Setup

• There are 5 offices in 2-4 player games and 6 with 5 players.
• Each office's primary value start at 3 and their secondary value start at 1. There are no secondary values with 2 players.
• Remove cards according to player count (also see "Card Distribution" section below.
  • Remove 4 of each gold and 22 random cards with 2 players,
  • Remove 3 of each gold and 13 random cards with 3 players,
  • Remove 2 of each gold and and 8 random cards with 4 players.

Gameplay

• The game consists of 2 phases: share influence and gain esteem.
• Government cards represent the offices you can occupy. Their values range from 1 to 4.
• At any time if you gain a king card, you must immediately use it to adjust the primary value of a office to a new value between 1 and 6.

Share Influnce

• Players take turns to be the advisor.
• The advisor draws the top card from the deck and decide whether to put it in front of himself, in the middle, or on the favor deck.
• Each place can only hold 1 card, except the middle can hold one card per opponent. The advisor draws until all places are full.
• Then, each opponent gains one card in the middle of the table and add it to their hand.
• If the deck is empty, start the gain esteem phase.

Gain Esteem

• Reveal the top card of the favor deck. Starting with the first player, each player bid on the card.
• The number bidded must be at least 1 and larger than the last bid value. If you pass, you cannot bid on the card.
• The last bidder remaining must pay their bid. If the card is a king or government card, you pay with gold. Else you pay by discarding cards.
• If you cannot pay, one of your cards is instead randomly discarded.
• Repeat until the favor deck is empty. Then scoring takes place.

End of the Game

• For each office, each player adds up the value of their respective government cards.
• The player with the highest value gains the office's primary value while the second highest gain the secondary value (1/2 of the primary value, rounded down).
• Ties are broken by alphabetical order on the cards.
• The player with the highest score wins. In case of a tie, the tied player with the most gold wins, then the most blue cards (diplomancy).

Card Distribution

• Orange, Violet, and Green : 7x 1s, 2x 2s
• Red, Blue, and Pink: 4x 2s, 3x 3s, 2x 4s
• Gold: 13x 1s, 13x 2s, 13x 3s
• Color Manipulation:
  • +1, -1, +1 (2 colors), -1 (2 colors): x3 each
  • +1/-1: x2
  • +1/-1 (2 colors): x1
• In games with less than 5 players the pink suit is removed. In addition:
  • For 2 players remove 4x of each type of gold plus 22 random cards
  • For 3 players remove 3x of each type of gold plus 13 random cards
  • For 4 players remove 2x of each type of gold plus 8 random cards