Complete Cyvasse Rules

[MikeL]

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.

I had only meant it for tier 3 pieces that move in straight lines (horse, elephant): they would move through the dragon's space to the other side of the mountain range. I think it's crap rule honestly, I'd prefer to leave it so that dragons can't land on mountains, just pass through them

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.

Agreed, really was just throwing ideas out there with that. I like the ability to change colour.

[LordBiscuit]

I didn't get a chance to play for quite a while, to be honest. We're making a lot of changes without testing them, and I'm unhappy with that.

I can write a program that manages games like a server, but I have nowhere to host it so people can connect to it.

[MikeL]

True that. Honestly for the meanwhile I'd leave the terrain out of it, I'd just like to see a 7-a-side version with icons, movement indicators that highlight flanking pieces, and the new winning condition.

[stormtek]

I found this after getting most of the way through reading A Dance With Dragons and wondering if anyone had defined the rules. I think what you guys are doing sounds great. Getting a working version is definitely the first step to take. If you would like some help with play testing I am keen to give it a go.

[MikeL]

Ok, new icons (both black and white) and a slightly modified colour palette. If you check out the tile colour bmp you'll see I changed the base colours slightly so that the white pieces would stand out more.

www.mikelepage.com/CyvasseIcons4.zip

[LordBiscuit]

I found this after getting most of the way through reading A Dance With Dragons and wondering if anyone had defined the rules. I think what you guys are doing sounds great. Getting a working version is definitely the first step to take. If you would like some help with play testing I am keen to give it a go.

I can send you the working program (I should attach a rules file to it now, because there are like fifty versions of the rules set in this thread, all with tiny modifications).

Do you have anyone to play with? We don't have a working server yet, so the options are hot-seat and semi-online play (You get a code to send to the other player via some chat, he inserts it, it does your move on his machine, so on so forth).

Edit: I haven't heard from my piece artist Rhaenys Targaryen for ten days now, so I'm going to use MikeL's set.

I'm not entirely happy with the set tough, so allow me to make some suggestions:

• Horses: In the middle of a game, a player should be able to distinguish between the two in an instant. I'd be glad if the Heavy be an armored horse's head, and the Light be only a non-armored head. The armor can have an additional color to be better distinguishable.
  
• Dragon: I'd prefer just a dragon's head. Horns will be a good addition to make it better distinguishable from other pieces.
  
• Elephant: I'd prefer a head, and just one elephant.
  
• Spears: I'd prefer a simple spear.
  

The rest are good.

Some technical info you'll need:

• The program takes the information from files with names like "BC.bmp" from black Xbowman, "WH.bmp" for white heavy horse, "BL.bmp", "WT.bmp", "BK.bmp". You get the pattern, I guess. I'd be thankful if you send me the next set with such names so I won't have to rename them.
  
• I have a program that turns all the "Background" pixels of a bitmap to transparent pixel. How does it know which pixels are background pixels, you ask? Everything that's the same color of the most upper-left pixel. I'd be glad if all the background was a color you don't use in the piece itself, like olive green or something.
  

[lostinwesteros]

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

Welcome! Good ideas - please keep posting on the threads. :)

[LordBiscuit]

A screenshot for the faithful: This is MikeL's set of pieces on an actual board. The white won in the third move before anything was captured, because it was a crap placement (Spam the board to start a game and take a screenshot :P)

http://oi48.tinypic.com/2zznhqd.jpg

What shall we say of it?

There's still some "white noise", as you can see. This is again because of conversion to ARGB and the not-perfect background cleaner procedure.

The white pieces are very white indeed, and might want a darker tone.

I'd also like the pieces to have some border color (Like Blue and Red), because I wish to return the Fortress to its former shape. It looks like a weird hexagon that's marked for movement when you play.

[MikeL]

Oh ick. That looks horrible :) I'll have another go at it, since some of the icons are way too complex anyway (the black crossbow is the only one I think actually looks all right). Some of them look better at 300x300 but they just don't reduce well. I'll make the background colour something different too.

