How to Play

London (Second Edition)

2-4 players 60-90 min 7.5 Board Game Geek Rating

Players reconstruct London after the Great Fire by strategically playing development cards, then activating all cards simultaneously to generate resources. Success requires balancing construction projects with managing debt and minimizing poverty levels compared to opponents. Victory goes to whoever creates the most prosperous city while keeping relative poverty low.

Published 2017

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Select score trackers

Each player picks a score tracker and places it on the 0-space of the board

Distribute starting money

Each player receives £5

Establish public information

Coins, loans, poverty tokens, boroughs, and building stacks are visible to all players

Prepare the city deck

Separate building cards into decks A, B, and C, shuffle each, then stack face-down with C on bottom and A on top

Deal starting hands

Each player receives 6 cards from the city deck

Place starting boroughs

Put City, Westminster, and Southwark & Bermondsey borough cards (grey top) face-up below the board

Create borough deck

Shuffle remaining borough cards and place face-down to form the borough deck

Choose first player

Select a starting player by preferred method

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Repay loans (optional)

At the start of your turn, you may pay £15 for every £10 in loans to repay them

Draw a card

Draw 1 city card from the deck or from the development board

Perform one action

Choose one of the following four actions:

Discard played cards

Place discards in empty top row spaces (per player count); if full, place in 2nd row; if both full, remove 2nd row cards, shift 1st row down, place in top row

Take loans as needed

At any time, take a £10 loan by receiving £10 and a loan token

Enforce hand limit

Discard any cards over 9 from hand, including Paupers

Winning

How to claim victory.

Trigger game end

The game ends when the city deck is empty at the end of a player's turn; other players each take one final turn

Add poverty for remaining cards

Gain +1 poverty for each card left in hand

Score city cards

Gain VP for all city cards in your display, including face-down and built-over cards

Settle loans

Pay £15 for every £10 in loans; lose 7 VP for each unpaid loan

Convert remaining money

Gain +1 VP for each £3 remaining

Calculate poverty penalty

Player with fewest poverty returns all their tokens to supply; other players return the same number; remaining poverty costs VP per the board's poverty table (1-2 poverty = -1 VP, scaling up to 10 poverty = -15 VP, then -3 VP per additional point)

Determine winner

Player with most VP wins

Break ties

Compare tied players by least poverty, then most borough cards, then city card worth most VP