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Control V

Control V Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

  • Overview
  • Components
  • Two Play Modes
  • How to Play
    • 1. Choose colours and turn order
    • 2. Place obstacle blocks
    • 3. First territory block
    • 4. Other players place
    • 5. Copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V)
    • 6. Territories of 2 or more blocks
    • 7. End of the game
    • 8. Winner
  • Playing Tips
    • Good example (Tip)
    • Bad example (Tip)

Overview

  • Time: 15-30 minutes
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 8+

Components

  • 1 game board
  • 4 colours of territory blocks, 55 pieces per colour
  • 9 obstacle blocks

Role of the obstacle blocks:

  • Each game differs according to where you place the obstacle blocks, so you can play the game without repetition.
  • Obstacle blocks help prevent any one player from expanding their territory too easily.

Two Play Modes

The board diagrams show the two ways of "copying" a block. In the diagrams, a dotted line is an axis of symmetry, a dot is a pivot point, and an arrow shows the direction of the copy.

  1. Use only the mirror-reflection axes of symmetry (reflection across a dotted line).
  2. Use both the mirror-reflection axes of symmetry and the pivot-point (rotation) axes of symmetry.

How to Play

1. Choose colours and turn order

Each player chooses a colour of territory blocks to use and determines the turn order (first / last).

The area of the board that is used depends on the number of players:

PlayersColours eachPlaying area
21 colour10x10
22 colours12x12
3-41 colour12x12

(The board shows a 10x10 area for a 2-player game and a 12x12 area for 2-4 players.)

2. Place obstacle blocks

Starting with the first player, take turns placing 1 obstacle block at a time on any empty position within the playing area chosen in step 1, in turn order, until each player has placed the number of blocks they are due.

The number of blocks placed depends on the number of players:

PlayersObstacle blocks placed (per player)
24
33
42

3. First territory block

The first player places 1 block of their own colour on an empty space on the board.

4. Other players place

Then the other players take turns placing in turn order.

5. Copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V)

From the second block onward, placement must be done by copying (Ctrl+C) any one block on the board, then placing the new block (Ctrl+V) on an empty space at the position that is symmetric to the block that was copied (according to the axis of symmetry or pivot point of the chosen play mode).

(*) If at least one player can still place a territory block of their own, the game continues.

6. Territories of 2 or more blocks

Territory blocks that touch, from 2 blocks upward, are considered to be one territory. From this point on, copying (Ctrl+C) and placing (Ctrl+V) of these blocks must be done only as a group.

7. End of the game

The game ends when no player can place any more of their own territory blocks.

8. Winner

The player with the most territory blocks of their own on the board is the winner. (Example scores: R30, G32, B34, Y38 — the example scores are for illustration only.)

Playing Tips

Good example (Tip)

  1. A 1-space territory block can be expanded into 2-4 spaces without difficulty. Therefore, copying 1-block territories and placing them in many positions will help you gain an advantage in expanding your area.
  2. Keeping a 1-space territory block until the end of the game helps give you an advantage in controlling small empty areas.

Bad example (Tip)

  1. Expanding territory by joining up from 1 space to 2, 4, 8 spaces from the very start of the game may help you expand your group quickly, but doing it this way makes it hard to find positions to copy and place the blocks, because there may be only a few free spaces. This may leave you unable to place further blocks before the other players.

A QR code on the rulebook links to a how-to-play video.