Grand Austria Hotel

Shuffle the Let's Waltz guest cards, staff cards, objective cards, and Emperor tiles into the respective base-game stacks before setup begins — they are marked with a music-note symbol so you can separate them again after the game.

Common Play Area

Place the main game board and the action board in the middle of the table. When playing with Module 1 (Vienna Ballrooms), flip the action board to the side showing the music-note symbol (or fit the overlay over the dish and drink spaces), and place three randomly selected ballroom boards above the game board in any order. Place the Round indicator tiles above the ballrooms from left to right in ascending order, and place the balcony board to the right of the rightmost ballroom.

Place the dustbin marker next to the action board and the resource cubes nearby. When playing with Module 1, also place the champagne tokens next to the dishes and drinks.

Prepare the decks:

• Shuffle the guest card deck and place it face-down next to the main game board. Draw 5 cards and place them face-up in the queue on the game board.
• Shuffle the staff card deck and place it face-down next to the main game board.
• Place one random card from each of the A, B, and C objective card stacks onto the matching spaces on the main game board.
• Place one random tile from each of the A, B, and C Emperor tile stacks onto the matching spaces on the main game board.

Place the dice next to the action board according to the player count:

When playing with Module 2 (Celebrities), replace three of these white dice with the three colored dice (red, blue, yellow). Place the lounge board beside the action board, shuffle the celebrity tiles (removing any marked with a music-note symbol if you are not also playing Module 1) into a face-down stack, and draw three celebrities face-up onto the lounge from left to right. Place the victory point chits nearby.

When playing with Module 4 (Start Player), place the action board extension to the left of the action board and put the skeleton key on it.

Personal Play Area

Each player takes the following:

• 1 overview card
• 1 hotel board (choose the day or night side together before play begins)
• 6 wooden discs in your chosen colour
• 1 coffee (black), 1 wine (red), 1 strudel (brown), and 1 cake (white) cube placed in your kitchen
• 6 staff cards drawn from the deck as a starting hand — you may optionally perform a draft with these
• When playing with Module 1, 1 champagne token placed in your kitchen
• When playing with Module 3 (Unique Hotels), skip the four starting dishes and drinks above. If you are playing both modules 1 and 3, still take the 1 champagne

Each player places one disc on each of the following:

• The 0 space of the Emperor track on the main game board
• The 0/75 space of the victory point track on the main game board
• The 10 space of the money track on your player board — except when playing Module 4, in which case place it on 9, 10, 11, or 12 according to your turn order position (1st through 4th)

Place the remaining three discs beside your player board for later use.

Place the round marker on the 1 space of the round track.

Randomly determine a start player and distribute the turn order tiles accordingly. When playing Module 4, use the nine new turn order tiles in place of the base-game ones.

Starting Guests, Rehearsal Rooms, and Rooms

When playing Module 1, in counter-clockwise order starting with the player to the right of the start player, each player takes one rehearsal room board at random and places it to the left of their hotel board. Place 10 dancer tokens in your colour on the marked spaces.

When playing Module 3, auction off the hotel entrances before continuing:

• Lay out one random hotel entrance per player. Note the extra setup for Hotel Dove (5 bonus tokens placed nearby), Ninas Melange (3 random A/B/C objective cards), and The Grand Wray Hotel (6 random A/B/C Emperor tiles) if they are among those drawn
• The start player puts one entrance up for auction with a bid of 0 or more krones. Clockwise, players must raise or pass; passing excludes you from that auction only. The winner pays their bid, takes the entrance, places it to the left of their hotel board, and collects the depicted starting items
• If the start player did not win, they start the next auction. Otherwise, the next clockwise player who has not yet won starts it. Continue until only one player is left without an entrance — they take the final one at no cost

Starting with the player to the right of the start player and proceeding in counter-clockwise order, each player takes one guest from the queue at no cost, refilling the queue after each pick.

Finally, each player prepares 3 rooms on their hotel board, beginning with the bottom-left room and paying the cost printed at the start of each floor. Every subsequent room must be placed orthogonally adjacent to an already-placed room. When playing Module 3 with the Chateau Paulwei entrance, you may prepare up to 5 rooms instead (still paying each floor's cost).

The game will be played over 7 rounds, with Emperor scoring at the end of rounds 3, 5, and 7. When playing with Module 1 (Vienna Ballrooms), each Emperor scoring will also be followed by a ballroom scoring. After round 7, a final scoring will determine the winner.

At the start of each round, the start player (whoever has the lowest-numbered turn order tile) will take and roll all of the dice, then sort them onto the action board spaces according to the rolled values. When playing with Module 2 (Celebrities), the start player rolls the white and colored dice together, distributing them on the action board as normal.

Players will then each take two turns across the round, in the order indicated by the turn order tiles. On your turn, you may either take an action or pass.

Turn Order

In the base game, turn order follows a snake-like pattern determined by the turn order tiles. When playing with Module 4 (Start Player), turn order is instead strictly clockwise, and you may actively bid for start-player position by taking the Start Player action (see Additional Actions).

