Cities and Tactics

Play

Summary

A strategy game where cards are used to represent tiles and pieces on a board.

Cards

There are two types of cards: lands and pieces.

Lands

Each player places lands at the beginning of the game in a 3x6 grid in front of them (their territory), for a total of a 6x6 board. These lands represent the locations that pieces can move on. A land can have only one piece on it at any given time. There are two types of lands: flatlands and rough terrain. A piece must have all its moves to enter rough terrain and uses up all its moves when it does.

Flatlands:

Plain x 10
+1 food. You may build cities only on plains.

Rough Terrain:

Forest x 2
+1 food, +1 production. Increases defence to 2.

Mountain x 2
+1 production. Increases defence to 2. Only move 1 pieces may enter.

Lake x 2
+1 food. A city with at least one adjacent lake gets 2x food from plains. Pieces cannot enter. Requires a city adjacent to the lake to cross. Crossing moves the piece adjacent to the lake to another unoccupied tile adjacent to the lake. Lakes adjacent to each other chain together for the purposes of crossing.

Swamp x 2
Only defence 1 pieces may enter.

Pieces

Pieces occupy tiles and have the following attributes:

Attack = The damage the piece can do per attack action.
Defence = The damage the piece can negate from attacks.
Range = The maximum distance the piece can attack a target.
Moves = The maximum number of actions the piece can take per turn.

A D R M

Cost 1:
1 1 1 1 = Light Infantry x 8

Cost 2:
2 1 1 1 = Berserker x 4
1 2 1 1 = Guard x 4
1 1 2 1 = Archer x 4
1 1 1 2 = Light Cavalry x 4

Cost 3:
2 2 1 1 = Heavy Infantry x 2
2 1 2 1 = Musketeer x 2
2 1 1 2 = Lancer x 2
1 2 2 1 = Armoured Archer x 2
1 2 1 2 = Knight x 2
1 1 2 2 = Horse Archer x 2

Decks

You can play the game either with a shared deck of cards, or each player can have their own deck of cards to draw from.

Board

The game takes place on a 6x6 square board. Each square is represented by a land card.

Hand

At the beginning of the game, draw five cards from your deck and hold them in your hand. At the beginning of each subsequent turn, draw one card for each city you control, if able to from your deck.

Cities

During your turn you may place one card from your hand face down on an unoccupied plain in your territory that is not adjacent to a city. This face down card is a city you control. You may place the face down card on an existing city instead. On the first turn, you must place a city in your territory.

Growth

To grow cities, you may place one card from your hand face down on each existing city. A city's population is equal to the number of face down cards in it. A city's maximum population is equal to the number of plains, forests, and lakes adjacent to it (food). The food from plains is doubled if the city is adjacent to at least one lake.

Settling

A piece on an unoccupied plain in your territory that is not adjacent to a city may found a city by flipping it face down. A piece on a city may join that city by flipping it face down.

Muster

Cities can be used to muster pieces. On your turn, a city with a population greater than 1 may muster a piece from among the cards that are face down in the city with a cost less than the city's population + the number of forests and mountains adjacent to the city (production). The face down card representing the piece is removed from the city and is placed in any unoccupied tile on or adjacent to the city and in your territory. Its population is removed from the city as result. If there are no unoccupied tiles you may not muster. Rotate sideways the population cards to indicate the city has mustered. Rotate them back at the beginning of your next turn to indicate that the city can muster again.

Actions

A given piece can only take as many actions as its moves per turn. Once it has used up all its actions, rotate it sideways to indicate so. At the beginning of your next turn, rotate it back to indicate it can take actions again.

Movement

You can spend one action to move a piece to an adjacent unoccupied tile, given rough terrain restrictions.

Attack

You can spend one action to make an attack with a piece against a target piece within its range. If the attacking piece's attack equals or exceeds the defending piece's defence, the defending piece is removed from the board and placed on the bottom of the deck.

Roads

A piece on or adjacent to a city you control that hasn't moved yet may be placed on or adjacent to any city you control, spending all its moves in the process.

Capture

You can capture an opponent's city by moving a piece onto it. Captured cities cannot muster or grow and do not count towards victory. A city only remains captured while an opponent's piece occupies it.

Victory

Victory is achieved by either having 15 total population between all cities you control or capturing all cities your opponent controls.