Complete Cyvasse Rules

[MikeL]

I realised last night that if I put a presentation on youtube with animation, it will be a better explanation of the game and also, anyone will be able to make themselves a set.

I am making yet more changes to make it even simpler. I hate to do it, but I'm experimenting with getting rid of the rock paper scissors dynamic - only because of the presence of terrain. This way, being on a home terrain tile/fortress tile will give a +1 defensive bonus, and the only way to get a +1 attacking bonus is to have a flanking piece of the same tier level. Once you add that any piece can go anywhere except mountain tiles, it does simplify things an awful lot.

[MikeL]

Also, since I've come up with new method of moving (in a hexagon ring which is x number of spaces from either fortress), it gives me a solution to one thing which has bugged me for a long time: that being that an elephant piece is equivalent to the bishop in chess, and should move diagonally, yet we have the horse pieces moving diagonally, and the elephant pieces moving orthogonally like a rook.

So here's how I'm rejigging the moves in my presentation:

Spears/Elephant pieces move diagonally on squares of the same colour (equivalent to bishop) - Spears can move two spaces diagonally, while Elephants can move until they meet the edge of the board, a mountain or another piece.

Crossbows/Trebuchet pieces move orthogonally (equivalent to rook) - Crossbows can move three spaces orthogonally, while Trebuchets can move until the meet the edge of the board and can jump mountains, but not other pieces.

Light Horse/Heavy Horse pieces move relative to fortress, where there is a hexagon of squares equidistant away from either the home or opposing fortress (it's easier to see this visually - it's a quirky kind of move which is equivalent to a knight) - Light Horse can move three spaces along these lines, while Heavy Horse can move until it meets the edge of the board, a mountain or another piece.

As before, the King and Rabble move one space orthogonally, while the Dragon has a range of four spaces and can jump mountains.

[MikeL]

Here we go: A presentation describing my latest rules for Cyvasse.

[JC Denton]

Looks cool, maybe I could code up a Javascript version?

[MikeL]

Hi JC Denton. That would be great - Let me know how you go. I'd be happy to host anything you make on my website (I'm not a programmer so I'm not quite sure how it works, but if it can be made as html page+assets website that would be really cool!)

You can use these icons if you want - www.mikelepage.com/CyvasseIcons6.zip (we had better ones for the previous version but unfortunately I don't have access to them).

[Kilagore]

Hi!

I've been thinking about this game ever since I read the books, and until very recently, I had no idea that there was a forum like this. I'm new, so please someone tell me if this has already been suggested, but what if we stole from Magic the Gathering a bit? For example, if we gave units attack power and defense power. Also if we had a combat style like Magic, where if Unit A fights Unit B, and unit A is 5/4 and Unit B is a 10/5, they would kill each other, despite Unit B's much higher attack.

Or we could have it so that each unit is assigned speed values and that determines who attacks first. I'm not sure about this one but I just want to throw it out there. Again, please tell me if these ideas have already been suggested!

Thanks!

[Kilagore]

An afterthought, what if each piece had a certain distance it could move in a turn? For example, an elephant could move 5 spaces, in any direction, whereas the spearmen can move only 2 or 3. Just a maybe.

[MikeL]

Hi Kilagore. Thanks for posting!

Actually I don't think anyone has posted anything like that before, and I think it could work, but if you check the youtube video I posted a few days ago, you'll see that I took a really different direction when I was thinking about it. I haven't played Magic the Gathering at all so I don't know how that works, but my main aim was to reduce the number of things each player has to remember for a board game.

I always got the idea from the books that it was basically like chess in its simplicity. Remember that a lot of the people in Essos playing it are illiterate, so they can't read the instructions and it has to be pretty quick to explain.

Definitely though if you can figure out special abilities for the ten pieces, it could be interesting to play, but then I reckon you would have to reduce to board size a lot and make sure you only have one of each piece (if you increase the complication in one aspect of the game, try to reduce it in another).

Check out http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/918936/links-to-other-sites-regarding-cyvasse

To see how several other people have imagined the game.

[Kilagore]

Well, I was thinking about something to do with terrain, and have units do special abilities, and some stuff like that. Let me know if it seems too complicated.

Terrain: Different tiles with special attributes.

Buildings: Fortress, village, outpost, city. Used to train troops. The tier of the building determines which troops it can train. All buildings have a base defense value. all units Garrisoned inside that building add to that defense. Each building has a garrison limit.

