Rules

## Overview

In A War in Vain there are 2 ways to play the game. You may play as a Hero or as a Ruler of a Faction. The gameplay is very different for each option. Essentially Rulers start with more power, and Heroes might have a more challenging start, but they can eventually form their own faction if they survive long enough. Whomever you decide to play as, the Goal of the game is to win the most victory points by the end of the game. You gain Victory Points by:

1. *Completing Faction-Specific Objectives*
2. *Holding and Using Sirenium*
3. *Exploring the Inhospitable world of Vain*
4. *Defeating your enemies in Battle*

Whoever has the most Victory points by the end of the Game, becomes the Emperor of Vain and wins the Game! If there's a tie between players, they have to fight a final battle with all of their units, or settle it like men in a 1v1 Leader Duel.

If you eliminate all the other players, you win the game despite of how many victory points everyone has.

## Factions

There are 16 available Factions to chose from, each one with their strengths and weaknesses.

There are 2 Types of Factions:

1. **Major Factions**: These are more centralized in Power, and more traditional in structure, you start with more resources and more easily defendable cities. These are usually Kingdoms, and have more variety in troops they can recruit, and buildings they can build. Most of the time they also have a big roster of Nobles they can utilize to play intricate games of politics and intrigue, something that minor factions may not be able to do.

1. **Minor Factions**: These are more decentralized in nature, but they don't necessarily lack in power. You start with less resources and may have less building and unit options, but you can set up camps throughout the Map, giving you a mobile advantage against the static cities of Major Factions. Generally Minor Factions are more nomadic in their playstyle, they have faster units, and they make excellent raiders especially in the early game. In Late game, they may have more difficulty against the well upgraded cities of Major Factions.

## Resources

There are 4 Kinds of Resources that can be found in the world of Vain:

1) **Embers**: These are rare and precious enough to be suitable as a trading currency across Factions. You may use these to buy items.

2) **Water**: Vain is predominantly a desert planet, and water is fairly scarce. Every 7th round, all units need to drink water. If they don't they lose health.

3) **Building Materials**: In order to construct various structures and sometimes even weapons for your units, you are going to need building materials!

4) **Sirenium**: Sirenium is the most rare and sought after resource in Vain. In fact its so coveted that factions wage wars over it. It is used for temporarily increasing your units' strength, for building special structures or hiring special units.

## Game Set-Up

To set up the game you will need preferably 2 tables, a large one in which you should place the Campaign Map, and a smaller one in which you should place the War Map.

### Campaign Map

The Campaign Map is where most of the game takes place. In the Campaign map you will manage your kingdom, build your armies, explore the world of Vain and interact with other Factions. Here's how the Campaign Map should look after it's set up:

After you place the Campaign Map in the center of the table, place the Event, Adventure, Intrigue, and Gizmo card decks in the side, preferably at a spot where all the players can reach them easily. Place the Water, Building Materials, Embers and Sireniums behind the card decks, as well as all other tokens found in the game (Sword tokens, Cool-down tokens, black, white tokens etc.)

Lastly, each player should get his faction's City Overview and Army Manager Boards. Then, they can use their faction's blinder to conceal everything they want to stay hidden from the other players. On the front side of the faction blinder is the faction's emblem, and it should face towards the board. On the back side of the blinder, you will find everything you need to start playing, like info about your faction, tips, and what your starting resources are.

And now you are ready to start playing!

#### Card Types

As mentioned above, there are 4 types of cards you can use in the Campaign Map:

* **Events:** Event cards are drawn each round by the first player, who reads them aloud to the rest of the players, and has to obey the text on the card. Most of the time event cards give choices to the player, but that's not guaranteed. They affect the state of the world or the factions. (The youngest player starts with the first player token, which is a broken pocket watch. At the beginning of each new round, the first player token is handed over to players anti-clockwise).

* **Adventures:** When players explore certain Locations, they may perform exploration actions on them in hopes of winning resources or gaining some other kind of benefit, although, sometimes they may be unlucky in their exploration and have to face a difficult situation instead. ( For example, when a character is located at the Great Desert Location, they may draw one of the Adventure cards who have the Great Desert icon on their back side). Sometimes the Adventure cards may prompt the players to read a script from the Story Book.

* **Intrigue:** Intrigue Cards can only be drawn when instructed to do so by the game. They sometimes offer the players the ability to perform cunning actions, they may pose a moral dilemma of some sort. They are secret from other players, and only read to them when they are activated.

* **Gizmos:** Gizmos are gadgets, utility tools and various other objects that may help you in some way or another throughout the course of the game. Each Faction that joins the game brings to the table 4 of their Gizmos and all of the Gizmos are shuffled together. You don't have to belong to that faction to use their gizmo if you find it. Most of the Gizmos have a double utility, meaning that they can be used in the Campaign Map or they can be used in the War Map. They are secret from the rest of the players and only read to them when they are activated.

