The players execute one turn after another in clockwise seating order. A turn is chosen by placing the octagonal game stone on the circular rondel depicted here, and performing the indicated action.

In the first turn the position on the rondel is chosen freely. On each following turn, the game stone moves forward on the rondel in clockwise direction. When moving forward, any of the next three fields ahead can be chosen free of charge. If the game stone moves further than three fields, each additional field has to be paid for with 1 of the player’s ships, which is taken from any position on the game board back into the player’s personal supply. It is not allowed to stay in the same field twice in a row; executing the same action on two consecutive turns would require moving forward 8 fields, and paying 5 ships.

Several game stones in the same position on the rondel do not affect each other.

Example:

The game stone is on “Sailing” and could move from here to “Workers”, “Market”, or “Colony” without cost. In order to enter “Privilege” the player would have to take back 1 ship, to enter “Ships” 2 ships etc.

The game runs in three phases and starts at phase I. Phases II and III are triggered after the sea regions of Cabo da Boa Esperanca or Malaca have been explored. The borderline to these regions has a red color instead of blue. A detailed description can be found here.

After the starting player has been drawn by lot, the last player (sitting to the right of the starting player) receives the playing card “Navegador”. This card allows for combining any turn with an additional sailing action. When used, the card is then passed to the player’s right. In the very first round, however, the Navegador card cannot be used. A detailed description can be found here.

The player may recruit one new worker per church owned for the price of 50 Cruzados each. Additional workers each cost 100 Cruzados per game phase (for instance 300 Cr. in phase III). The new number of workers is tracked on the chart at Lisboa and the costs are paid to the bank. The minimum possible number of workers is 2, the maximum is 9.

If a player already has 9 workers in Lisboa, he cannot receive more. In this case his churches may recruit virtual workers for 50 Cr. each, which are sold instantly to the bank for 100 Cr. each, resulting in a net gain of 50 Cr. per worker. It is necessary however to pay 50 Cruzados per worker in church beforehand.

Example recruit workers:
A player with 2 churches may recruit up to 2 new workers for 50 Cr. each. For 2 workers he pays 100 Cr. to the bank and moves with his marker in Lisboa 2 positions to the right. If he wants 3 new workers in game phase II, he would have to pay 300 Cruzados (2x50+200).

Example more than 9 workers:
A player owns 8 workers and 3 churches, he pays 150 Cruzados for 3 workers. His worker in Lisboa moves to column “9”. For the remaining 2 new workers he receives 200 Cruzados out of the bank.

For ships the same prices are applied as for workers. The player may build as many ships as he has shipyards for 50 Cruzados each. Additional ships each cost 100 Cruzados per game phase paid to the bank (100 in phase I, 200 in phase II, 300 in phase III). All new ships are placed in the sea region of Portugal.

If a player already has all his 7 ships on the game board, he cannot receive more. Additional ships produced with shipyards are sold instantly to the bank for 100 Cruzados each, after having paid 50 per ship beforehand.

Example building ships:
A player with 3 shipyards wants to build 4 ships. The game is in Phase I. He pays 250 Cruzados (3x50+100) to the bank and places 4 ships in Portugal.

The player may sail with all his ships into another sea region. In game phase I a ship can cross only one border (blue or red) in order to enter an adjacent region. In phase II it may cross up to two and in phase III up to three borders during a single turn.

Several ships in the same region, regardless of their owner, do not affect each other.

Explorer:
Unknown waters containing an explorer (round wooden disk) cannot be entered by a single ship. A minimum of 2 ships is required to enter that region simultaneously, otherwise that region cannot be entered. One of those ships is lost in the unknown waters. At least one other ship has to remain in the newly discovered region, even if it still should have the possibility to sail. When exploring the player

• takes one of the exploring ships back into the personal supply,
• places the explorer disk from the board on his player sheet,
• reveals the colony tokens from the corresponding stack, and
• receives a bonus from the bank, amounting to the price for the cheapest revealed colony.

The newly revealed colony tokens are displayed face up at the region. It is not possible to explore more than one new sea region per turn.

When exploring sea regions marked with the token for double loss of ships (Nagasaki and maybe Macau), the player has to take back 2 ships instead of 1 into his supply. Accordingly, he needs at least 3 ships to enter that region.

Example Explorer:
Red sails from Guiné and Rio de Janeiro into the hitherto unknown sea region of Angola. He loses 1 ship, takes the explorer disk on his player sheet, and reveals the colonies stacked in Angola. As the cheapest colony in Angola would cost 70 Cruzados, he is paid a bonus of 70 Cruzados out of the bank.

