Vizia Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Objective
• Gameplay
  • 1. Play Tiles
  • Color Adjacency
  • 2. Complete a Hexagon (Wheel)
  • 3. Continue Playing Tiles (Optional)
  • 4. Refill Hand (Optional)
  • 5. No Possible Move
• Placement Rules Summary
• Scoring Summary
• Advanced Rules
  • Extreme Wood Edition Variant
  • Capture
  • Two Tiles of the Same Color May Touch
  • Buying a Tile
  • Black Tile and White Tile
    • Black Tile
    • White Tile
  • Team Play

Components

• 72 colored triangular tiles: a dozen triangles in each of six colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple
• 48 player tokens: a dozen each in four colors
• 1 black tile and 1 white tile (special tiles)

Setup

Each player takes a set of tokens and a personal cache of two tiles, keeping the tiles secret from the other players. Four tiles are turned face-up in the middle of the table to form the shared display. The remaining tiles go into the bag as the shared draw supply.

Objective

Score the most points by forming hexagons of six tiles — called wheels — and claiming them with your tokens.

Scoring a completed wheel:

• Six different colors = 3 points
• Two alternating colors = 2 points
• Any other combination = 1 point

The game ends immediately when either:

• a player has placed all of their tokens onto the board, or
• all of the tiles have been played.

Gameplay

Play proceeds clockwise. On your turn you:

1. Play tiles (at least one is required).
2. Optionally play additional tiles and complete more wheels.
3. Optionally refill your hand.
4. Refill the shared display.

You may end your turn at any point after you have played at least one tile.

1. Play Tiles

You must play at least one tile on your turn. Tiles may be played from your personal cache, from the shared display, or from a combination of both.

Placement rules:

• The very first tile of the game may be placed freely.
• Every tile played after that must be placed adjacent to a tile already on the table.
• The color of a newly placed tile must be a neighbor of the adjacent tile's color on the color wheel.

You may optionally play additional tiles beyond the first, continuing to complete more wheels if you can.

Color Adjacency

Colors may only touch their neighbors on the color wheel:

• Green touches Yellow or Blue
• Blue touches Green or Purple
• Purple touches Blue or Red
• Red touches Purple or Orange
• Orange touches Red or Yellow
• Yellow touches Orange or Green

2. Complete a Hexagon (Wheel)

Whenever a hexagon of six tiles is completed, the active player places one of their tokens in its center to claim it. The token remains there until the end of the game. A player may complete more than one wheel in a single turn.

3. Continue Playing Tiles (Optional)

After playing and claiming, you may keep playing additional tiles and completing additional wheels, or you may end your turn voluntarily. Your turn ends when you choose to stop or when no legal placement remains for you.

4. Refill Hand (Optional)

After you finish placing tiles, you may take tiles from the shared display to refill your personal cache, up to its normal limit, or you may skip this step. The shared display is then refilled back up to four tiles from the bag.

5. No Possible Move

If you cannot legally place any tile on your turn, you must reveal your hand to the other players, your turn is skipped, and the entire shared display is replaced.

Placement Rules Summary

• Every tile after the first must be placed adjacent to a tile already in play.
• Adjacent tile colors must be neighbors on the color wheel.
• You may play any number of tiles on your turn, as long as you play at least one.
• A wheel is exactly six tiles arranged in a hexagon.
• The player who completes a wheel claims it with a token.

Scoring Summary

• A wheel showing all six colors is worth 3 points.
• A wheel showing two alternating colors is worth 2 points.
• Any other completed wheel is worth 1 point.

At game end, points are counted from the wheels each player has claimed. The player with the highest score wins. In case of a tie, the player who has claimed the most wheels wins.

Advanced Rules

The following rules are translated from the official "Vizia Extrême en Bois" (Vizia Extreme in Wood) expansion sheet by designer Pierre Bourque. They describe five optional advanced modules that may be mixed and matched, plus a combined variant scoring and end-game.

