Jump to content

Complete Cyvasse Rules


Zuberi

Recommended Posts

Hi guys, new here

noticed this thread a couple months ago, glad to see it's gained some steam since then.

Anyhow the reason i am posting is that i attended the recent reading by Martin in Seattle. He read a new chapter from The Winds of Winter featuring Tyrion playing cyvasse. During the game it is mentioned that a piece on the board (i believe the crossbowman) is placed on a "hill" I haven't seen any thing about a "hill" mechanic in this thread before.

It makes sense; if there are mountains included as a terrain quirk than why not hills as well. Martin was not explicit as to how this may add another wrinkle to the game, but I believe it could be used as a buff to ranged units and possibly a decrease to the movement of other pieces. Not so much an impassable obstacle like the mountain, but another tool to force enemy movement in an advantageous way.

Food for thought at least.

As to how this would affect the the number of pieces (10) in the game i come up with two possible conclusions:

1) "Hills" are a subset of mountain pieces and a player can choose whether the piece will be impassable (mountain) or take on this hill​ theoretical hill mechanic.

2) the mountain was never intended to be a piece, but a series of terrain quirks such as mountains, hills, streams, rivers forests etc

If anyone has a chance to go to a reading or find more information regarding the Tyrion chapter from Winds of Winter i would strongly encourage it, as it would seem cyvasse is becoming even more hashed out in the new book.

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can imagine a hill mechanic. Walking up (or through) a hill takes 2 movement "speed" (Won't affect the infinitely fast Heavy Horse and Elephant. We should figure something out) and having a piece with the Missle special on a hill should get either +1 to combat or +1 to range.

I'm not adding it for now, but I can see this working.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the heads up jSSSvSidont. I would tend to agree with your second conclusion. If terrain aspects become tiles (like the fortress) rather than pieces, that means that each should have different (but specific) effects on power, the same way the fortress does. I agree with LB that we should get the game mechanic working first.

Is this intended to stick as closely as possible to the books, or just to be an original game?

Definitely. It's just tricky to know what's in GRRM's head is all. The wiki on Cyvasse includes a catapault as well as a trebuchet. If we were searching for the tenth piece we would have to include that - and I'm not really sure what the difference between the two is (personally I'm happy to leave it out).

This website includes 5 tile pieces (http://gameofcyvasse.com/), not including a "hill", and if we're going to include differences as subtle as hill and mountain, it would make sense to include (as this guy has) a few different types of terrain and make the set up of the terrain tiles something you do in the first step, in the second step you set up your pieces.

Just had an idea, what if each tile worked like this:

1x Fortress: Increases strength of any piece as described previously.

7x Mountains: Only passable by dragons and trebuchet. Only dragons can stop on these spaces, however trebuchets - if they have flanking pieces - can capture dragons on mountain tiles "en passant" in the same way as pawns in chess.

7x Hills: Passable by all pieces. +1 tier level for "paper" pieces (crossbowman, trebuchet)

7x Water: Passable by all pieces. +1 tier level for "rock" pieces (spearman, elephant)

7x Grassland: Passable by all pieces. +1 tier level for "scissor" pieces (Light horse, Heavy horse).

7x Forrest: Passible by all pieces but with restricted movement - one space orthogonally. +1 tier level for Rabble pieces.

Honestly I'm not sure all that would fit in our current board - we might have to go to a board with 8 hexagons to a side. I do still feel the current layout is a bit crowded, so maybe this would work nicely. Sorry LB that does seem like a whole lot more work though.

Again having said all this, more important to make sure the game dynamic works first. These are just ideas for the future to make what we're making actually as true to what GRRM is writing as possible.

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MikeL, you amaze me yet again. Your terrain ideas are awesome (Except for the forest. Usually when we play we only set rabbles next to the fortress because there's nothing else to do with them but resupply your army (Like in the real world, you keep your commons next to your castle in case you need to send them into combat with some weapon in hand)).

btw, as for giving me more work. I welcome more work. I just graduated high school and have nothing important to do until November.

