Dadaocheng

About this board game

Dadaocheng is a family board game for 1–4 players, played in about 45 minutes, in which foreign traders compete for prestige in Dadaocheng, Taiwan, at the turn of the twentieth century.

At the heart of the game is a central area filled with resource discs. Players manipulate this shared supply by swapping and flipping discs, creating the means to obtain the resources they need.

Once resources are available, each trader must decide how to use them. Resources can be traded with the rest of the world or spent to buy different types of buildings within the city of Dadaocheng.

• Swap and flip resource discs in the central area.
• Obtain resources through careful manipulation of the shared supply.
• Trade resources to the rest of the world.
• Spend resources on different types of city buildings.

These two avenues—international trade and developing the city—define the choices available to players as they pursue their goals. The central disc system keeps resource acquisition at the forefront of every turn, while the two ways to use resources give the game its distinctive focus.

The objective in Dadaocheng is to become the most prestigious trader in the city. With its historical setting, accessible family-game format, and emphasis on manipulating resources in a shared central area, it offers a compact contest for 1–4 players.