This game is under development, and the rules and components are not final.
[Current Rules] ["Cliques" Variant] [Design Discussion] [History of Changes]
But the Regent wants to keep that power, and not give it up even when the Heir comes of age. During the next four years, until the Heir's 18th birthday, Heir and Regent will be maneuvering for the loyalty and support of the Nobles at Court.
Each Noble belongs to two different Factions, adhering to one more strongly than the other. The Merchants want peaceful trade, the Imperialists want wars of glorious conquest, the Pious believe in the power of the Church, and so on. During the game, players will take actions that please the Nobles of some factions while alienating others.
If the Heir can win the support of a majority of Nobles, he or she will become a true reigning Monarch. But if the Regent wins the most Nobles, the Heir will be a puppet ruler forever, with the Regent pulling the puppet strings and wielding the true power of the Kingdom!
The board displays the Court (12 spaces for cards), the Privy Council (4 spaces for cards), and 6 Faction Tracks. It also has a Victory Point track around its border.
Each Faction Track is labeled with the name and symbol of a specific Faction. The Factions are: Imperialist, Trader, Merchant, Pious, Progressive, Conservative, and Agrarian. Each track has nine spaces. The three spaces at one end of each track are colored royal purple; the three at the other end are colored emerald green; the middle three are colorless. The position of the marker on a Faction Track shows which player the Faction favors: in the purple for the Heir, in the green for the Regent, otherwise neither player is favored.
An aread of the table in front of each player is reserved for that player's Retinue.
Noble cards
Each Noble card shows a picture of a nobleman or noblewoman.
Every Noble belongs to two Factions,
one of which is designated as the Noble's major Faction,
and the other as the Noble's minor Faction.
The symbols and names of the two Factions are displayed on the card.
Faction cards
Each Faction card displays the name and symbol of one Faction,
and names an action that would please the adherents of that Faction.
(For example, "Signing a Trade Agreement" is an action that would
please the Merchant Faction.)
Set up the board.
Set the board on the table between the players, with the purple ends of the Faction Tracks nearest the Heir and the green ends nearest the Regent.
Put a marker in the center space of each Faction Track.
Prepare the decks.
Shuffle the deck of Faction cards.
Deal 3 random Faction cards to each player, face down.
Divide the remainder into three roughly equal piles, all face-down.
Place the Heir's Birthday card in the middle of one of the piles,
then stack the piles back into a single deck,
making sure that the pile that contains the Heir's Birthday card goes on the bottom of the stack.
Place the rest of the deck face-down on the table,
take three cards off the top,
and place them face-up by the deck
so that all three are visible.
The face-up cards are the draw pool
for the Faction deck.
Shuffle the deck of Nobles cards. Deal one card to each player, face-down. Place the rest of the deck face-down on the table. Place the rest of the deck face-down on the table, take three cards off the top, and place them face-up by the deck so that all three are visible. The face-up cards are the draw pool for the Noble deck.
During play, Noble cards will be played onto the Court, the Privy Council, and each player's Retinue. The marker tokens on the Faction Tracks will be moved back and forth to show favor to one player or the other.
Players can improve their chances of winning by wooing the Factions (that is, trying to move the Faction Markers to their end of the Faction Tracks), by trying to fill the Court and Privy Council with Nobles whose Factions favor that player, and by adding Nobles to their Retinues.
These are the optional actions that the active player may make during his turn:
Influence a Faction
Requirements:
Two or more Faction cards, all of the same Faction.
Immediate Score: None.
Activity:
The player discards the matched Faction cards,
then moves the marker for that Faction
towards himself by a number of notches
that is one less than the number of cards in the discarded set.
That is, if the player discards two cards,
the Faction marker moves one notch.
If he discards three cards,
it moves two notches; and so on.
Invite a Noble to Court
Requirements:
One Noble card;
two Faction cards whose Faction matches the Noble's major Faction;
and an empty space in the Court.
Immediate Score: One Victory Point for the active player.
Activity:
The player places the Noble card on any empty space in the Court
(it does not matter which space is used)
and discards the Faction cards.
Seat a Noble on the Privy Council
Requirements:
One Noble card;
three Faction cards whose Faction matches the Noble's major Faction;
and an empty space in the Privy Council.
Immediate Score: Two Victory Points for the active player.
Activity:
The player places the Noble card on any empty space in the Privy Council
(it does not matter which space is used)
and discards the Faction cards.
The marker for the Noble's major Faction is moved one notch
closer to the active player's side.
Add a Noble to Your Retinue
Requirements:
One Noble card,
and three Faction cards whose Faction matches the Noble's major Faction.
Immediate Score: None.
Activity:
The player places the Noble card
in front of him on the table, face up,
and discards the Faction cards.
Special Notes
Faction markers cannot be moved farther than the ends of their tracks.
Nobles may only be placed in empty spaces
in the Court and Privy Council.
The Court has twelve spaces,
and the Privy Council has four;
when they are full,
no more Nobles may be placed.
The three Year End activities are: discarding the players' hands, scoring, and setting up for the next year.
Scoring the Court
Each Noble in the Court is examined, one by one.
If the Noble's major Faction favors one player,
that player receives one Victory Point.
Otherwise, if the Noble's minor Faction favors one player,
that player receives one Victory Point.
If neither of the Noble's Factions favors any player,
no Victory Points are awarded for that Noble.
Scoring the Privy Council
Each Noble in the Privy Council is examined, one by one.