If we make it 8 hexes a side we'll have to re-size either the program or the hexes.

Personally I'd like 9 a side to make all three colors equal, but I think that's too big.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha brainwave - if it was up to me, the tenth piece (assuming all terrain types don't count as pieces any more) would be this:

The Raven (x1). A tier 1 piece, that moves like the queen in hex chess (unlimited diagonal/orthagonal, not stopped by mountains, but is by other pieces). In any turn, the player can choose to move any of their other pieces to the space where the raven is. This removes the raven from the board and it can only be done once (just like the "castle" move in chess).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MikeL, you amaze me yet again. Your terrain ideas are awesome (Except for the forest. Usually when we play we only set rabbles next to the fortress because there's nothing else to do with them but resupply your army (Like in the real world, you keep your commons next to your castle in case you need to send them into combat with some weapon in hand)).

btw, as for giving me more work. I welcome more work. I just graduated high school and have nothing important to do until November.

If we make it 8 hexes a side we'll have to re-size either the program or the hexes.

Personally I'd like 9 a side to make all three colors equal, but I think that's too big.

Haha thanks mate, I feel like I'm on a role at the moment.

The funny thing is, you can tell an expert chess player by the way they use their pawns. If you just set them up to be cannon fodder, you're not thinking about them as useful pieces. Individually they are weak, but together they can be strong as barriers if nothing else.

Maybe forest shouldn't restrict the movement of other pieces, but I would think it should give an advantage to Rabble. With the forest idea I just thought there should be some piece for whom that terrain was advantageous - and historically it's the mobs on foot who do well when they have close cover. Also, I wanted the rabble to have some legitimate use other than just being cannon fodder or keeping them around your fortress. Maybe people will end up surrounding their fortresses by forest and mountains. Who knows? there's a lot of options there.

I really want to experiment with the way I use rabble once I actually play with someone. So far I've just been keeping them back, but there would be more than one way to use them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The board is simply too big to use pieces who move only one hex a time effectively.

It takes 12 moves to move from one corner to another corner with a rabble, and if we're gonna have 8 hexes a side that number will be 14.

For a piece that can't do anything anyway without support from other pieces, it's just not worth your turn to move a rabble (Unless it won't be a rabble anymore after that turn :P).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay here we go.

This (www.mikelepage.com/CyvasseIcons3.zip) are my icons (in bmp format) in both black and red - I redid them with a background shader so hopefully they'll stand out better on the board. You'll notice there are 11 piece icons for each side because I threw in one for my idea of the raven as above just in case we decide to stop keeping mountains as pieces - The raven isn't something I've heard of in the books, but then again, neither were the rabble, nor (I think) spearman. That will help us test out the game play for the moment.

As far as the terrain tiles we were talking about above, I see no way to do that without colouring in the space itself - as you were originally doing with the fortress tiles LB and I talked you into colouring shading just the border. What I've done is made up a "colour palette" for you to sample (I'm assuming you chose the original three colours). Basically I figure each of the three colours in the background should change to a slightly different shade when a tile is put down on it. Hopefully you can see what I mean here, where I've laid them out in rows: www.mikelepage.com/tilecolours.bmp

The reason I've gone back to colouring tiles is that there's too much information we want to convey and it may be cleaner if we're not trying to layer bmps on top of each other or anything like that. So I'm suggesting all terrain types (including the fortress) get a background colour (which varies depending on the "base" background colour), while the all the info about movement and flanking will get represented by shading the borders of each space. So to restate what I tried so say earlier, if you click on a piece, the border of that space gets shaded one colour, the borders of all the spaces that this piece can move to get shaded a second colour, the border of any piece that can be captured by this piece gets shaded a third colour, and if there are flanking pieces involved in taking that piece, the borders of the spaces of those flanking pieces also get shaded that colour.

