Iki - Akebono - Sorry we are french

Back to Nihonbashi

Merchants from all walks of life and from all over the country moved into the Nihonbashi district, where Iki takes place, making it Japan's largest shopping center. A fish market, kabuki and yose (vaudeville) theaters were also located here. The gold (Kinza) and silver (Ginza) guilds were established here and, in addition to minting coins, attracted local residents and cultural figures. Wealthy merchants, together with feudal lords and the various houses of the region, developed Edo's cultural activities.

The first Nihonbashi bridge was built in 1603. The Nihonbashi River and the many surrounding ditches were used to move boats, bringing goods from all over Japan!

The Iki - Akebono expansion adds 5 new concepts to Iki:

    City Board

    Boat Construction

    River Trade Track

    Nihonbashi Bridge

    the "Grand Master" variant for 2 players

It also contains many new elements, from additional cards (buildings, characters...) to tokens (fish, tobacco, pipe...).

City break and 2-player mode

In Iki: Akebono, two new boards are added to your main board: the City Board and the Nihonbashi Bridge.The City board serves several purposes:

    it makes it easy to place character cards and buildings,

    it provides a new way of managing the arrival and departure of craftsmen in the city.

The "Grand Master" mode is an improvement on the two-player game.  It introduces a neutral Oyakata, the Grand Master, who moves through the Nihonbashi market in the opposite direction to the players. Once he's stopped in front of the stalls, he takes the craftsmen's experience up a notch! If he reaches the Nihonbashi Bridge, he moves players up the Trade Track.

Nihonbashi River and Bridge

The big news in Akebono is the extension of the market, via the Nihonbashi Bridge! This allows you to multiply your strategies and discover new ways of playing. The board features a bridge for celebrities, as well as a river for river trade. Players can use the build action to launch their own boats. Each boat has its own speciality: transforming resources into other resources, offering additional tokens (tobacco, pipe, fish), acquiring experience for a craftsman, and so on.

When another player uses one of your river merchants, you progress on the Trade Track. This gives you bonuses after the Fires phase.

If you're lucky, you'll catch a glimpse of a Celebrity on your way to the bridge! These illustrious personalities from the Edo period can be recruited free of charge and provide you with powerful abilities or new alternatives for scoring Iki. But be warned, there are only two Celebrities per season: only the fastest Oyakata will be able to hire them!