Istanbul

Components

For 2–5 players aged 10 and up; the official rulebook lists 40–80 minutes. The first player to collect 5 Rubies (6 with 2 players) ends the current round and triggers the end of the game. Whoever has the most Rubies wins.

Setup

1. 1Lay out the 16 Place tiles in a 4×4 grid. For your first games, use the official recommended layout shown below.
2. 2Randomly pick a start player, give them 2 Lira, and give 1 more Lira to each following player clockwise. Each player draws 1 Bonus card.
3. 3Each player stacks their 4 Assistants on their Merchant disc and places the stack on the Fountain (7); Family members start at the Police Station (12).
4. 4Sort the Mosque tiles into 4 stacks by color and symbol count, place them at the Small/Great Mosque (14/15), and put Rubies on each stack equal to the player count (remove the 3- and 5-symbol tiles with 2 players, the 5-symbol tiles with 3 players, or place only 4 Rubies per stack with 5 players).
5. 5Set the Wheelbarrow goods indicators to the leftmost space and the 4 Mail indicators on the top row of the Post Office (5). Shuffle the Demand tiles into stacks at the Small/Large Market (10/11), then roll the dice to place the Governor and Smuggler tokens.
6. 6Place a track of Rubies (one per player) at the Sultan's Palace (13) and Gemstone Dealer (16). Shuffle the rest of the Bonus cards and set them, the Lira supply, and dice beside the board.

Your turn — move, assistant, action, encounters

1. 1Move — move your Merchant (and the Assistant stack beneath it) 1 or 2 Places horizontally or vertically. No diagonals, and you must end on a different Place.
2. 2Handle an Assistant — if one of your Assistants is already at the target Place, pick it up onto your stack. If none is there, leave the bottommost Assistant from your stack behind.
3. 3If you can do neither (no Assistants left in your stack, and none waiting there), your turn ends immediately (the Fountain is an exception).
4. 4Encounters — if another Merchant is there, pay them 2 Lira each (except at the Fountain). If you can't or won't, your turn ends immediately.
5. 5Action — carry out the Place's action (whether you picked up or left an Assistant). You may skip it if you don't want it.
6. 6Further encounters — if another player's Family member is there, you must catch them and send them to the Police Station. If the Governor or Smuggler is there, you may optionally pay to take their benefit.

Encounters — merchants, family, Governor, Smuggler

• Other Merchants — pay 2 Lira to each Merchant present there. No payment at the Fountain. If you can't pay, your turn ends immediately.
• Another player's Family member — you must catch it and send it to the Police Station, choosing 1 Bonus card or 3 Lira as a reward per Family member caught (you may pick differently for each). No encounters happen at the Police Station itself.
• The Governor — you may draw 1 Bonus card, but if you do, you must either pay 2 Lira or discard 1 Bonus card from hand.
• The Smuggler — you may take 1 good of your choice, but if you do, you must either pay 2 Lira or discard 1 Bonus card from hand.

If you used the Governor's or Smuggler's benefit, roll the dice and move that token to the rolled Place (roll separately if you used both).

The 16 Place actions

End of the game and ruby paths

The first player to collect 5 Rubies (6 with 2 players) triggers the end of the game once the current round finishes. Players may still use leftover Bonus cards that grant money or goods, which can matter for breaking ties.

Whoever has the most Rubies wins. Ties are broken by leftover Lira → leftover goods on the Wheelbarrow → leftover Bonus cards, in that order. If still tied, it's a shared win.

Tips

• Your real resource isn't goods — it's where your Assistants are. Plan a return trip to the Fountain 2–3 turns ahead so you're never stuck without an Assistant.
• Leaving an Assistant somewhere for too long shrinks your stack elsewhere. Think in terms of dropping Assistants at far Places and recalling them from nearby ones.
• Rather than committing to one of the four Ruby paths, switch between whichever is cheapest at the moment (Wainwright, Sultan's Palace, Gemstone Dealer, or a Mosque pair).
• Popular spaces (Markets, Mosques) attract other Merchants and their 2-Lira tolls — timing your visits to avoid the crowd helps.

Player-count differences

• 2 players — you need 6 Rubies to win, and the 3- and 5-symbol Mosque tiles are removed from the game.
• 3 players — the 5-symbol Mosque tiles are removed.
• 5 players — all Mosque tiles are used, but only 4 Rubies are placed per stack.

⚠️ Unverified: the checked Big Box rulebook also includes base-game variants such as neutral Assistants and random layouts, but some are described interwoven with the Mocha & Baksheesh and Letters & Seals expansions, so items that weren't clearly separable to the base game alone were left out of this guide.

Frequently asked questions

History and awards

Designed by German designer Rüdiger Dorn and published by Pegasus Spiele in 2014, the game won that year's Kennerspiel des Jahres (the expert-level Game of the Year award), along with the Swiss Gamers Award and the Gouden Ludo, and was a finalist for several Golden Geek categories.

Two expansions followed: Mocha & Baksheesh (2015) and Letters & Seals (2016). A 2018 Big Box combined the base game with both expansions — the rulebook this guide references comes from that edition.

In Korea, Korea Boardgames' own storefront has no listing for the base game 'Istanbul' — only a spin-off dice game sharing the same romanized name — and Namuwiki has no dedicated board-game article, suggesting no official Korean-language edition exists.