I've got a pretty big talk to give this saturday though so I don't know how much time I'll have before then.

[stormtek]

I can send you the working program (I should attach a rules file to it now, because there are like fifty versions of the rules set in this thread, all with tiny modifications).

Do you have anyone to play with? We don't have a working server yet, so the options are hot-seat and semi-online play (You get a code to send to the other player via some chat, he inserts it, it does your move on his machine, so on so forth).

That would be cool. Have you worked up an installer or just an executable?

[LordBiscuit]

That would be cool. Have you worked up an installer or just an executable?

Just an .exe and some .bmp files. I'll send it soon, after we work out the icons

[MikeL]

Woohoo! done. I think it should look much better now - I took on most of your ideas LB for piece designs - see what you think (just one spear looked lonely to me). Where I was trying to find a work around was whether we had to include colour in the piece icons (which I really didn't want to do cause it could be confusing IMO) and as a result I finally figured out how to do the embossing thing I've been trying to do (really simple in the end), and did include an extra shade for the armour on the heavy horse - I'm now fairly happy with each piece - the elephant still looks a bit dodgy though.

Also I realised a couple of things as I was working on this: Firstly LB you've been opening my icons and seeing a background colour? because before now every one I put up appeared to be saved as a transparent background to me. Secondly, I've noticed that for some reason photoshop is giving me transparent pixels on the edge of each icon (which are getting influenced by the background colour). For this reason I've included two sets, one with a blue background, one with a grey background (which is mostly a different shade of grey from that in the pieces) and depending on how your program works you can see which one looks better.

www.mikelepage.com/CyvasseIcons5.zip

www.mikelepage.com/CyvasseIcons6.zip

So yeah - you can now shade the fortress black or white as you were doing before, and the pieces still stand out because each piece has black and white as accents, and either a light or dark shade of grey for the rest of the piece.

[LordBiscuit]

A screenshot for the faithful: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=182el5&s=6

I have to say, well done. Well done indeed. All the icons are simply awesome. The elephant may be a bit queer and the heavy horse may look a bit draconic, but overall it's a really good icon set.

The keenest of you may find out that it's the same placement in all the screenshots. That's because I keep a quick code to insert a crap placement so it lets me start a game to test stuff.

Now, if you look at the Icons5 files real close with some serious zoom in, you'll see not all "blue pixels" are the exact shade of blue. This is what makes my program fail at removing the background, it clears only pixels of one color.

With the grey background the case isn't as bad. What I explained still happens, but it's less noticeable because everything is grey-scale anyway, so nobody notices if some grey pixels cling to the borders of our icons.

Also, the new winning condition is now programmed into the software. You need to have a king, kill the other king, and destroy the enemy fortress by being there at the beginning of your turn.

Since the program keeps getting updated as the rules progress, here's an updating link that gets the new files whenever I rebuild the program. I'm posting any changes here, so just be aware of the thread to know when to download again.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/osuwtpsa2kqx793/cVEC2PcIwq?lst

I might add a .docx file with the rules at a later point in time.

To any moderators reading this: May I open a new thread of the same topic so I'm able to edit the original post because Zuberi doesn't seem to frequent here anymore, or will it be considered a spam thread because the topic is discussed somewhere else?

[MikeL]

Hi LB, that link seems to be broken - did it change? I'm looking forward to testing out the new version.

Anyway I agree the icons look much better. In a way, I think I'll enjoy playing this version as much or more than the final version (with terrain etc) because it's so much simpler.

I was procrastinating: Here's my attempt at condensing the rules for the game into a short(ish) blurb for more public consumption. Edit/replace as you like.