#### Faction Blinder

Your Faction Blinder helps you conceal (most of) your activities from other players. If someone manages to see what you are trying to hide, its your fault for not hiding it better (this simulates the fact that many of a ruler's actions are transparent and not everything can remain secret for too long). Your blinder has a second use as well, it gives you some very quick tips and info about your faction, gives you name options for your new cities and informs you of what starting resources you are entitled to. If you want you may replace or remove your faction blinder at any time.

#### City Overview

Your City Overview is the place where you will be managing each one of your settlements. Here you can build structures to upgrade them and increase your capabilities. Here you can also recruit new combat units. Additionally, this is where your Units heal their wounds and get upgraded. You may place your Leaders, Nobles, and Politicians in the palace's zone to draw intrigue cards or see the next card of any other deck. Lastly, each city with a palace has dungeon. There you can place your prisoners of war.

#### Army Manager

Your army manager helps you keep your armies organized and ready for action. Your Leaders, (some) Nobles, Generals and (some) Heroes can Lead armies. If you wish you can assign them in that position. You can't build an army without someone competent enough to lead it. To build an army, place the Leader,Noble,General or Hero combat card on top and the combat cards of the units that make up their army beneath them. The Figurine of the character leading an army on the Campaign Map now counts as an army led by that person, meaning that if an enemy Figurine engages in combat with your Army Leader Figurine, they have to fight them and every other unit in their army. You may create as many armies as you wish, as long as you have enough Characters that can lead them.

### Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art of making relations with other game factions in A war in Vain. The world is huge and filled with other civilizations whose leaders are at least as cunning and determined as you are. Some are honest and others are liars; some are warlike and others prefer peace. But all want to win. You can accomplish a lot through diplomacy: you can trade to make profit off your faction's excess production; you can gain allies and isolate your enemies; you can create defensive and offensive pacts and many more! Diplomacy may be conducted throughout the game with all factions you've already discovered in the world. To learn more about the available diplomatic actions, click here.

#### Special Campaign Map Rules

##### ***Losing***

* If your Leader Dies, you lose the game.
* If all of your settlements are conquered and you have no combat units in the Campaign Map, you lose the game.
* When a player loses the game, all of their units are discarded and returned back to the unit pool, but their cities remain on the map and can be conquered by other players.
* When a player loses the game, other players have the choice to invite the loser in their faction, and assign units for them to play.

##### ***Capturing Units***

* Units with No combat strength, once attacked by an enemy faction are immediately captured by the enemy, and cannot defend themselves in a battle.
* Captured Units now belong to your enemy, but they cannot use them in their traditional manner (for example, a captured worker, is not willing to work for the enemy now. A captured settler, is not willing to found settlements for the enemy etc).
* Captured Units can be imprisoned in the Enemy's Dungeon. There, the Captor, has these choices: 1. He can let them free at any time, 2.He can let them stay there for as long as he wants, 3. He may let them free, 4. He may execute them.
* If a defeated enemy had prisoners with them, and you win said enemy in the battlefield, all of their units now can be freed by you and returned to their factions, or you may keep the prisoners yourself.
* Imprisoned units can try to escape if a friendly spy performs the "Free the Prisoners" action. Then these units will escape. If the city has walls, these units will have to fight their way out.

##### ***War related Rules***

* A single Warband (army led by a King, Noble, General, Hero) cannot have more than 50 units with them (unless its a custom battle).
* For each 10 mounted units an army has, it moves 1 extra tile (For example: If the Army leader has 2 agility, they normally move 2 tiles, but if they have 10 mounted units they move 2+1=3 tiles. If The army leader has 20 mounted units, he moves 4 tiles and so on.)
* When two players fight, the Campaign Map gameplay is paused until the battle is resolved. The players who are not part of the battle can either take a break until the fight is resolved, or join the fight and control certain units (If both players agree).
* When a player wins a siege, they can either: 1.Conquer the town and keep it, 2.Plunder all of its resources and leave it or 3. Raze it to the ground
* Battles can be auto-resolved if both players don't want to fight. To auto-resolve, the players agree on a stat (Endurance, Armor, Strength, Aiming, Agility). Then they add up all the numbers of that stat they have on their combat units. The player with the highest number of that stat wins the auto-resolved battle. (Auto-resolving is not recommended, as it may bring random results).
* An army may surrender if they don't want to fight. Then their fate is chosen by the Winner. The winner can kill them, imprison them in one of their towns, or grant them mercy and let them go.

