Episode 248: 3 Ring Circus

3 ring circus is a 1-4 player game in which you take on the role of a circus director whose objective is to hire artists and offer performances in various towns and cities with the intention of gaining the most fame.

Each player has their own circus board where they will be placing their hired artists which come in the form of animals, acrobats and special performers in one of their 3 rings (rows) to create their performances. The circus board is also where you will track pedestals, movement and money icons (these icons could be reduced if they are covered with artists and there are also benefits you gain when a card is placed in that slot. Players will also place their end game scoring cards on their circus boards when they complete the first 3 columns of artists.

On your turn you can either engage an artist or perform a show.

When you engage an artist you will play a card from your hand (either a money card or an artist card and place it into one of the 3 rings (rows). The card will then take its place in that row according to its value, so that all the cards in the same row are always in order of strictly increasing value, from left to right. When you play a card you also have to pay it’s cost by discarding money cards from your hand. If you play subsequent cards into a row the cost is the difference between it and the highest value card in that row.

If you perform a show you first move your caravan to a different location on the board depending on your movement icons and then you perform in either a small town, medium city or main city. Small town performances give players more money cards, medium city performances require a preferred performer type to be in that performance and allows players to gain more artist cards (medium city performances are where having as many pedestals as possible is important, these pedestals will come from icons on your board and/or icons on cards played onto your circus board), and performances in main cities require specific artists to be in the show you are performing and will gain the player fame points based on how many of those required artists are in that show.

After a player chooses to perform a show the BARNUM CIRCUS caravan will move one space in a counter-clockwise direction on the outermost route of the board. Once Barnum gets to a main city it will trigger a scoring round in which the person with the most performances in that region will gain the most points. The game is played over multiple rounds with the end game trigger being when the Barnum Circus makes one complete loop and triggers the scoring at its starting city, the game ends. Fame points will be calculated from the artists on their circus board, end of game effects cards and for End game scoring cards. Player with the most fame points wins.