Rules Summary:
In Pipeline, the board represents the oil pipeline that runs through all of the nations. The countries in front of you represent the places where your corporation controls oil drilling and refining.
If you've ever played Mancala or Owari or any of the countless variations on the African stone-passing game, then you'll have no problem picking up the mechanics of Pipeline. And if not, it's not difficult to pick up; it's just a different kind of strategy.
In Pipeline, you don't move pieces so much as distribute them around the board one by one. However, since the results of your move are determined by the last country to which you distribute a piece, you must exercise care in selecting your starting country. You must distribute all pieces from your starting country, exactly one per country, until you run out of pieces.
If your final piece is distributed to a country that currently has one or two pieces (bringing its total to two or three after your move), your corporation collects dividends from that country, regardless of who owns it. The catch is that there's good product and bad product to be collected, and you have to take everything that the country has to offer. Sometimes you have to take everything from the neighboring countries, as well!
The goal, then, is to make sure that you send all of your waste product (which is worth negative points) through the pipeline to places that are less likely to be able to send it back to you. At the same time, you should try to distribute refined product (which is worth the most points) to places where you can easily retrieve it.
The game ends when one player's countries are bankrupted. The player who caused the bankruptcy must pay a penalty to the bankrupted player; the rest of the players get to keep any spoils remaining in their countries. The player who has the most points (as determined by their collection of crude and refined product) wins.
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