Gamehelpbarcelona

Overview

You are a builder of the Eixample, Barcelona's grid of streets and blocks. On your turn you stack your two Citizens on an empty street crossing, take the actions of the streets that meet there, and then must construct a Building if any is possible, using the Citizens visible around a block. The Citizens you use move to the Citizen tracks; when a track section fills, a Cerdà Scoring happens for everyone, multiplied by each player's position on the Cerdà track. The third Cerdà Scoring triggers the end of the game. Most Victory Points (VP) wins.

The actions build Streets and Intersections in the city, lay Cobblestones on the Sidewalk, take and improve Modernisme Projects (end-game multipliers), build Public Services, and run a Tram that drops Passengers for extra actions.

Your turn

1. Place Citizens. Choose a crossing with no Citizens on it. Pay its printed cost (the diagonal crossings cost 1 Coin) unless an Intersection tile covers it. Stack both of your Citizens there, in the order you choose: only the top one is visible. If the crossing holds an Intersection, its owner (possibly you) immediately takes their Intersection benefits, before your actions.
2. Take the street actions. Each at most once, in any order: the action of the crossing's column, of its row, and of the diagonal if the crossing lies on it. Every action is optional. An action whose cost you cannot or will not pay cannot be taken, and an action must be completed before another starts.
3. Construct a Building. Mandatory whenever a legal construction exists (see below).
4. Cerdà Scoring check, then draw 2 Citizens from the bag.

Key concepts

• Resources. Coins and Cloths live only in your Warehouse, one per open space. A gain that does not fit is lost, but you may discard stored resources to make room and may take only part of a gain. The supply is unlimited.
• Visible Citizen. The top token of the stack on a crossing. Only visible Citizens can be used for a Building, at most one per crossing per Building.
• Leftmost rule. Intersections, Passengers, Cobblestones, Street tiles and Building markers always leave your player board from the left.
• May and must. Street actions and Sagrada Família steps are optional. Cerdà movement is mandatory when granted, up or down. Constructing a Building is mandatory when possible.

Construct a Building

A Building goes on an empty building space, or on top of an existing non-Corner Building of a lower level. The Citizens come from the crossings around the space: the four corners of a square block, or the three crossings of a Corner triangle on the diagonal.

Building	Requires	Effects after placing
Corner	any 2 Citizens	none; cannot be overbuilt
Level 1	any 2	+1 Cerdà (must)
Level 2	1 Middle + 1 any	may +1 Sagrada Família; −1 Cerdà (must)
Level 3	1 Upper + 2 any	may +2 Sagrada Família; +7 VP; −2 Cerdà (must); cannot be overbuilt

Any level may be built directly on an empty space. Level 2 may cover Level 1; Level 3 may cover Level 1 or 2. In order:

1. Choose the tile and the space; the visible Citizens must satisfy the requirement. When more qualify than are needed, you choose which to use.
2. If this is the first Building in its block row, flip that row's Building Bonus tile and gain 5 VP.
3. Move the used Citizens to the leftmost empty spaces of their Citizen-track rows.
4. Gain VP equal to the lowest VP value still visible on any Citizen track.
5. Apply the Building's effects (table above).
6. Put your leftmost Building marker on the Building, on top of any markers already there. With no markers left, the Building is simply unmarked. Emptying a marker spot on your board gives +1 Cerdà.

If no tile of a level is left, that level cannot be built.