Time for me to watch one more episode of Season 2 GoT before I head to bed :) Hope that all makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it's on my mind, I want to just spend a minute describing how I believe the actual physical set would work (this may or may not be directed at anyone from the tv series that comes looking through here looking for ideas ;) Obviously if we're being true to the books we've got to make sure the game is playable without the visual aides in the computer game, and you shouldn't need a calculator to figure out if a particular flanking move will work.

In the more portable, cheaper versions, the hinge for the board would run down the middle row of spaces (which should sit flush so that pieces sit flat), and have indents on each side of the board so that a piece of plywood can click into place as the "curtain". In the more deluxe versions, the board would one solid piece, ornately carved, and have a rail over the centre of the board so an actual curtain (velvet or silk) can be drawn across the middle to shield the set up from the other player's eyes.

While the playing surface is hexagonal, I think the actual set would be rectangular, with the void spaces on each end having spots for 3 of each of the tier 2 and tier 3 pieces as well as 1 each of the king, dragon (and raven :) ), 7 rabble pieces, and for each of the terrain tiles. These void spaces would be covered with lids to keep the pieces from falling out when the board is being transported. The pieces would be carved in a similar manner to chess. The terrain tiles would be flat pieces of coloured wood (in the cheap versions), or polished stone (in the deluxe). Based on the colour scheme I put in the previous post, I would imagine the mountain tiles be made out of thick pieces of polished iron ore, hills out of smaller pieces of granite rich with feldspar (think Australia's Ulluru), Grassland a flat piece of prehnite, Forrest a flat piece of malachite, and water a flat piece of blue lace agate. The fortress itself could be a more valuable stone which matches the colour of each side. At the moment we've got black and red, but really it could be any set of colours - maybe even the colours to reference the major houses like black (Stark), violet (Targaryen), gold (Lannister). That last idea is not all that important though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, I'd been hoping someone had compiled a list of quotes regarding Cyvasse from the books, and I finally found it here: http://skitzinc.wikispaces.com/Cyvasse

Book Quotes

‍Feast of Crows

  • Introduction
    • "There were ten different pieces, each with its own attributes and powers, and the board would change from game to game, depending on how the players arrayed their home squares." pg 226

    [*]Myrcella vs. Prince

    • "He always sets his squares up the same way, with all the mountains in the front and his elephants in the passes...So I send my dragon through to eat his elephants." pg 373

    [*]Arianne and Prince Doran

    • "She touched one of the cyvasse pieces, the heavy horse." pg 719

    [*]Chapter 40

‍Dance with Dragons

  • Tyrion vs. Haldon
    • "as they arranged their tiles on either side of a carved wooden screen...Tyrion almost grabbed his dragon but thought better of it. Last game he had brought her out too soon and lost her to a trebuchet...He moved his light horse toward Haldon's mountains...The Halfmaester moved his spears." pg 105

    [*]Tyrion vs. Griff

    • "Young Griff arrayed his army for attack, with dragon, elephants, and heavy horse up front...Tyrion moved his elephants." pg 151
    • "He picked up his heavy horse...Tyrion moved his crossbows...The dwarf pushed his black dragon across a range of mountains..." pg 152
    • "Smiling he seized his dragon, flew it across the board...Your king is trapped. Death in four." pg 153

    [*]Qavo Nogarys vs. Big Man

    • "onyx elephant...alabaster army...He moved his heavy horse." pg 155

    [*]Qavo Nogarys vs. Tyrion

    • Tyrion advanced his spearmen. Qavo replied with his light horse. Tyrion moved his crossbowmen up a square...toying with his rabble...plucking up his dragon. 'The most powerful piece in the game," he announced, as he removed one of Qavo's elephants...He moved his catapult again, closed his hand around Tyrion's alabaster dragon, removed it from the board." pg 156
    • "Near the end of that final contest, with his fortress in ruins, his dragon dead, elephants before him and heavy horse circling around his rear..." pg 325

Okay, my bad, I should make up some white (abalaster) icons for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just did a bit more research into the differences between trebuchets and catapaults, catapaults have been around for a lot longer, (since roman times or before), where trebuchets were only used in medievil times. The advantage of the trebuchet was greater accuracy, but the loads capable of being fired were generally smaller and it took more people to set up. So even though the mechanic of the two machines is fairly different, they were used interchangably for pretty much exactly the same purpose (siegecraft), and the terms "trebuchet" and "catapault" may also have been used interchangably, which is why I think we can justify saying they only count as one piece.

