Citywright Rulebook v1.1

No computers. Six weeks. One pencil. Build a city worth living in.

The workshop

Every summer the world's most storied school of architecture runs one strange workshop. Young architects arrive from everywhere, and a retired master architect hands each of them exactly three things: a sheet of blank tracing paper, a charcoal pencil, and a set of drafting rulers. Then he gives the only rule of the workshop:

"No digital tools. Six weeks. Build a city on paper."

A few times over those six weeks he holds a pin-up. He pins fresh site data to the studio wall: sixteen plots, their sun, wind and land value. The apprentices crowd in, then start drawing at their tables at the same moment. One set of data, different people, a different hand each. The sound of a ruler dragged across tracing paper is the only sound of the competition. Whatever you draw at one pin-up is still on your sheet at the next.

In week six comes the final review. He walks the row of tables, stops at each sheet, and asks one question: "Would you live here?"

You are one of those apprentices. This rulebook is your handbook. The winner earns the title Apprentice of the Year and the right to name the four cities displayed on the final review wall.

Terms

These words mean the same thing everywhere in this book.

1. Game overview

Each turn you draft a ruler from around the shared site board. Its position decides which tiles you take. Its shape decides how they land on your drawing table. Everyone takes 12 turns, then the highest-scoring city wins.

2. Components

2.1 Drawing tables (绘图台)

One per player: a 7×7 grid of 49 cells. All cells start empty.

2.2 Site board (场地数据板)

One shared 4×4 grid of 16 cells, holding 16 tiles each round. Around it are 20 ruler slots: 16 edge slots, one at each end of every row and column, and 4 corner slots.

2.3 Tiles (板块): four districts

Each tile is 30×30 mm and shows its district's signature building, drafted in a pen-and-ink style. The four base colors are fixed.

That makes 240 tiles. Only 16 (4 of each district) are on the site board at once; the rest are the supply. The supply is not a limit: if a district ever runs out, use a stand-in.

2.4 Rulers (模板尺): 51 cards, 9 shapes

Four-cell rulers: 35 cards, 7 copies each of 5 shapes.

I          L      T        Z        O
■ ■ ■ ■    ■ ·    ■ ■ ■    ■ ■ ·    ■ ■
           ■ ·    · ■ ·    · ■ ■    ■ ■
           ■ ■

Five-cell rulers: 16 cards, 4 copies each of 4 shapes. ★ marks the free-pick cell.

W        T5       P        V
■ · ·    ■ ★ ■    ■ ■ ·    ■ ■ ★
■ ★ ·    · ■ ·    ■ ★ ■    · · ■
· ■ ■    · ■ ·             · · ■

2.5 Other pieces

• 6 achievement cards: extra scoring goals (§7).
• 1 draw bag: for mixing tiles onto the site board.
• 1 start-player marker.
• 4 score sheets: one per player, for each district's points and a tally of the rulers you place.

3. Setup

1. Drawing tables. Each player takes a drawing table and a score sheet.
2. Rulers. Shuffle the four-cell rulers face-down as one deck and the five-cell rulers as another. Leave room beside each deck for its discard pile. Two players first remove some rulers (§9.1).
3. Tiles. Sort the tiles by district into a supply within easy reach.
4. Site board. Put 4 tiles of each district (16 total) in the draw bag and mix. Draw them one at a time and place them face-up to fill the 16 cells.
5. Slots. Deal 16 four-cell rulers face-up to the edge slots and 4 five-cell rulers face-up to the corner slots.
6. Seats. Whoever most recently visited a park takes the start-player marker and is seat 1. Seats 2, 3 and 4 follow clockwise. Write your seat on your score sheet: seat numbers never change, even when the marker moves, and they set your seat bonus (§6.5).

4. Rounds and turns

4.1 Length: everyone takes 12 turns

Each round is one pin-up: fresh site data, fresh rulers.

4.2 A round

1. Action phase. Starting with the start player and going clockwise, players take one turn each, around and around, until everyone has taken all their turns for the round.
2. Cleanup, after every round except the last: - Refresh the site board. Return its 16 tiles to the bag, mix, and fill it again. - Clear the slots. Every ruler of the round, taken or not, goes to its deck's discard pile. - Deal fresh rulers: 16 four-cell to the edges, 4 five-cell to the corners. If a deck runs out while you deal, shuffle its discard pile into a new deck and keep dealing. If there are still not enough rulers, leave the remaining slots empty. - Pass the start-player marker one seat clockwise.

After the last turn of the last round, the game ends. Score it (§6).

5. A turn: three steps

On your turn, do all three steps in order. You cannot pass.

Step 1: Draft a ruler

Take any one ruler from any slot. First come, first served: it is gone for the rest of the round.

Step 2: Take tiles

The site board is a shared menu that never runs out. Taking tiles copies them: you take matching tiles from the supply, and the tiles on the site board stay where they are, for everyone, all round. Only the rulers get used up. The ruler's slot decides what you take.