Actions

Action	What it does
Gain Cloth and VP	Gain 1 Cloth and 3 VP. The VP are gained even if the Cloth cannot be stored.
Gain Coins	Gain 2 Coins.
+2 Cerdà	Advance two steps on the Cerdà track.
Place Cobblestone	Move your leftmost Cobblestone from the Warehouse to an empty Sidewalk space orthogonally adjacent to any Cobblestone (the printed centre counts). Gain the covered benefit; a covered action is performed at once and its costs still apply. The freed Warehouse space is usable immediately.
Build Wide Street	Place 1 Wide tile from your stack onto an empty Wide street space.
Build Narrow Streets	Place up to 2 Narrow tiles from your leftmost non-empty stack onto empty Narrow street spaces; they need not be connected.
Build an Intersection	Take your leftmost Intersection, pay its board cost, and place it on a crossing without an Intersection, paying that crossing's printed cost too. Gain every printed benefit on the street spaces adjacent to the crossing that are not covered by Street tiles. From now on nobody pays that crossing's cost, and you gain Intersection benefits whenever Citizens are placed there.
Take a Modernisme Project	Take one of the four displayed tiles onto any empty Project space, paying that space's cost. The display is refilled.
Improve a Modernisme Project Space	Move one marker from bottom to top, paying that space's improve cost. A tile need not be there yet.
Build a Public Service	Choose a displayed type you have not built, pay the top tile's cost (3, 2 or 1 Coin), keep the tile, then gain its VP (10, 6 or 3), +2 Cerdà, and its effect.
Move Your Tram	Put the Tram on the city or move it, then optionally drop a Passenger (see below).

Street tiles. For each tile placed: gain the covered printed benefit, then score the number of contiguous Street tiles in the straight line of that street through the new tile, the new tile included, whoever owns them: 2 VP each for Wide, 1 VP each for Narrow. Emptying a stack advances you on the Cerdà track by its printed steps (1 for each Narrow stack, 2 for the Wide stack).

Intersection benefits. The owner of an Intersection takes benefits whenever Citizens are placed on it, their own placements included. With 1–2 / 3–4 / 5 Intersections built they take up to 1 / 2 / 3 different benefits among those unlocked by the Intersections built so far: 1 Coin, 2 VP, 1 Cloth, +1 Cerdà, +1 Sagrada Família.

Move Your Tram. The first time, put the Tram on any street space (with or without a tile) holding no Tram and no Passenger. Afterwards the Tram moves along the streets 1 or 2 spaces; spaces holding your own Street tiles are free and not counted. It may turn at crossings and pass other Trams, may not reverse within the move, and must end on a different space with no other Tram. Then, if the Tram's space has no Passenger, you may place your leftmost Passenger there, paying its cost. If the space holds a Street tile, its owner scores it again as if just placed (line scoring, no printed benefit). You may then perform the action of the street the Passenger stands on, which can chain into another Move Your Tram.

Public Services.

Public Service	Effect
Sant Antoni Market	Gain 1 Cloth per block containing at least one of your Building markers
Estació de França	Move Your Tram action; placing a Passenger ignores its Coin cost
Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau	Build an Intersection action ignoring all Coin costs; Cloth costs remain
Passeig de Lluís Companys	Build Wide Street or Build Narrow Streets action
Universitat de Barcelona	Place Cobblestone action ignoring the adjacency rule
Museu del Modernisme Català	Advance twice on the Sagrada Família track
Hospital de Sant Pau, Pavelló d'Operacions	Take a Modernisme Project action ignoring the Cloth cost of the space

With 2 players the cheapest tile of each stack is not used.

Sagrada Família track. Each granted step is optional. Crossing a tile slot (steps 1, 3, 5 and 7), choose any remaining tile of that level, place it in the slot and resolve it at once. "Coin or Cloth ×N" means N resources in any mix.

Level	Tiles
1	5 VP · 3 VP + 1 Coin or Cloth · 1 Coin + 1 Cloth · +1 Cerdà + 2 VP
2	7 VP · 5 VP + 1 Coin or Cloth · 2 Coin or Cloth · +1 Cerdà + 4 VP
3	10 VP · 6 VP + 2 Coin or Cloth · 3 Coin or Cloth · +2 Cerdà + 4 VP
4	18 VP · 8 VP + 3 Coin or Cloth · 5 Coin or Cloth · +3 Cerdà + 6 VP

Round structure

There are no rounds: turns pass clockwise from the first player, and the game is paced by the Citizen tracks.

Cerdà track. Ten spaces: ×0, ×1, blank, start, blank, ×2, blank, ×3, blank, ×4. Your multiplier is the highest labelled value at or below your marker (the start is ×1). Moving below the bottom is ignored; each step forfeited above the top gives 2 VP instead.

Citizen tracks. Three rows (Upper, Middle, Working) in three sections. Citizens fill their row from the left; the last space of each row in a section is its scoring space. Some spaces print a VP value: the lowest value still visible across all three rows is what a Building earns. With 2 or 3 players some spaces start covered.