The player may found one or more new colonies. He pays the prices printed on the colony tokens to the bank and takes the respective tokens into his personal supply. In addition the player has to meet two requirements per new colony:

• at least one own ship in the same region,
• and two workers in Lisboa.

It does not cost ships or workers to found colonies, but every ship and worker can be used only once per turn. For instance, to found 2 colonies in one region at the same time, the player has to be present with at least 2 ships in that very region, and has to own at least 4 workers in Lisboa.

The prices for colonies are as follows:

• Sugar (white): from 40 to 120 Cruzados,
• Gold (yellow): from 50 to 150 Cruzados,
• Spices (brown): from 60 to 180 Cruzados.

If a player has the choice, he will always found the cheapest colony, because apart from their price colonies of the same type do not differ.

Example found colonies
Red has 6 workers, 2 ships in Bahia, and 1 ship in Guiné. He can found only 2 colonies, one in Guiné (80 Cruzados) and one in Bahia (100 Cruzados). He pays 180 Cruzados to the bank and takes both colony tokens in his supply. If he had 2 ships in Guiné, he would be able to found 3 colonies if he could afford them. He cannot found colonies in Rio de Janeiro because he has no ship there. If he had only 3 workers, he could found only 1 colony, because every new colony requires the ownership of 2 workers.

The player may build new factories, shipyards, and churches. He pays the respective prices printed at the chart to the bank and places the new buildings on his player sheet. In addition he needs

• 3 workers per new factory,
• 4 workers per new shipyard,
• 5 workers per new church.

His number of workers has to be sufficient for all new buildings together. The number of workers in Lisboa remains unchanged, as it does not cost workers to build.

Example buildings
The player has 7 workers and the available buildings are depicted above. The player could for instance build 1 gold factory and 1 shipyard; in this case he would pay 220 Cruzados to the bank (70+150). He could as well build 2 gold factories, or 1 gold and 1 spice factory, paying in both cases 170 Cruzados. But as he has only 7 workers, he could not build 2 shipyards (4+4=8). If he wanted to build a church, he could not build a second building at the same time.

The player may sell goods with his colonies and take goods from the market to process them with his factories. The number of colonies and factories remains unchanged when selling or processing goods.

Selling goods with colonies

For each colony 1 respective unit of goods may be sold on the market. For each unit sold the player receives its current price on the market. After that, the price marker moves down as many fields on the market as units have been sold. If the price marker reaches the bottom line it simply stays there, but further sales of units are still possible.

Processing goods with factories

For each factory 1 respective unit of goods may be processed. White factories process sugar, yellow factories gold, and brown factories process spices. The starting factory (orange) works as a wildcard and can be used to process 1 unit of any type. All units to be processed are taken from the market, therefore it is not necessary to own colonies of the same type.

For each processed unit the player receives income from the bank amounting to as many Cruzados as are shown inside the red (rightmost) column corresponding to the price marker’s current position. After receiving the total income, the price marker moves a number of fields up equal to the number of units that have been processed. If the price marker reaches the highest line of its column it simply stays there, but further processing of units is still possible.

Selling and processing

The decision whether to sell or to process is taken separately for every type of goods. It is possible to sell one type and process the other, but it is not possible to process and sell goods of the same type at the same time. Of course players may decide to sell or process only a subset of the possible units, in order to influence the prices on the market for their future plans.

Example selling goods with colonies
The player owns 3 gold colonies and sells at the depicted price of 50 Cruzados (although the current price is covered by the marker, it still can be read because every number occurs twice). He receives 150 Cruzados (3x50) out of the bank and the price marker moves down onto the upper “30”. If the player would sell from 5 gold colonies, he would receive 250 Cruzados and the marker would reach the bottom line. The next player on the market would now receive only 30 Cruzados per sold unit of gold.

A complete market action
The player’s 3 colonies and 4 factories, along with the current prices on the market, are depicted. He sells 2 units of gold for 40+40=80 and 1 unit of spices for 70 Cruzados. Gold and spices thus cannot be processed in the same turn. Thus his gold factory cannot be used and his orange factory may only process sugar. He processes 3 units of sugar receiving a revenue of 3x30=90. The total payment from the bank is 80+70+90=240 Cruzados. The new prices are depicted to the right.
As an alternative, the player may process 2 units of gold with his factories for a total of 100, instead of selling gold with his colonies. Together with 2 units of sugar processed for 60, and one unit of spices sold for 70 , he then would earn a total of 230 Cruzados. Although he would earn 10 Cruzados less now, there may be a chance to sell his gold for a better price later on.