Troops: Mobile units. Have attack, defense, and movement values. The usual troops.

Combat:

Unit A:

Atk: 5, Def: 3, Move: 3 If Unit A attacks unit B, it would lose. Unit B has a lower attack, but it has enough attack to kill Unit A. The piece that is attacking gets to deal damage first.

Unit B:

Atk: 3, Def: 6, Move: 3

So this is just an outline of what I was thinking the game could look like. It wouldn't be the quick game that I think you're talking about, Mike, but more like risk or stratego (but with bases).

Thanks!

[MikeL]

Yeah fair enough. I must admit I've never played stratego either so maybe that is more complicated than it seems from the Wikipedia page :)

I guess for me the question I ask is whether a game is more fun to play as a board game or as a computer game. Having played Risk as both a board game and a computer game (iPhone actually) I think it works way better as a computer game. So when I read what you've written I think it sounds great as a computer game, but a bit painful as a board game. Not trying to be mean or anything but I reckon if you can find someone who does a bit of programming and can work up a computer game, I'd like to have a go.

Reading through this thread you'll see we had a lot of extra ideas (both LB's and mine) in there that got cut out, because the rules went way beyond what grrm wrote in the books.

[Kilagore]

yeah, that was what I was worrying about. There's a whole lot more you can have going on in a computer game than on a board game. I have to go right now so this thought is half finshed!

[Kilagore]

Ok so what I was saying earlier is that on a computer, there's a lot more that can be happening at once than on a board game. For example, you can have special "attacks," and things like that, wheras on a board game, it needs to be fairly simple. That's the problem with my vision of the game.

Now, I do really like the troop training idea. You could have your fortress that can train troops up to a certain level, maybe have the current amount of troops that you have on the field have something to do with what troops you can train, like in risk.

Also, I think it would be fun to incorporate something like villages, or some type of structure that adds extra defense to you troops. You could build one by sacrificing a tier 3 troop or something, and maybe it would add an extra bonus to the amount of troops you can train (the # of buildings you own = # of units you can train).

Just some more ideas.

[MikeL]

Did you see the bit where each terrain tile gives a defensive advantage to certain types of pieces? So while the fortress tile gives a defensive advantage to all pieces, the grass tile does it for heavy and light horse, the hill tiles do it for crossbow and trebuchet, and the forest tiles do it for spears and elephants. They do it for both players too so you have to be careful where you put them in relation to your fortress.

We also used to have a system that was like rock scissors paper where hill pieces could get an advantage attacking forest pieces, forest pieces got an advantage attacking grassland pieces (used to be "water tile") and grassland got it attacking hill pieces. It was cool, but the problem was that once you have more than one way to get an attacking bonus and more than one way to get a defensive bonus, you end up spending each move doing lots of math in your head - it's one of those things that works as a computer game and not as a board game - so with a lot of regret I took it out.

If I wanted to get really strict about being simple, I could take out the fortress's ability to promote pieces, but from the books we know that "ruining" the fortress is supposed to be a big part of the end game (once you've lost it you're seriously disadvantaged), and that means that the fortress tile has to have some special ability aside from just giving a defensive advantage, so that's why I've left it in. I also think its a pretty neat twist on chess to have a game where you can lose your king without losing the game. It also helps the game be something that can end in minutes or go on for hours.

[Kilagore]

Yeah, I really liked the terrain bonus idea. It doesn't make the game too complicated, and adds an extra advantage to people who actually plan their strategy. But I didn't see anything about training troops, like in risk. What do you think of that?

[Kilagore]

and for the fortress tile, make it so that trebuchets and ballistas are given a huge bonus when they're inside it. Or maybe have it so that if the king is inside the fortress, all of the units inside of it can attack from from an extra tile away?

Anyway, I've just been thinking about this a lot, and I really, really, really like the idea of having buildings asides from the Fortress. You could have villages and cities, or something like that (If there is going to be buildings, I think there should be more than one other type), each with a base defense value, and a certain number of troops it can store (the higher tier troops are higher maintenance, so each rank acts as one troops). This ties into my idea about training troops. If we add buildings, we could make it so that for every Village you controlled, you got +2 train; for every city you own, you get +4 train; and for every fortress you own, you get +6 train. Or something to that effect.

Anyhow, I just think that the game would take longer, since in the book it seemed as though the matches lasted a while.

If any of these ideas seem interesting, please chime in! It's useful to get other peoples' opinions, not just Mike and mine!

