Diam
Diam Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Materiel
- An eight-sided wooden playing board
- 16 wooden pawns: 4 red, 4 oranges, 4 black, 4 brown
How to Play
Rules for 2 players
At the beginning, each player has a reserve of 8 pawns: 4 red and 4 orange for player 1, 4 black and 4 brown for player 2. The board has no pawn on it.
In turn, each player can:
- either place a pawn from his reserve on a free square or on a pawn already on the board,
- or move one of his pawns that is already on the board.
A square can only have 4 pawns on it at one time.
Victory, or the Diam
The winner is the first player who succeeds in placing two of his pawns of the same color on two diametrically opposite squares at the same level. (With the exception of level 1 - see fig. 1.) This configuration is called a DIAM.
Careful: 2 DIAMs can be created during a move. In this case, the player having the highest DIAM is declared the winner (see fig. 2).
Moving the Pawns
The pawns are moved one square at a time, to the left or to the right. The new square can be free or have one or several pawns stacked on it (fig. 3).
If, on the starting square, one or several pawns are stacked above the pawn to be moved, the player must move the whole stack from the chosen pawn up to the top one (fig. 4).
If the new square already has a pawn or a stack of pawns, the moved pawn or stack of pawns is placed above the stack on the new square (fig. 4).
You cannot move onto a square that will have more than 4 pawns after you have moved (fig. 5).
Rules for 4 Players
When there are 4 players, they play by teams of 2. Each player has his own color. Team 1 plays with the red and orange pawns and team 2 with the brown and black pawns.
The players take turns playing in the following order (team 1 players 1 and 2, team 2 players 3 and 4): player 1, player 3, player 2, player 4, player 1, player 3, player 2, player 4, ...
The basic rules are the same as the rules for 2 players, with the following restriction:
A player cannot place a pawn on the board from the reserve of his partner. A player can, however, move his partner's pawns that are already on the board.
Rules for 3 Players
With 3 players, 2 players play against one.
The basic rules are the same as the rules for 4 players, the player who is alone playing with 2 colors.
The players take turns playing in the following order (player alone = player 1, team players = players 2 and 3): player 1, player 2, player 1, player 3, player 1, player 2, player 1, player 3, ...