Cerdà Scoring. At the end of a turn, if any row of the earliest unscored section has been filled to its scoring space, all players score that section's tile: tile value × the player's count for the tile's condition × the player's Cerdà multiplier. Then the tile is flipped; after the first and second scoring every Cerdà marker above the start space returns to it (markers below stay). Finally the four displayed Modernisme tiles are discarded and four new ones revealed.

Modernisme Projects. Tiles on your Project spaces score at the end: tile value × the count of the tile's condition × the multiplier shown by the marker of its space (bottom or top).

Space	Cost to place a tile	Bottom ×	Top ×	Cost to improve
1	free	1	2	1 Cloth
2	1 Coin	1	2	free
3	1 Cloth	1	3	2 Cloths
4	1 Coin + 1 Cloth	2	3	1 Cloth
5	1 Coin + 2 Cloths	2	4	2 Cloths

Game end and final scoring

The third Cerdà Scoring triggers the end. Play continues until the player to the right of the first player has finished their turn, so everyone has had the same number of turns. Then each player adds:

1. Cobblestones: the rightmost uncovered VP value in the Warehouse (1, 2, 4, 7, 11 or 16).
2. Passengers: the VP of the rightmost uncovered Passenger space (1, 5, 10, 16 or 23).
3. Modernisme Projects: for each tile, tile value × condition count × the multiplier of its space.

Most VP wins. Ties: furthest on the Cerdà track, then furthest on the Sagrada Família track, then most Building markers on the main board; players still tied share the win.

Player-count differences

Rule	2 players	3 players	4 players
Citizen-track spaces covered at the start	the ② and ②③ spaces	the ②③ spaces	none
Public Service stacks	the cheapest tile of each stack is not used	full	full

Reference tables

Scoring conditions (Modernisme and Cerdà Scoring tiles share one catalogue; a Cerdà tile in play removes its Modernisme twin at setup).

Condition (count)	VP each
Blocks in your longest uninterrupted row or column of blocks where you have a Building marker	2
Coins in your Warehouse, at most 5	2
Cloths in your Warehouse, at most 5	2
Public Services you built	2
Modernisme markers in top position	2
Cobblestones you placed	2
Narrow Street tiles you placed	1
Wide Street tiles you placed	2
Passengers you placed	2
Intersections you placed	2
Your Corner Buildings, at most one per block	3
Modernisme tiles on your board	2
Your Building markers at the bottom of their stack on non-Corner Buildings	2
Empty Building-marker spots on your board (Cerdà Scoring only)	3
Your Intersections adjacent to at least 3 Buildings (Modernisme only)	3
Your Cerdà multiplier (Modernisme only)	2
Your Passengers adjacent to at least 2 Buildings (Modernisme only)	3
Your longest line of own Narrow tiles on one street, at most 4 (Modernisme only)	2
Your longest line of own Wide tiles on one street, diagonal included, at most 4 (Modernisme only)	2

Intersections (left to right on the player board): costs free, 1 Coin, 2 Coins, 1 Cloth + 1 Coin, 1 Cloth + 2 Coins; they unlock 1 Coin, 2 VP, 1 Cloth, +1 Cerdà, +1 Sagrada Família.

Passengers (left to right): costs 1 Coin, 1 Cloth, 1 Cloth + 1 Coin, 1 Cloth + 2 Coins, 2 Cloths + 2 Coins; end-game VP 1, 5, 10, 16, 23 for the rightmost uncovered space.

Sidewalk (row by row from the top; "take" and "improve" are the Modernisme actions, "wide" and "2 narrow" the Street actions):

+1 Sagrada	Coin + Cloth	2 Coins	improve	+1 Sagrada
+2 Cerdà	take	Coin	Cloth	wide
2 narrow	+1 Cerdà	centre	+1 Cerdà	2 narrow
wide	Cloth	Coin	take	+2 Cerdà
+1 Sagrada	improve	2 narrow	Coin + Cloth	+1 Sagrada

Passeig de Gràcia expansion

Two Pedestrians per player stroll the Passeig de Gràcia between Barcelona and the village of Gràcia. They gain Joy for the Amenities they meet along the way, and arriving in the other city scores VP and a hexagonal Cobblestone. Everything in the base game still applies, with the changes below.