[MikeL]

Yeah, I really liked the terrain bonus idea. It doesn't make the game too complicated, and adds an extra advantage to people who actually plan their strategy. But I didn't see anything about training troops, like in risk. What do you think of that?

I must have missed something in Risk, (or maybe we never called it "training") but what do you mean by that? Are you saying that you could have light horses (tier 2) with +2 train that then become as powerful as a dragon (tier 4), or higher? How would that make sense? Again I come back to the complications of doing addition while you're playing a board game - it takes all the fun out of it. Fine in a computer game though.

In the end though, unless you stick to what GRRM wrote in the books, it's not really "Cyvasse" is it? Having villages and cities would be cool, but GRRM never even mentioned anything like that. I loved my idea about making each of the 6 corners of the board "sea ports" from which any piece could move from corner to corner. I loved my idea to make the 10th piece the "raven" which could move fast and had a special ability to teleport any other piece into the square where the raven was. But those kinds of things would be a major part of the game, and none of that was even hinted at in the books. Yes it's fun to add all this extra stuff, but you are taking it further away from what is known. If it was a big part of the game - like extra villages/fortresses/training would be, you'd think he would have mentioned it in the books.

For the sake of completeness, I'll requote this post about what we know about Cyvasse from the books.

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
    

We also have a quote from someone who was at a GRRM reading of a Tyrion WOW chapter about him placing his crossbows "on a hill" which is the only mention we have of any terrain elements other than Mountains (which I'm calling a piece) and Fortress. It's because of that that we included the hill, forest and water (now grassland) tiles.

We know there are tiles which sit on the board, and chess type pieces which sit on the tiles, or just on the board, and then there's the squares of the board itself. We've already taken a liberty making the grid hexagonal, but we can justify it because GRRM has said that Blitzkrieg was an inspiration. Gotta be able to justify everything with better reasons than "it would be cool". Because of research into the origins of chess (the Indian game Chaturanga) I realised that the Elephant should move diagonally like a bishop, and the Trebuchet is most equivalent to chariot/rook in chaturanga and chinese chess, so that's why I rejigged the moves to be diagonal and orthogonal respectively.

Forgive me for playing devil's advocate :) I like your ideas for their own sakes, I just don't think it fits with what we know of Cyvasse - but maybe I'm just too invested in what I've already come up with :)

Really interested in any input people have though - just be prepared for me to defend what we already have ;)

[MikeL]

Just reading those quotes again, I realised that he refers to both "spearmen" and "spears" - which are obviously the same piece, and both "crossbowmen" and "crossbows" - also the same piece. When he talks about "spearmen" and "crossbowmen" he's using the term "catapults" and when he's talking about "spears" and "crossbows" he's using the term "trebuchet".

So that's how I justify the second liberty we've taken (combining trebuchet and catapult into one piece). I'm sure he really means the same thing when he talks about "catapults" and "trebuchets". So for the sake of standardisation, I talk about "Spears" "Crossbows" and "Trebuchets".

[Kilagore]

Ok. That makes a lot of sense, and I agree with all of it.

So you've decided that the elephant would move diagonally, and the heavy horse would move like a rook, but why not make it so that they could move a certain amount of tiles per move. Moving diagonally would be...difficult... on a hexagonal board with hexagonal tiles.

All pieces would have limitations, the footmen, king, and rabble the most, cavalry + elephants 2nd most, and dragon the least.

[MikeL]

Diagonally on a hex board means sticking to spaces of the same colour. Check out the moves of bishops in hex chess

http://en.wikipedia....Hexagonal_chess

and you can see where I got that from.

Just to clarify, it's the trebuchet I've got moving like a rook. The heavy horse I've got moving "relative to fortress" meaning in a hexagonal ring around one fortress or the other. It makes for some surprising moves :)

EDIT: I almost missed your other question: we've got the tier 2 pieces (Light Horse, Spears, Crossbows) moving in a limited way (2 spaces diagonally or 3 spaces orthogonally/relative to fortress), and the tier 3 pieces (Heavy Horse, Elephant, Trebuchet) move as far as the edge of the board, or other pieces.

So tier 3 pieces are just like the tier 2 equivalent, but they are stronger and move further.

[Kilagore]

Do you mean that the heavy horse cannot move more than one square away from the fortress?

And what do you think about the terrain thing? I know there's mountains, but I think we should add some other stuff, each tile giving different pieces different advantages.