• The top-left and bottom-right corners share one diagonal. The top-right and bottom-left corners share the other.
• The free pick is required. Copy any 1 of the 16 cells, even one on your diagonal.
• The rulers at the two ends of a line each give the full set of tiles.

Step 3: Commit (落笔)

Put the tiles on your drawing table in the ruler's shape. Charcoal doesn't erase: once placed, a tile never moves.

• Turn it freely. Rotate the shape 90°, 180° or 270°, and flip it either way.
• Use any empty cells. Every cell the shape covers on your table must be empty. No overwriting.
• Overhang is allowed. Part of the shape may hang off the edge of your table. Tiles on those cells are lost and go back to the supply. At least 1 tile must land on the table.
• Assign tiles freely. On a four-cell ruler your 4 tiles go on its 4 cells in any arrangement, so you choose which tiles overhang. On a five-cell ruler the free-pick tile goes on the ★ cell and nowhere else, and the other 4 tiles fill the other 4 cells in any arrangement. If the ★ cell overhangs, the free-pick tile is lost.
• Record it. Tick the ruler's shape on your score sheet. Versatile and Mastery (§7) are scored from these ticks, because the rulers themselves get reshuffled.

Example. You draft an L ruler from the slot above column 2, which reads Park, Residential, Residential, Industrial. You flip the L and lay its long arm against your table's left edge with Residential, Residential and Park on it. Its short foot hangs off the edge with the Industrial on it. Three tiles land, the Industrial is lost, and you tick L.

No legal placement. If no rotation, flip or position lets the ruler you drafted land at least 1 tile without overwriting, discard the ruler and its tiles. Your turn ends, and this forced discard does not count toward achievements. It is allowed only when that ruler truly has no legal placement: if one exists, you must make it, however little you like it.

6. Scoring

Score at the end of the game, after the last turn. "Touching" always means sharing an edge (up, down, left, right). Diagonal contact never counts.

6.1 Residential: the mass of a livable community

A cluster is a group of residential tiles connected by shared edges.

• Largest cluster: +5 per 2 tiles, rounded down.
• Second-largest cluster: size × 1. Nothing if you have only one cluster. If two clusters tie for largest, one scores as largest and the other as second.

6.2 Commercial: the scale of a thriving downtown

Let N be your total commercial tiles.

• Tier: N of 5–9 scores 5; 10–14 scores 15; 15 or more scores 30. Fewer than 5 scores 0.
• Beyond 15: +1 for each tile over 15.
• Isolated: +2 for each commercial tile touching no other commercial tile. It still counts toward N.

Examples: 11 tiles, 3 of them isolated: 15 + 3 × 2 = 21. Then 17 tiles, 1 isolated: 30 + 2 + 1 × 2 = 34.

6.3 Park: how green permeates the city's fabric

• +1 for each park touching a residential or commercial tile.
• +2 for each of the 7 rows with at least one park.
• +2 for each of the 7 columns with at least one park.

Rows and columns together top out at 28. Example: 6 parks in 5 rows and 4 columns, 4 of them touching residential or commercial: 4 + 5 × 2 + 4 × 2 = 22.

6.4 Industrial: the efficiency of an industrial belt

• +2 for each industrial tile on the outer ring (the 24 border cells of your table).
• +3 for every 2 industrial tiles anywhere, rounded down. A ring tile earns its +2 and still counts here.

Example: 7 tiles, 5 of them on the ring: 5 × 2 + 3 × 3 = 19.

6.5 Final total and seat bonus

Total = Residential + Commercial + Park + Industrial + Achievements + Seat bonus

The seat bonus is printed on the score sheet and compensates for turn order.

There is no empty-cell penalty. Highest total wins.

7. Achievements

Check these at the end of the game. Each scores at most once per player unless noted. A ruler counts as placed if at least 1 of its tiles landed; forced discards do not count.

8. Tie-breakers

If players tie on total, seat bonus included:

1. Fewer empty cells wins.
2. Still tied: most distinct shapes placed wins.
3. Still tied: shared victory.

9. Two-player game

9.1 The two-player deck

The two-player game uses a smaller deck by default.

• Four-cell rulers: remove 3 copies of each shape, leaving 20 cards.
• Five-cell rulers: remove 2 copies of each shape, leaving 8 cards.

Everything else is set up as normal. You play 3 rounds of 4 turns, 12 turns each. The seat bonus is 0 / +1 (§6.5): seat 1 starts two of the three rounds, so seat 2 gets +1.

9.2 Discard-for-tile

When you draft a corner ruler you may, instead of using it, discard it out of the game and place 1 tile of any type on any empty cell of your drawing table. You take no diagonal and no free pick. The ruler never comes back, and it does not count toward Versatile or Mastery.

Because these rulers leave the game the five-cell deck can run short. A corner with no ruler to deal stays empty.

10. Solo mode

10.1 Setup

One player, 12 turns over 3 rounds, with the full deck. There is no seat bonus and no discard-for-tile.