##### ***Speech Rule***

* Players may not exchange information via speech, especially information that would affect how other players behave.
* If Players want to exchange information, they can do so via hand written messages that a messenger will have to transport to the recipient.
* Each Unit can only send up to 1 message per turn (to minimize downtime).
* All Diplomatic actions have to be proposed via messages. The results can optionally be announced to the rest of the players via Speech.
* If a player breaks the speech rule, the rest of the players may take 1 of this player's resources as a penalty.

##### ***Interactions***

* If two units of different factions are in the same tile, they may 1. Talk, 2. Trade, 3. Fight.
* Enemy units can not be in the same tile. If they are, this counts as an automatic fight.
* Units can not enter hostile towns. If they do land on hostile towns, this counts a siege.
* If you meet bandits in the Campaign Map, you have to fight them, as if you would fight an enemy faction. Other players will have to control the bandits.
* If a unit lands on the same tile with a unit of a different faction, these 2 factions have discovered each other and may now interact diplomatically. If you already have relations with a faction, count it as already discovered.

##### ***Trading***

* All resources, Useful Cards and Combat units may be traded. Combat units will have to be send over towards the receiver, they are not teleported to them. Useful pieces of Information (in the form of messages) can also be parts of trades.

##### ***The Water Rule***

* Every 7th round, you need to discard 1 water token for each one of your units. If you can't, they get 1 wound.
* Garrisoned Units do not need to drink water

##### ***Sirenium***

* You cannot hold Sirenium tokens for more than 3 turns. If you have not used them or traded them away by the 4th round, you have to kill any 5 of your units (Sirenium Crystals are unstable and unpredictable). Each round you have a sirenium crystal place a cool-down  token next to it. When the 3rd cool-down  token is added, proceed to kill 5 friendly units of your choice.

***Settlements***

* Each time a settler performs the "Settle" action, you may add a village token in the tile the action was performed, and remove the setter from the game.
* Villages are upgraded to Cities, when they have a palace and walls.
* Minor Factions do not use settlers, instead their Leader can perform a "Lets Camp Here" action, which erects a camp. Camps are not upgradable to cities.
* A player controlling a major faction may build 5 settlements at max.
* A player controlling a minor faction may have 3 camps at max.
* Players can control extra settlements if they can conquer them.

### War Map

The War Map is where combat take place. There you can deploy your armies and use the members of your council. Here's how the War Map should look after it's set up:

The War Map consists of the Battlefield, each Player's Combat Deck, the War Council and lastly the Fate and Tactics card decks. Place the Battlefield pieces in the center of the small table. Each player should have their respective combat decks in front of them and their war councils in their sides. Place the tactic and fate card decks to the other side. Players may use their faction blinders to conceal their combat decks if they wish. Players may also keep a small piece of paper and a pen to keep notes of enemy unit stats if they wish.

#### Battlefield

Each time, the battlefield is going to be different because its modular. The appearance of the battlefield depends on 2 factors: The number of units and the tile in which the armies are located on the Campaign Map.

* The more soldiers that participate in the battle, the larger the battlefield is going to be
* If the armies on the CAMPAIGN MAP are located in a desert with a river for example, the battlefield is also going to be in a desert with a river. Accordingly if the battle is a siege, the battlefield is going to have fortifications etc.

count the number of units in both armies, then compare the result and build the battlefield map:

* 10 units or less= 2 map pieces (Duel)
* 11-20 units=3 Map pieces (Skirmish)
* 21-40 units=4 Map pieces (Small battle)
* 41-60units=5 Map pieces (Normal Battle)
* 61-80 units=6 Map pieces (Large Battle)
* 81-100 units=8 Map pieces. (Epic Battle)

#### Combat Deck

Your Army cards are located in your Army Manager, now that they have to fight, place them in your combat deck. Now find their Figurines from the unit pool and place them anywhere you want in the first two rows of your side of the battlefield (like we do in chess). Your units are ready for battle!

#### War Council

Your War Council Represents the efforts made by your Non Combat Units to aid in the war. For example, you may have politicians or units that are not good in battle. You can use them here to turn the tide of battle to your favor. You can learn more about how to use the war council here.

#### Fate Cards

Sometimes in life you have to take risks. Every time you roll any number of X (misses) in combat, you may draw 1 Fate Card, you are forced to obey its text for that unit that rolled the X (miss). Fate cards can be a lifesaver or make your life even harder depending on your luck.

#### Tactics Cards

Each faction has their own set of tactics cards. Before a fight begins, shuffle the tactics cards of all combatants into a common deck. When you use War Councilors, you may pick the first tactic card of you and the first of your enemy. Choose whether to pick yours and reshuffle your enemies, or reshuffle yours and discard your enemy's. Tactics cards allow you to perform special actions, maneuvers and generally give you the edge in battle.

to learn how combat works, click here.