Setup changes

• Action tiles. Gain 2 Coins, Gain Cloth and VP and +2 Cerdà are removed. The three expansion tiles take their place: Move the Barcelona Pedestrian up to 3 steps, Move the Gràcia Pedestrian up to 3 steps and Gain 1 Coin and 1 Cloth. The layout is always random.
• Scoring tiles. Two new tiles join both the Cerdà Scoring pool and the Modernisme stack (Joy of your Barcelona / Gràcia Pedestrian, below).
• Public Services. One of the five stacks is always an expansion type: Parc Güell, Fàbrica Casaramona or Palau de la Música Catalana. The other four come from the base seven.
• Sagrada Família. One expansion tile joins each level.
• Amenities. Six of the eight Amenities tiles are dealt at random beside the two paths, three per side.
• Pedestrians. Each player's two dice start at Joy 1, one in Barcelona and one in Gràcia. With 3 or 4 players the third player starts one die of their choice at Joy 2; with 4 players the fourth player starts both at Joy 2.
• Violet Cobblestones. One A, one B and one C, at random, on the three violet spaces of the hexagonal Sidewalk. The 14 grey hexagonal Cobblestones form a supply.
• Overlay. A new Sidewalk covers the base one (table below).

Pedestrians

The Barcelona Pedestrian walks up the right side of the side board toward Gràcia; the Gràcia Pedestrian walks down the left side toward Barcelona. Each path has three step spaces, and the fourth step is the arrival. Only your own dice ever move or change, and Joy never exceeds 6.

Movement is always "up to": each step is optional, and you may stop whenever you like. For each step, in order:

1. The die enters the next space. On steps 1, 2 and 3, if you have performed the action of the Amenities tile beside it at least 1, 2 or 3 times (the step's number), gain +1 Joy.
2. If your two dice now stand on the same row (the handshake in the middle), both gain +1 Joy.
3. Arrival (the fourth step): score the arrival table below. The die then goes back to its starting city at Joy 1 and may use any steps left.

Joy on arrival	Reward
1 or 2	3 VP
3	6 VP
4	6 VP + a hexagonal Cobblestone
5	10 VP + a hexagonal Cobblestone
6	15 VP + a hexagonal Cobblestone + 1 Coin or Cloth

The printed table starts at Joy 2; BGA scores an arrival at Joy 1 as 3 VP too.

Amenities. What counts as "performed" is what you have on the boards:

Amenities tile	Action	Counted as
Theatre	Build a Public Service	your Public Service tiles
La Mansana de la Discòrdia	Take a Modernisme Project	Modernisme tiles on your Project spaces
La Pedrera	Improve a Modernisme Project Space	your Modernisme markers in the top position, with or without a tile
Estació del Passeig de Gràcia	Move Your Tram	your Passengers on the board
Bench lamp (Pere Falqués)	Build an Intersection	your Intersections on the board
Jardí dels Camps Elisis, gazebo	Build Narrow Streets	pairs of your Narrow tiles: 2 / 4 / 6 tiles
Jardí dels Camps Elisis, carousel	Build Wide Street	your Wide tiles on the board
Casa Batlló	Place Cobblestone	your square Cobblestones on the Sidewalk (hexagonal ones never count)

Hexagonal Cobblestones

Take a grey hexagonal Cobblestone from the supply (if any is left) and place it on an empty reward space of the hexagonal Sidewalk. Choose one violet Cobblestone next to it: you gain the space's reward × your count for that violet condition (×0 is possible).

Violet	Condition (count)
A	Empty stacks of Building markers on your player board
A	Modernisme tiles on your board whose marker is in the top position
B	Your Passengers standing on Street tiles, whoever owns the tile
B	Your Building markers on Corner Buildings, at most one per block
C	Your Cerdà multiplier
C	Sagrada Família tiles on your player board

The reward spaces hold 2, 3 and 4 VP, 1 Coin, 1 Cloth and +1 Cerdà.

The overlay Sidewalk

Same adjacency as the base Sidewalk. "+2 Joy" goes to either Pedestrian; "1B / 2B" and "1G / 2G" move the Barcelona / Gràcia Pedestrian up to 1 / 2 steps.