If the Noble's major Faction favors one player,
that player receives two Victory Points.
Otherwise, if the Noble's minor Faction favors one player,
that player receives two Victory Points.
If neither of the Noble's Factions favors any player,
no Victory Points are awarded for that Noble.
Scoring the Retinues
Each player receives one Victory Point
for each Noble in his Retinue.
Influence a Faction
Requirements:
Two or more Faction cards, all of the same Faction.
Immediate Score: None.
Activity:
The player discards the matched Faction cards,
then moves the marker for that Faction
towards himself by a number of notches
that is one less than the number of cards in the discarded set.
That is, if the player discards two cards,
the Faction marker moves one notch.
If he discards three cards,
it moves two notches; and so on.
Invite a Noble to Court
Requirements:
One Noble card;
two or more Faction cards whose Faction matches the Noble's major Faction;
and an empty space in the Court.
Immediate Score: None.
Activity:
The player places the Noble card on any empty space in the Court.
The player discards the matched Faction cards,
then moves the marker for that Faction
towards himself by a number of notches
that is one less than the number of cards in the discarded set.
That is, if the player discards two cards,
the Faction marker moves one notch.
If he discards three cards,
it moves two notches; and so on.
(This is identical to playing the Faction cards without the Noble card,
to simply influence the faction.)
Add a Noble to Your Retinue
Requirements:
Two Faction cards whose Faction matches the major Faction
of a Noble in the Court.
Immediate Score: Two points.
Activity:
The player removes the Noble card
from the Court and places it
in front of him on the table, face up.
The Faction cards are discarded
(and no Faction Marker is moved).
Scoring the Court
The Nobles in the Court may form cliques.
A clique is any group of adjacent Nobles
who share the same Major Faction,
or who share the same Minor Faction (but not both).
"Adjacent" means to the immediate north, south, east, or west,
but not diagonally.
The size of a clique is the number of Nobles that form it.
To score the Court, each Noble in the Court is examined, one by one. First its Major faction is looked at; then its Minor faction.
If the Noble's Major Faction favors one player, that player receives one Victory Point plus an additional number of Victory Points equal to the size of that Noble's clique. Examples: A Noble whose Major Faction is "Merchant" and who is adjacent to no other Nobles whose Major Faction is Merchant, forms a clique of size one. He scores two points for the player favored by the Merchant Faction. But if the Noble is part of a clique of size three, he scores four points for that player; furthermore, each other Noble in that clique will also score four points for that player when it is their turn to be scored.
Next, score the Noble's Minor Faction. This is the same as for the Major Faction except that the Minor Faction scores only for the size of its clique: a single Noble with no Minor Faction neighbors is worth one point, while a Noble in a Minor Faction clique of size three is worth three points.
Scoring the Retinues
Each player receives one Victory Point
for each Noble in his Retinue,
regardless of his Factions.
Nobles in a Retinue do not form cliques.
After much encouragement and good ideas from Nando and sedgtroll, I rewrote the rules to include Faction cards and the Retinues. This version played well enough in a solo test to convince me that there was actually a game. Some differences from the current version were that the Noble and Faction cards were mixed into a single deck, the Court was much larger, and points for placing Nobles in the Court and Privy Council went to the faction-favored player.
It soon became clear that there were too many Nobles in play, and not enough Faction cards. You need more Faction cards than Noble cards to form the sets; extra Nobles are useless and were slowing down the game. But fewer Nobles in play also made it clear that the Court would be too large. And finally, it just felt wrong to award points by faction for placing Nobles.
I kept the same number of Nobles cards, but mixed only 1/3 of them into the deck with the Faction cards in each year. That allowed me to keep all the Nobles (with their necessary variations on major and minor Factions), but it metered them out over the entire course of the game. I reduced the Court size and gave placement points to the active player, and immediately found that the game became much more engaging and interesting. There was nice tension between the guaranteed placement points and the future scoring-round points that might go to the other player. Early in the game, Retinue placement was key because there would be three or four scoring rounds where every Noble in one's Retinue would pay off. Late in the game, that didn't matter so much, and the emphasis was on filling the Court and Privy Council, and on pulling the Factions. This gave a nice story arc.
There is also tension in the fact that neither player can predict exactly when a "year" will end. Having to discard all cards at the end of each year forces players to balance the desire to wait for better sets against the possibility of losing them altogether by waiting too long.
After those solo tests, I tried another change by separating the Noble cards and Faction cards into separate decks. This solved a problem in the single-deck version where only Nobles would be available in the (single) draw pool, forcing players to draw and discard simply because there were no better options. Separate decks and draw pools give players a guaranteed choice, ensuring more strategic options and livelier gameplay.
At this point (after two solo tests and one live playtest), I am beginning to think that three years are enough, and four are too many. With only three years, the game should last about an hour, which (I think) is barely short enough for a game of this style and depth. Also my opponent and I agreed that during the last year, there was little to do except pull on the factions; and that depended on the luck of the draw. There really were no significant decisions for the players to make during that period, and yet we found that draw-luck had a huge influence on the final score. This strongly suggests that the game should be concluded either when the Court and Privy Council fill up, or perhaps a bit before. Three years seems about right for that, so it's a change I may make if the next few playtests reinforce the idea.
May 27, 2005 - Updated the rules with the changes gleaned from solot testing and the first live playtest.
Last modified June 25, 2005 by rmh