***

Welcome to Cyvasse

By Lord Biscuit and MikeL

(Rules 1.1, last edit: MikeL)

Want to experience the game played by Lannisters and Targaryens, Pentoshi and Dornishmen alike? Here's our take on Cyvasse, the board game from A Song of Ice and Fire. Set up your spaces behind the curtain at the beginning, then plot to ruin your opponent's fortress and capture their king! With a hex board and new flanking rules to make things interesting, Cyvasse is like Chess, Blitzkrieg, and Stratego, but unlike anything you've ever played before.

Movement

One of George R.R. Martin's inspirations for Cyvasse is Blitzkreig: a 1965 military strategy game, based on a hexagonal board with "squares" (actually hexes). We have followed through on this concept to create a hex board with three colors and this means the movements of our pieces are most similar to hex chess.

1) Mountain: Stationary (blocks movement of all other pieces except Trebuchet and Dragon).

2) Rabble: One space orthogonally (orthogonal means moving in the direction of the adjoining 6 hexes).

3) King: One space orthogonally.

4) Light Horse: Two spaces diagonally (diagonal means moving in the direction of spaces of the same colour).

5) Spears: Three spaces orthogonally.

6) Crossbows: Range of two spaces, or three when capturing (range means moving anywhere that two or three adjoining spaces can take you - this piece can jump other pieces, but not moutains).

7) Heavy Horse: Diagonally (This piece is limited only by mountains, other pieces, and the edge of the board).

8) Elephants: Orthogonally (This piece is limited only by mountains, other pieces, and the edge of the board).

9) Trebuchet: Range of two spaces, or three when capturing (can jump other pieces/mountains).

10) Dragon: Range of four spaces (This piece can fly over mountains, but not other pieces).

At the beginning of the game, each player sets up their pieces behind a "curtain". Once the gameplay starts, click on each piece to see where it can move and which other pieces it can take. Click on a space to complete the move.

Tier levels, Capturing and Flanking

Each piece is grouped into one of four tier levels. Tier levels and numbers of each piece are:

Tier 1) Rabble (x7) and King (x1).

Tier 2) Light Horse (up to 3), Spears (up to 3) and Crossbows (up to 3). (total of 7 tier 2 pieces)

Tier 3) Heavy Horse (up to 3), Elephant (up to 3) and Trebuchet (up to 3). (total of 7 tier 3 pieces)

Tier 4) Dragon (x1).

As you would expect, the pieces of each tier level can capture pieces of the tier level below. Pieces can also capture other pieces of the same tier level in certain circumstances (see below). Ten pieces is a lot of different permutations to remember however, so we've made it a bit easier:

The first thing to notice is that tier 3 pieces are improved tier 2 pieces, and together, these six pieces have a rock, scissors, paper dynamic. So within each tier group, scissors pieces (Light Horse, Heavy Horse) beat paper pieces (Crossbows, Trebuchets), paper pieces (Crossbows, Trebuchets) can beat rock pieces (Spears, Elephant), and rock pieces (Spears, Elephant), can beat scissors pieces (Light Horse, Heavy Horse).

With us so far? Good. The next thing to remember is that weaker pieces can capture strong pieces in certain circumstances. We call this flanking, and it happens when multiple weaker pieces threaten a stronger piece. If the weaker pieces are collectively strong enough, the strong piece is removed from the board and highest ranking of the attacking pieces replaces it. Each piece is worth two of the tier level below it, four of the tier two levels below it, and so on. What this means is that to capture a dragon (tier 4), you might use two tier 3 pieces or one tier 3 piece and two tier 2 pieces or one tier 3 piece and four tier 1 pieces or one tier 3 piece, one tier 2 piece and two tier 1 pieces: the choice is up to you. The king is the exception to this rule: by itself it is a tier 1 piece, but when used in flanking it is equivalent to the tier level of the attacking piece.

Promotions, Ruined Fortresses, and Capturing the King

The aim of the game is to capture the enemy King, however this alone is not enough: As long as a player has a fortress, they can promote any of their tier 3 pieces to king. The game only finishes once a player has ruined the enemy fortress, captured the enemy king, and still has a live king themselves. If a player's king is taken by the opposition before their fortress is ruined and/or while the opposition has no king, the consequence is that all of that player's rabble are removed from the board along with the king, but the game continues.