+1 Sagrada	Coin + Cloth	+2 Joy	improve	2G
+2 Cerdà	take	Coin	2 Coins	wide
2 narrow	1G	centre	1B	2 narrow
wide	Cloth	Coin	take	+2 Cerdà
2B	improve	+2 Joy	Coin + Cloth	+1 Sagrada

New tiles

• Public Services (3 / 2 / 1 Coins for 10 / 6 / 3 VP and +2 Cerdà, like the others): Parc Güell moves both Pedestrians up to 2 steps each; Fàbrica Casaramona gives the Barcelona Pedestrian +2 Joy and up to 1 step, in either order; Palau de la Música Catalana does the same for the Gràcia Pedestrian.
• Sagrada Família: level 1, +1 Joy to either Pedestrian; level 2, up to 1 step with each Pedestrian; level 3, +1 Joy three times, each to either Pedestrian; level 4, up to 2 steps with each Pedestrian.
• Scoring tiles: 2 VP × the current Joy of your Barcelona (or Gràcia) Pedestrian. A die that has not left its city counts its starting Joy.
• Gain 1 Coin and 1 Cloth is a plain gain action.

End game

Each Pedestrian that is not on its starting space adds its Joy to your score.

Promo Building Bonus tiles

With the expansion, the four Building Bonus tiles may be replaced (table option): +1 Joy to the Barcelona Pedestrian and 2 VP; +1 Joy to the Gràcia Pedestrian and 2 VP; 1 Coin or 1 Cloth; 5 VP. They are placed face up at random.

Options and preferences

• Action layout: the eleven Action tiles are shuffled onto the streets (default), or sit where the board prints them, as the rulebook suggests for a first game. With the expansion the layout is always random.
• Intersection benefits: Immediately (the rulebook, default) or At the start of your turn. With the second, benefits from Citizens placed on your Intersection during someone else's turn wait until your next turn starts, so turns are not interrupted. Any still waiting when a Cerdà Scoring is due are chosen before it, and any left at the end before final scoring.
• Passeig de Gràcia expansion and its promo Building Bonus tiles (see above).
• Colour-blind support (preference): shape badges on the player-coloured pieces and a class letter on every Citizen.
• Confirm end of turn (preference): with "No", the turn ends by itself after a short countdown; Restart turn stays available meanwhile.
• Reveal new Modernisme tiles at once (preference): with "Yes", taking a Modernisme tile reveals its replacement immediately, which closes Restart turn.
• Tooltip style (preference): Rich, with pictures and symbols, or Basic, text only.

Playing on BGA

• Targets. Everything you can choose is ringed in magenta on the boards; what you have already chosen this turn is marked in plum. Hover a crossing to preview where your Citizens would stack; click the stack widget in the status bar to swap their order.
• Restart turn. Your whole turn can be restarted until something random has been revealed: a Modernisme tile taken leaves a face-down placeholder in the display, and you choose when to reveal it (or it is revealed at the end of your turn). Once an opponent has taken Intersection benefits during your turn, the restart goes back to that point only.
• Intersection benefits are chosen by the Intersection's owner at the moment Citizens land there, even on someone else's turn; the active player waits. With the At the start of your turn option they wait for the owner's turn instead (see Options).
• Mandatory construction. The game lists every legal Building; the turn cannot end while one exists. When more Citizens qualify than are needed, you choose which to use.
• Pedestrians. Steps are taken one at a time: a ghost of your die stands on the space it would enter, showing the Joy it would have there (on arrival, what it scores). Click it to take the step, or Done walking to stop early. Joy that may go to either Pedestrian is given by clicking the die, or its button in the status bar.
• Layouts. Three table layouts are offered above the boards, and the boards scale to the window. On narrower screens a board that would make the city too small moves to the next row; the Sagrada Família tiles go first, and come back into view when you must choose one.
  • Side by side: the city with your player board and the side boards beside it, the other players' boards below.
  • Game boards first: the game boards in a row, then your player board with the other players' boards beside it at half height.
  • Player boards first: the same two rows the other way round.
• Tooltips on every printed benefit, tile, track space and piece explain what it does.