Taking a Turn

On your turn, you will:

• Optionally, take a guest from the queue:
  • Pay any cost printed below the space the guest was taken from
  • Place the guest in a free space in your café. If every café space is occupied, you cannot take a guest
  • Slide the remaining guests to the right and draw a new guest card into the leftmost space
• Take a single die from a space on the action board and carry out the associated main action:
  • The strength of the main action is equal to the total number of dice on that space, including the die you took
  • You may boost the main action by paying 1 krone to add a virtual die (an extra +1 strength). You may only boost once per turn
  • You may only take a die from a space that has at least one die on it
  • Remove the chosen die from the action space and place it on the lowest visible number of your turn order tile
• Optionally, take any number of additional actions (see Additional Actions). These may be taken before, between, or after the main action, in any order

During your turn, whenever you meet the condition shown on an objective card, you may place one of your discs on the highest available space of that card and immediately gain the depicted reward. You may only place one disc per objective card.

Passing

If you pass instead of taking a turn, you must wait until the other players finish both of their turns before doing anything else — you cannot take any further turns this round.

Between Turns

After all players have either taken both turns or passed, the player whose turn order tile shows the lowest unused number will:

• Take the remaining dice from the action board
• Place one of them on the dustbin (in Module 2, you must choose a white die if any are present)
• Re-roll the rest and sort them onto the action board spaces as normal

Players will continue taking turns in this fashion until either everyone has taken two actions or no dice are left.

Once every player has either taken their two turns or passed, and no further turns can be taken, the round ends. Resolve the end of the round in the following order:

1. Celebrity cleanup (Module 2 only) — before Emperor scoring
2. Emperor scoring — on rounds 3, 5, and 7 only
3. Ballroom scoring (Module 1 only) — after Emperor scoring, on rounds 3, 5, and 7
4. End-of-round cleanup — every round except 7

On round 7, after the Emperor scoring and the final ballroom scoring, proceed directly to final scoring (see End of Game Scoring).

Celebrity Cleanup (Module 2)

Before the Emperor scoring, resolve the lounge:

1. Collect every player's celebrities and place them in the celebrity discard pile
2. Update the celebrities still on the lounge:
   • A celebrity with no chit gains a chit with the 2 VP side face-up (covering the printed "1 VP")
   • A celebrity showing 2 VP flips to show 4 VP
   • A celebrity showing 4 VP is moved to the discard pile and its chit returns to the supply
3. Refill the lounge by drawing new celebrities from the stack, left to right. If the stack runs out, shuffle the discard pile to form a new face-down stack

Emperor Scoring

Each player scores the victory points shown under the space their Emperor marker currently occupies.

Each player then moves their Emperor marker back a number of spaces equal to the current round:

Based on the space the marker ends on, the player gains or loses according to the Emperor tile for this round:

• Grey (spaces 1 and 2): no reward and no penalty
• Yellow (spaces 3+): receive the reward shown on the top half of the Emperor tile
• Black (space 0): suffer the penalty shown on the bottom half of the Emperor tile

Ballroom Scoring (Module 1)

After the Emperor scoring, score one ballroom based on the round:

• End of round 3 — score the leftmost ballroom (under the "3" indicator)
• End of round 5 — score the middle ballroom (under the "5" indicator)
• End of round 7 — score the rightmost ballroom (under the "7" indicator, including dancers on the balcony)

Each ballroom scores in its own specific way — see Ballroom Effects in the References section for the formulas for each of the five ballroom boards. In every case, any player who has no dancers in the scored ballroom loses 5 VP.

Dancers remain in the ballroom after scoring (they are not collected). Once scored, a ballroom may continue to receive new dancers, but it will not score again.

End-of-Round Cleanup

Unless the round just ended was round 7:

• Turn any used (sideways) staff cards upright again
• Return the dice to the start player for re-rolling next round
• Advance the round marker one space to the right
• Pass turn order tiles to the next player on the left — except when playing Module 4 (Start Player), in which case:
  • If a player took the skeleton key this round, redistribute the turn order tiles clockwise beginning with that player, and return the skeleton key to the action board extension
  • Otherwise, pass the turn order tiles to the left as normal

After the round 7 Emperor scoring (and the final ballroom scoring, when playing Module 1), proceed to final scoring. Each player scores the following in addition to the points they have already accumulated on the victory point track:

• Victory points printed on any staff cards that score at the end of the game
• Victory points per occupied room in your hotel, based on the floor the room is on:

• 1 VP per krone remaining on your money track
• 1 VP per item (dish or drink) remaining in your kitchen
• When playing Module 1, 1 VP per champagne remaining in your kitchen

Each player then loses 5 VP for each guest card still in their café.

The player with the most victory points wins. In the event of a tie, the tied player with the largest combined total of dishes, drinks, and — in Module 1 — champagne in their kitchen plus krones on their money track wins. If the tie remains unbroken, the victory is shared.