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May you choose not to use your own resources and buy them from your neighbours instead?

This is relevant for cases where you would earn money when "buying" from your neighbours.

The rules say about "Resource Cost" (English PDF, page 4):

Some cards have a resource cost.
To construct them, the player must produce the corresponding resources AND/OR buy them from one of his or her two neighboring cities.

And about "Commerce" (same page):

Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or she does not produce.
If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

It doesn’t seem to address this case explicitly, and I can’t deduce it from this wording. I guess the "AND/OR" was meant for different cases (e.g., that you can combine both ways).

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unor
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2 Answers2

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As stated by the rules (English Rules, p. 4), you're required to use your own resources first and buy the missing afterwards.

Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or she does not produce. If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

This is also confirmed by the "City" expansion rules (English City Rules, p. 10):

A player must use their own resource before buying one from their neighbors.

This rule is stated under "Team Play", but it states "neighbors", instead of just "teammates", like other similar rules, so I assume it's a more general rule. In any case, the base-game rules are quite clear on that.

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Adama
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  • I’m still not convinced. The quoted rule from Cities is only valid for team plays (players not playing the team variant would skip this section entirely). Because they explicitly mention it for the team variant could mean that it’s not forbidden in the normal game. -- So I guess in this case, we should only look at the normal rules. And there it says "will want" and "will be able" - yes, you will be able to purchase missing resources, but as far as I understand it, this does not imply that the resources have to be missing. – unor Apr 05 '15 at 18:36
  • (I’m not saying that your conclusion is wrong; I just don’t think that this part of the rules is clear. I thought it might be because I’m not a native speaker, but even the German rules say "möchte" und "kann", i.e., "want to" and "will be able to". Both versions are formulated in the form of a typical use case, not in the form of a definition :/) – unor Apr 05 '15 at 18:53
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In the BoardGameGeek thread Choosing to pay for resources, the user Jacek Deimer says he has asked the designer (Antoine Bauza):

2a. Can you decide to buy resource instead of using your own resources?

2a. You have to use your own resources in the first place.

(I could not verify if this source/quote is accurate.)

However, in the same message the designer answered that you "have to build for free if you can", but in the question May you choose *not* to use the free construction chain? we came to the conclusion (based on the rules) that you don’t have to build for free. So I’m not sure what to make of this.

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