From these quotes then, we can see GRRM mentioned 9 pieces. Elephants, Heavy Horse, Trebuchet/Catapault, King, Dragon, Rabble, Light Horse, "Crossbows", and "Spears". If he's mentioning "hills" in WOW in addition to "mountain", I think that clears it up that mountain was never intended to be a piece, but a space (tile for our purposes), otherwise that would be 11 pieces.

"Near the end of that final contest, with his fortress in ruins, his dragon dead, elephants before him and heavy horse circling around his rear..." pg 325

I do get the impression that capturing the enemy king has to be part of the winning condition, and that there has to be incentive for the king to leave the fortress (I think we should have the King only count as a Tier 1 piece when in the castle - ie only as powerful as a rabble in the castle - it still acts as more powerful piece when flanking for other pieces though), so if you want to actually defend the fortress, you should have a Tier 3 piece in the fortress.

So how about this as a winning condition (trying to avoid the stalemate situation I mentioned in an earlier post):

1) You have to have a live king.

2) You have to have "ruined" the enemy fortress. The way I'm interpreting this is not to just have captured it, but held it for one turn. So if you capture it, the other player must take it back on the very next turn, or else it gets ruined, the fortress tile is removed from the board, and that players king can no longer be replaced with a tier 3 piece (nor can any other promotions happen).

3) You then have to capture the enemy King.

That means that if your fortress gets ruined, you can still win, it's just more difficult and you're likely to be completely outnumbered.

  • "Smiling he seized his dragon, flew it across the board...Your king is trapped. Death in four." pg 153

One last thought - if the board is 8 hexes to a side, I'd suggest the dragon range has to go up to 5.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your triple winning condition is actually nice. If you have a piece in the opponent's fortress at the beginning of your turn, you ruin it.

If we're going to make the board any larger, we need to give all the limited movements pieces a buff. I mean, rabbles don't matter that much since you just put them 1 hex away from your fortress, but the tier 2 pieces will cry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your triple winning condition is actually nice. If you have a piece in the opponent's fortress at the beginning of your turn, you ruin it.

If we're going to make the board any larger, we need to give all the limited movements pieces a buff. I mean, rabbles don't matter that much since you just put them 1 hex away from your fortress, but the tier 2 pieces will cry.

Yeah, What I suggested earlier with the terrain tiles having a +1 tier level effect on different pieces: the more I think about it, the less I like it. It works when it's a computer game, but not as an actual board game. Can you imagine a scenario where in order to work out if you can take a piece through flanking, you have to take into account the (1) tier level and terrain of the attacking piece, (2) the tier level and terrain of the target piece (3) the tier levels and different terrains of any/all flanking pieces and you have to add that all up in your head? Major killjoy.

Now we've got this problem with the board being too big for the moves of the tier 2 pieces if we go to 8-a-side. Maybe the problems solve each other - tiles should affect movement not tier level - pretty much what you were saying earlier LB.

I just want it to be consistent and relatively easy to remember.

So here's my second go at this: If a piece starts its turn on its "home terrain", it gets an improvement to its movement where applicable. Tier 3 "heavy" pieces are restricted so that they cannot pass over the home terrain of the rock/scissor/paper piece that beats it.

Dragons normally range 4, home terrain: mountain gives range 5. No terrain restrictions.

Rabble normally orthogonal 1, home terrain: forrest gives range 2. Cannot pass mountains.

King normally orthogonal 1, home terrain: all terrains (except mountain) give range 2. Cannot pass mountains.

