Game rules

The game is played on one of twelve maps, and all twelve are playable: Spain (52 territories in nine regions: all fifty provinces plus Ceuta and Melilla), Westeros (43 in ten, the Seven Kingdoms from the Wall to Dorne, and the only board that is not a real place), World (42 in six), North America (30 in six, the United States by state and Canada by province), Europe (25 in five), Asia (24 in five), the Americas (21 in four), Africa (21 in five), the Mediterranean (21 in five, under its ancient names), Oceania (19 in five, where almost every border is water), Iberia (19 in five, Spain by region and Portugal in two) and the Canaries (14 in four, the only one built for a small table). Whoever creates the room picks it; at a public table it is voted on.

Each map groups its territories into regions. Holding every territory in a region pays a bonus of armies on each of your turns, and it is the only way to get your reinforcements meaningfully above the minimum.

The small maps cap how many players they seat (the Canaries 4; the Americas, Africa, Oceania, the Mediterranean and Iberia 5). If the room fills past that cap, the game opens on the smallest map the whole table fits on rather than dealing two territories each.

Territories are dealt out at random between all players, one at a time, each starting with a single army. Nobody chooses where: the opening position is always scattered across the whole board.

Each player also gets a reserve of armies to place, smaller the more people are at the table: 40 for two, 35 for three, 30 for four, 25 for five and 20 for six on the world board, and the proportional equivalent on the smaller maps.

With automatic deployment that reserve is scattered over your own territories for you and the game opens on the first turn. With deployment by hand, players place three at a time in rotation until nobody has any left.

Every turn opens by collecting armies: one for every three territories you hold, with a minimum of three even if you hold fewer, plus the bonus for each region you hold outright.

You place them wherever you like among your own territories, one at a time or all at once. You cannot attack until every one of them is on the board.

If you take at least one territory during your turn, you draw a card when it ends. Each card names a territory on the map and carries a symbol - infantry, cavalry or artillery - and there are two wild cards that count as any symbol.

Three cards of the same symbol, one of each symbol, or any combination including a wild make a set. Sets are handed in for armies at the start of your turn, before placing. If one of the three cards names a territory you hold at that moment, two of those armies are placed directly on it.

With escalating values, every set handed in at the table is worth more than the last: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and five more each time after that. With fixed values, each kind of set always pays the same: 4 for infantry, 6 for cavalry, 8 for artillery and 10 for a mixed set.

Holding five cards forces you to hand in a set before you may place anything. That is the rule that stops anyone sitting on cards indefinitely to freeze the value of sets.

And if eliminating somebody leaves you holding six or more, you trade there and then, in the middle of the assault: that set’s armies land in the same turn, which is a good part of why finishing off a wounded player is worth the risk.

You attack from one of your territories holding two or more armies, against a neighbouring territory that is not yours. You may attack as many times as you like on your turn, from wherever you like, and stop whenever it suits you.

The attacker rolls one die per army beyond the one left as a garrison, up to three. The defence rolls one die per army, up to two. The dice are sorted highest first and compared in pairs: whoever loses a pair loses an army, and a tie always goes to the defence.

Who decides the defender’s dice is picked before the game starts. Automatic defence always rolls every die the garrison allows - which is what you would nearly always want - and battles run back to back. The other option stops the game and asks whoever is being attacked, with twelve seconds to answer: the board game’s own rule, at the price of having to pay attention when it is not your turn.

When a territory loses its last army it changes hands, and you choose how many armies move in: at least as many as the dice you just rolled, and at most everything in the attacking territory bar one, because an army always has to stay behind as a garrison.

Once you are done attacking you may move armies once: from one of your territories to any other territory of yours connected to it by a chain of your own ground. One army always has to stay behind.

Regrouping ends your turn the moment you do it, so it is the last thing you decide.

There is no alliance rule, exactly as in the classic game: a pact is something two players say to each other, and the table never hears about it. Nobody is bound by it and nothing stops you attacking anyone, whenever you like.

So that they can be said at all, the table carries a Diplomacy panel during the game, next to the scoreboard: truces are proposed there, continents are carved up there, and that is where they get broken. Everyone at the table reads it, so there is no such thing as a private alliance.

A player left with no territories is out of the game, and whoever took their last one keeps all of their territory cards.

The winner is whoever is left as the only player holding territory on the map.

If somebody walks out mid-game, their territories stay on the board unowned with their armies still in place: they can still be conquered, they just never attack anyone.