On top of the game board is a gallery with five different historic persons, whose privileges give a cash bonus at once and victory points (VPs) at the end of the game.

The player loses 1 worker in Lisboa and chooses one privilege currently available on the game board in return. The privileges reward the possession of (from left to right) colonies, factories, explorers, shipyards, and churches.

On every turn, no more than only one privilege token can be taken. The privilege is placed onto his player sheet in the highest possible position of the appropriate column showing a bonus, which decreases with every additional privilege. The newly covered bonus is multiplied with the number of respective achievements (colonies, factories, explorers, shipyards, churches) and the result is paid to the player from the bank.

Each player can take no more than 3 privileges per type during the game. If a player has only 2 workers, he cannot take a privilege either, because players must always have at least two workers in Lisboa.

Example taking a privilege
The gallery still contains every type of privileges. The player pays with 1 worker and takes a church privilege. As he already owns one privilege of this type, the new privilege is placed in the second position from above, showing a bonus of “40”. For his 2 churches he receives a bonus of 80 Cruzados (40+40) out of the bank. If he had taken an explorer privilege instead, he would have received 5x20=100 Cruzados, and for a shipyard privilege 50 Cruzados. In the first column the respective bonus would have been 30 per colony, and in the second column 20 per factory.

The game starts in phase I. After the exploration of Cabo da Boa Esperança the game enters phase II, and after the exploration of Malaca it enters phase III. This is emphasized on the game board by red borderlines (instead of the usual blue ones), and by a small diagram showing the phase numbers which now change. The diagram for phase II to the right shows that all ships may now sail up to 2 regions per turn, and that additional workers and ships now cost 200 Cruzados each. In phase III all ships may sail up to 3 regions, and additional workers and ships cost 300 Cruzados each.

Example Replenishing Privileges
In a 5 player game, the game enters phase II because the first red borderline has been crossed for the first time. The chart on the game board shows in case of 5 players (last line), that in phase II all privileges are replenished up to a total of two. In the situation illustrated here, the following privileges are added to the gallery: 2 x Colony, 1 x Factory, 1 x Explorer and 1 x Church privilege. Note that the depicted situation cannot happen in a real game, because in Phase 1 there is always only 1 privilege of each type, but it shows what happens if there are still enough privileges at the end of the last phase so that no additional privilege has to be added.

The “Navegador“ card allows for an extra sailing action immediately before the player’s turn on the rondel. After being used once, the card is given to the player sitting to the right. For this extra action the usual rules for sailing are applied. In particular, the card may be used to explore an unknown sea region. Thus in combination with a regular sailing turn even two explorers can be taken before the next player makes his turn. If using the Navegador leads to a new game phase, the new phase has already come into effect with the regular turn on the rondel.

If the card is not used within one round circling around the rondel, it automatically expires. The round is marked with the orange ship, which is placed on the rondel at the current position of the new owner at the moment when he receives the card. If he again enters or passes that field without using the card, it is given to the player on his right, and the ship on the rondel is moved to the new owner’s current position on the rondel.

The game end can be triggered in two ways:

• either after the sea region of Nagasaki has been explored,
• or after the last building has been taken.

After the game end has been triggered in one of those ways, each player, including the one who triggered the end, takes a single final turn and then the game ultimately finishes.

If a player explores Nagasaki by use of his Navegador card, he may take his regular turn and only after that every player, including himself, executes his final turn.

Each player uses his game stone taken from the rondel to count his final victory points (VPs) on the scoring track running around the game board. If the player’s score exceeds 100 VPs, a player’s ship is placed at the scoring track, marking 100 VPs. The player with the most VPs wins the game. A possible tie is won by the player who currently holds the Navegador or, if not the case, who is the next player who would receive him.

Victory Points (VPs):
Each player receives 1 VP per his worker in Lisboa, ship on the game board and full amount of 200 Cruzados cash.

After that the player sheets are evaluated. Each sum inside the 5 columns, where the numbers already printed on the player sheet are counted as well, is multiplied with the number of the corresponding achievements. In the situation shown here, every colony counts as 4 VPs, every factory as 2 VPs, every explorer as 5 VPs, every shipyard as 7 VPs, and every church as 5 VPs.

Before calculating the final results, each player places his King’s privilege on a free position inside his player sheet, but without receiving the related cash bonus. The King’s privilege counts as a privilege of the chosen type: 2 VPs per shipyard or church, or 1 VP inside one of the other 3 columns.