The fortress is a powerful space for two reasons: Firstly, any piece residing in it has their tier level increased as if they had a flanking piece of the same level - it is for this reason that dragons are not allowed to enter either fortress. Secondly, it can be used to promote any piece to the next tier level: so any tier 3 piece is promoted to king if the king has been captured, any tier 2 piece is promoted to its corresponding tier 3 piece if the number of tier 3 pieces is less than 7, and any rabble is promoted to a tier 2 piece if the number of tier 2 pieces is less than 7. Only one promotion can occur per turn - this happens automatically when a piece is in the fortress and does not prevent the player from making a move.

To ruin a fortress, a player must capture the enemy fortress and hold it until the beginning of their next turn. That means the other player must retake their fortress on the very next move if they wish to avoid it being ruined. If the fortress does become ruined, that player's king becomes vulnerable to capture and defeat.

Acknowledgements

Credit is due to Zuberi who started the ASOIAF thread and came up with the initial ideas on which this game was developed, and also the people who suggested ideas along the way. Thank you and enjoy!

[LordBiscuit]

The link seems to be working fine to me.

About your rules, there are a few things you didn't mention:

10) Dragon: Range of four spaces (This piece is limited only by other pieces).

It can also fly over mountains.

As you would expect, the pieces of each tier level can capture pieces of the tier level below

Also of the same tier.

Each promotion of one tier level takes one turn

It doesn't "take a turn". This isn't instead of movement. It should say "Only one promotion can occur in a turn"

If a player's king is taken by the opposition before their fortress is ruined and/or while the opposition has no king, the consequence is that all of that player's rabble are removed from the board along with the king, but the game continues.

I didn't know that. When did we agree on this rule?

[stormtek]

The link appears to work for me. I can certainly see a list of files in the browser, which is always a good sign the first time you follow a link. I will check it out some time in the next few days.

[MikeL]

The link seems to be working fine to me.

About your rules, there are a few things you didn't mention:

It can also fly over mountains.

Also of the same tier.

It doesn't "take a turn". This isn't instead of movement. It should say "Only one promotion can occur in a turn"

Have edited the post.

I didn't know that. When did we agree on this rule?

I put that in my very first post where I described my ideas for rules (#20), and I mentioned it again in #41. Sorry I never thought to check if you were implementing it - that's why it's good to write stuff like this out I guess :) I do think there should be some serious punishment for allowing your king to be taken, and if the king falls it would make sense for your common folk to stop fighting the war.

[LordBiscuit]

The common folk don't care about who's king. Isn't the fact that you have to sacrifice a tier 3 piece punishment enough?

[MikeL]

The common folk don't care about who's king. Isn't the fact that you have to sacrifice a tier 3 piece punishment enough?

Not really if you can just promote a tier 2 piece like you were probably ready to anyway. I mean shouldn't the loss of the King be as bad as the loss of the dragon? Anyone with any sense is going to be able to replace a King (and tier 3 pieces) within one move for most of the game (and if they have a tier 3 piece in the fortress it won't even be one move cause it will be promoted at the beginning of the turn right?). I can take it out of the rules above, but I would like to play test this at some stage if it's not to hard.

[LordBiscuit]

It'll be promoted at the end of their turn, so it has to stay there.

I don't know about this rule. If your smallfolk at home abandon you, their fathers and sons at the front are probably gonna abandon you as well, so you might as well just lose the war when your king dies.

To be honest, I think that if Fortresses can be destroyed, we can change the winning condition (And the coronation rule), hear me out:

A tier 3 piece is crowned immediately at the fortress upon the death of the king if such a piece can be found there at that time.

If such a piece is not present at your fortress at the time your king dies, you lose the game.