Mayor rules

The goal

The candidate, named by the Town Hall, and their secret ally form the candidate's team. They win the election if they reach the threshold of the chosen mode after the 18 tricks, electoral reserve included; otherwise the opposition wins.

The cards: 78 in all

• 4 suits — Red, Yellow, Blue, Green — of 14 cards: 1 to 10, Policeman, Fireman, Doctor and Mayor. Cards 1 to 10 show a building under construction.
• 19 Buildings numbered 1 to 19, which are the trumps. The Town Hall is Building 19.
• 3 Specials: the Thief, the Casino and the Crane.

Setup

1. Each player gets 18 cards, in packets of three; six cards form the electoral reserve. It never contains a Mayor, a Special or the Town Hall.
2. The player holding the Town Hall becomes the candidate.
3. The candidate calls a coloured Mayor. The player holding it becomes their secret ally; if they call a Mayor from their own hand, they play alone against three.
4. The candidate takes the reserve, then puts six allowed cards back, face down. They count for the candidate at the final count.
5. The candidate leads the first trick.

The ally is only revealed when the called Mayor is played. Until then, the app hides the team scores so as not to give their side away.

How a trick is played

• The first card that is not a Special sets the suit led.
• You must follow that suit if you can.
• Otherwise you must trump with a Building; if a Building is already down, you must overtrump when possible.
• With neither the suit nor a Building, play any card.
• A Special can be played at any time.

The highest Building takes the trick; without one, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads the next trick. A played Special then goes to its player's opposing team, unless a Thief succeeds.

The basic game: counting cards

After the 18 tricks, the reserve is added to the candidate's team. With an ally, it wins with 48 cards or more out of 78; alone against three, the candidate wins with 33 cards.

• Thief: gives the whole trick to its player's team.
• Casino: name the exact top card of the opposing pile; if you are right, take up to three cards from the top.
• Crane: take the top two cards of the opposing pile.

The advanced game: counting votes

Every card is a ballot worth votes; the deck holds 118 of them.

The candidate's threshold depends on how many Specials are in their pile at the end of the round:

• Thief: diverts a single card from the trick, the one worth the most votes, without changing who wins the trick.
• Casino: name a non-Special card in an opponent's hand; if it is there, swap it for one of your own cards.
• Crane: take the top card of the opposing pile.

To keep the game flowing, the app picks the card taken by the Thief and the card given away after a successful Casino.

The counter: stopping the Thief

A Policeman or the Prison in the same trick stops the Thief: the trick is resolved normally and the Thief goes to the opposing team. In the app, an opponent still to play may put down their Policeman or the Prison right after the Thief, even out of suit, once the ally is revealed: before that, the counter would give the alliance away.

With the printed game: 3 to 5 players

The 2017 rule book also covers games for three (24 cards each, reserve of 6) and five (15 cards each, reserve of 3). The app is always played by four. A few inconsistencies in the rule book, such as the number of cards per suit, the Town Hall's number or the direction of play, were settled for the app.