10.2 The rival apprentice

After each draft, the rival apprentice removes the ruler at the opposite end of the same line, if it is still there. This also happens after a forced discard. Removed rulers go to the discard pile at Cleanup like any others.

10.3 Scoring and ranks

Score as normal, except that there is no table to lead: Tree-lined requires a Park subtotal of 40 or more. Then read your rank from your total.

11. Frequently asked questions

Q1. May a ruler hang off the edge of my table? Yes. Tiles on the off-table cells are lost, the rest land normally. At least 1 tile must land.

Q2. Do the tiles on the site board run out? No. Taking tiles copies them. Every draft gives a full set (4, or 4 + 1 at a corner), and the site board changes only at Cleanup.

Q3. Can I put the free-pick tile wherever I like? No. It goes on the ruler's ★ cell. The 4 diagonal tiles fill the other 4 cells.

Q4. Can I check which rulers I have already placed? Yes. Your ticks on the score sheet are your record, and you may look at them at any time.

Q5. Is a placed tile really final? Yes. Charcoal doesn't erase, and that is the core discipline of the game.

Q6. A deck runs out while dealing. What now? Shuffle that deck's discard pile into a new deck and keep dealing.

Q7. What exactly is a cluster? Two tiles of the same type sharing an edge are connected. Tiles touching only at a corner are not. A maximal group of connected tiles is one cluster.

Q8. May I skip drafting a ruler? No. Every turn you must draft and resolve exactly one ruler.

Q9. Two corners point at the same diagonal. Do they share tiles? No. Because the site board never depletes, each gives the full 4 tiles plus 1 free pick. The same goes for the two rulers at the ends of a row or column.

Q10. Two players tie for the highest Park subtotal. Who gets Tree-lined? Both, and anyone else tied with them.

Q11. Can I decline the free pick? No. It is part of drafting a corner ruler. If you don't want the tile, you can sometimes let the ★ cell overhang, which loses it.

Q12. Does a ruler that only partly landed count for Versatile and Mastery? Yes, if at least 1 of its tiles landed. Forced discards and discard-for-tile do not count.

Q13. May I draft a ruler that has no legal placement on my table? Yes. It is discarded with its tiles (§5, No legal placement) and your turn ends. If you draft a ruler that does have a legal placement, you must place it.

Q14. The start-player marker moved. Did my seat change? No. Your seat is set in the first round and only the marker moves.

Appendix: changes from v1.0 to v1.1

This book replaces all earlier drafts. Every win rate and waste figure below comes from AI simulation with the game's own rules; none has been confirmed by human playtests yet.

Scoring and game length

• Largest residential cluster: +5 per 2 tiles, rounded down (was size × 2). The second-largest cluster stays size × 1. Residential was the weakest thing to specialize in. In a table of four specialists, win rates moved from residential 14.5 / commercial 25.9 / park 26.9 / industrial 32.7 to residential 28.8 / commercial 19.5 / park 25.1 / industrial 26.6.
• Every player count plays 12 personal turns. Two players now play 3 rounds of 4 turns (was 4 rounds). At 16 turns the 49 cells filled up long before the game ended and the last turns did little. Wasted tiles fell from 20.5 to 4.7 per player.
• Seat bonus added to the final total, in seat order: 2 players 0 / +1, 3 players +2 / +2 / 0, 4 players +2 / +2 / +1 / 0. Turn order left some seats ahead: the last seat at 3 and 4 players, and at 2 players seat 1, who starts two of the three rounds. Seat win rates moved from 53 / 47 to 50 / 50 at 2 players, from 30 / 28 / 41 to 34 / 31 / 36 at 3, and from 23 / 23 / 24 / 30 to 26 / 25 / 23 / 26 at 4.

Two players and solo

• The two-player deck (20 + 8) is now the default, not a variant to opt into.
• Five-cell lockout retired. It stopped tiles on certain cells from being drafted, which made no sense once site-board tiles stopped depleting. Discard-for-tile stays, and now says exactly what it does.
• New solo mode (§10), so one person can learn and test the game alone. Its goal and ranks are calibrated from AI simulation.

Clarifications

• Corner rulers must take their free pick, and a forced discard happens only when that ruler truly has no legal placement. Together these stop anyone skipping tiles they don't want.
• All rulers go to shared discard piles at Cleanup, taken or not, and you tick placed rulers on your score sheet. Personal discard piles could not survive a reshuffle, and Versatile and Mastery need a record that lasts all game.

Story and description

• The workshop's host is now a retired master architect, so the book does not lean on a real award's name.
• Each round is one pin-up within the six-week workshop, because a game has 3 or 4 rounds rather than one for every week.
• The tool is a charcoal pencil, so "One pencil" and "Charcoal doesn't erase" agree.
• Tile art is described as drafted in a pen-and-ink style, which is what it is.
• Play time is now 30–60 min, not yet confirmed by human playtests, because shorter games made the old estimate wrong and nobody has timed the new one.

Citywright © 2025 新千竹文化 (newqz). A 1–4 player city-building board game.