating the construction of certain types of developments (one of each). The other colours represent the resources and permits required to build a certain development.
All cards except black ones are shuffled.
Each player receives 20 Citizens (cubes) of her color, one tile, one secret goal card and draws two cards
First play is determined randomly
Play[]
During her turn, a player can perform two actions, or pass. Both actions can be of the same nature, or different. There are 3 types of action:
1: place a citizen (cube) on a tile, pay the cost in cards, score the cube (1 point). If there are less than 4 players, a player can also place cubes of a neutral color, but they don’t score.
The cards discarded to pay the cost must add numerically at least up to the cost, and either be a set of the same color, and include at least once the symbol of the tile being built, or be a set of different colors, but all the cards having the built symbol.
2: place a development (tile), pay the cost in cards like for citizens, score the tile (1 point per tile in the stack), and draw another tile.
Tiles must be placed either on top of existing tiles (if four cubes have been placed), or adjacent to existing tiles.
The cost of placing a tile is equal to the stack size once the new tile is added.
The cards discarded to pay the cost must add up numerically to the cost, and either be a set of the same color, and include at least once the symbol of the tile being built, or be a set of different colors, but all the cards having the built symbol
Some tiles can accommodate up to 4 citizens. Those can be stacked, when 4 cubes have been placed.
Gain points : 1 per tile in the stack + boni.
3: draw up to 2 cards (max. hand size = 5)
if a player draws a white card, it must be immediately played on the economic climate slot, and the previous one goes to the discard tile. The player draws an additional card. If several white cards appear simultaneously, one is randomly selected, and the others are discarded.
An economic climate card lowers the building cost of its type by one
if the draw deck is empty, reshuffle the discard pile to make a new draw deck
Developments
Residential area
cubes can be placed on this tile (+1 during scoring if adjacent to park of size X. +1 if adjacent to a body of water, cumulative)
+1 cost to build if adjacent to industry
can be stacked on top of office tiles
needs adjacency to waste management tiles to rise more than 1 level
Goal card scoring : score each top level cube of residential tiles, regardless of color
Office area
cubes can be placed on this tile (+1 if adjacent to a park or body of water tile, cumulative)
can be stacked on top of industry tiles
needs adjacency to waste management tiles to rise more than 1 level
Goal card scoring : score each top level cube of office tiles, regardless of color
Industry
cubes can be placed on this tile
needs adjacency to waste management tiles to rise more than 1 level
can raise up to 2 levels
if adjacent to to a river, can raise up to 4 levels, and each tile or cube gest a +1 bonus
Goal card scoring : score each top level cube of industry tiles, regardless of color
Waste management
cubes can be placed on this tile
allows to stack +1 level
allows to stack +1 per size of adjacent body of water
Goal card scoring : Each stack > 1 scores the square of its height
Body of water
no cubes can be placed on this tile
1 tile = pond
2 adjacent tiles = lake
3+ adjacent tiles = river
Goal card scoring : each body of water scores the square of its size
Park
no cubes can be placed on this tile
can stack on top of industry, offices or residential tiles, once
adjacent park tiles form a single park
Goal card scoring : each body of water scores the square of its size
Winner[]
The game ends when either of these conditions are met:
- a player should draw a tile and tile pile is empty
- a player places his last cube
Once the game is finished, goal cards are scored and the player with the most points wins
In case of ties, the player with less cubes in his reserve wins
Solo play[]
Solo play uses the normal rules with the following additional rules:
Choose the game difficulty (1 - easy, 2 - average, 3- hard). For each difficulty level chose a secret goal for the Opponent and stack them.
The remaining secret goals are placed in a row next to the Opponent goal cards.
An equal sized pile of tiles is placed on top of each slot in the row.
As a pile is exhausted, its goal card is revealed, giving an hint to the Opponent’s goal cards
During play, each non player cube placed on tiles scores for the Opponent
Cooperative play[]
For cooperative play, use the normal + solo rules, with the following additional rule:
The player’s end score is the lowest of each player’s individual score