Light horse normally diagonally 2, home terrain: grassland, gives diagonal 3. Cannot pass mountains.

Spears normally orthogonally 3, home terrain water: gives orthogonal 4. Cannot pass mountains.

Crossbows normally range 2 (capture 3), home terrain: hill gives range 3 (capture 4). Cannot pass mountains.

Heavy horse normally diagonal infinite, home terrain: grassland gives movement of one space orthogonally before commencing diagonal move. Cannot pass water, mountains*.

Elephant normally orthogonal infinite, home terrain: water gives movement of one space diagonally before commencing orthogonal move. Cannot pass hills, mountains*.

Trebuchet normally range 2 (capture 3) home terrain: hill gives range 3 (capture 4). Cannot pass forrest^.

*All tier 3 pieces can cross a mountain range if doing so allows them to capture a dragon "en passant" (assuming there is appropriate flanking).

^It seems ridiculous for any piece not to be able to cross grassland, so I thought this might be more appropriate.

Obviously I'm also still trying to find a way to make Rabble more useful as blockers, flankers etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^: It seems ridiculous, but for game balance, we're going to have to go with it.

I think maybe tier 2 pieces shouldn't be able to move through their "enemy" terrain and Trebuchet shouldn't be allowed to be on mountains (Do you know how heavy these things are? How about YOU climb a mountain with that). Besides, it's much easier to handle if only the Dragon can be on mountains.

It makes more sense to me that Horses should have home terrain water, and Rock pieces have home terrain grasslands. I don't know why, it just does.

I didn't understand the * rule.

Edit: Why not make Forest the home terrain of an RPS piece and the grasslands the home terrain of rabbles? What kind of farmers farm in the forest?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you ever seen Elephants in water? they love it. That's why I made it that way. I don't really see why Horses should have any advantage in water. Spearmen, well they're not really like Elephants at all, but it makes sense to keep them as a lesser Elephant for the RPS dynamic.

I had more pictured the trebuchet as "firing over the mountain" rather than actually crossing it. Being able to fire over mountains seemed like a good improvement to the crossbow capability.

The en passant rule in chess is where you have one pawn that has crossed the board to be two spaces from the other pawn line. If one of the opposition pawns uses its two forward move and moves alongside the initial pawn, it would normally not be able to be taken. The rule says that if (on the very next move) the first pawn moves diagonally like as if the opposing pawn had only moved one forward, it can take that pawn "in passing".

What I meant was that if we allow dragons to roost on mountains, a space where no other piece can go, then you're just going to have people moving their dragons from mountain range to mountain range and the only threat will be the other dragon. What I thought was that the tier 3 pieces can't land on the mountain, but if they move over the mountain so that they would have landed on the dragon's space, they can capture it "in passing".

A fairly convoluted rule I agree, but if dragons are allowed to stay on mountains I think they'll become too powerful again, unless there is some way for tier 3 pieces to take them, while they're on the mountain. Not really sure how else you get around it.

Still not really sure about how terrains should work though. The RPS rules are great because they reduce the number of things you have to remember. It would suck if we started introducing all sorts of exceptions when it comes to terrain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe if went back to what the first guy on that site suggested, that grassland is the default terrain, not a tile. Forrest is the home terrain for spears, elephants. Hill is the home terrain for crossbows, trebuchet. And "riverland" or whatever you want to call it as home terrain for horses (I was picturing open water, which it need not be).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know what the en passant rule is, I just don't understand how you can capture the dragon "in passing" if it's not clear through which hexes it moves (There are many paths between two hexes of distance 4). Which hex do you have to threaten?

I don't think dragons should have a home terrain. They're strong enough as is and I think that terrain should just integrate into the RPS mechanic.

The improved movement for tier 3 pieces on their home terrain is quite insane. Move 1 diag and then move as many orth as you please? Maybe they should get (In addition to their own movement) the ability to move one in any direction. This is really good for heavy horse, because it lets them change the color they're on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...