Extreme Wood Edition Variant

Play the base rules of Vizia as normal, then apply the following changes:

• Use 3 tiles in the shared display rather than 4.
• The game ends only once every tile held by every player has been played; points are then counted.
• In addition to the points earned from their wheels, each player adds one point for every token they have placed on the board. There is no longer a bonus for networks.
• At the end of the game, players receive 1 bonus point for every triangle formed by their own tokens. For example, if the White player and the Black player each form two triangles with their tokens, each receives 2 bonus points. The Black player might form two separate triangles, while the White player forms two triangles joined together in the shape of a diamond.

Capture

An isolated token — one with no adjacent token of the same color — can be captured by another player. If such a token becomes completely surrounded by opposing tokens, it is removed from play and returned to its owner. The player who placed the last token completing the encirclement replaces the captured token with one of their own.

Two Tiles of the Same Color May Touch

On your turn, you may place one of your tiles of a color X next to a tile already in play of that same color X. No further new tile may touch this tile of color X for as long as it continues to touch the other tile of the same color. This is a defensive move: a tile placed this way can be moved later, but after being moved by pivoting it must remain inside one of the (up to) three wheels to which it belongs — each tile can belong to a maximum of three wheels. This confines the tile to that part of the board, and it cannot be used elsewhere unless a player buys it (see Buying a Tile, below). On a later turn, another player may make two other tiles of the same color touch in the same way; there is no limit to how many times this move can be made, except that a single player may only do it once per turn.

For example: a purple tile can pivot toward an orange tile by placing a red tile between the two, or by placing a blue or red tile between two purple tiles — it is possible to do both. A purple tile cannot pivot toward a yellow tile, because yellow and purple are not neighbors on the color wheel.

Buying a Tile

When a tile is connected to only one other tile — whether of the same color or a different color — it can be "bought" and moved to another location (following the normal placement rules) during a player's turn. To use this privilege, the player must remove one of their tokens already placed on a wheel. That wheel becomes empty for the time being and earns no points for any player until reclaimed.

For example: the Black player gives up a simple wheel on the left (losing that point) in order to make a purchase that lets them form a prism on the right worth 3 points — a net gain of two points.

Note that one or more empty wheels can also be captured by surrounding them (see Capture, above). It is even possible, in the same turn, to make a purchase — thereby giving up a wheel — complete a new wheel with the bought tile, and then reclaim the very wheel just given up.

Black Tile and White Tile

At the start of the game, the black tile and the white tile are set aside outside the play area, away from the center of the table. On their turn, a player may take the black tile or the white tile if it is currently outside the play area. Normally, on their turn, once a player has two tiles in their common draw, they decide whether to draw a colored tile from the bag or to take the black tile or the white tile instead. Note that during the game the black tile or the white tile are not always available, since they may be sitting in front of one of the players' caches.

On your turn, you have three possibilities:

1. Draw zero, one, two, or three tiles from the bag, to have a common draw of three tiles.
2. Draw zero, one, or two tiles from the bag, plus take the black tile and place it in front of your cache.
3. If you are among the player(s) with the fewest tokens in play, draw zero, one, or two tiles from the bag, plus make use of the many possibilities of the white tile (see White Tile, below).

Note that a player may not have both the black tile and the white tile in front of their cache at the same time.

Black Tile

The black tile lets you steal a hidden tile from another player: the player stealing must name the color of the tile they believe the target is hiding. If they are correct, they steal that tile and give the black tile to the victim in exchange. The player who was robbed places the black tile in front of their cache, and on their turn they may use it to steal from another player in turn. If the player attempting the theft names the wrong color, the theft fails and the black tile is returned to outside the play area, becoming available again to any player for the rest of the game. A player who succeeds at a theft may use the stolen tile immediately — they do not have to wait for their next turn.

On their turn, a player who has had a tile stolen and received the black tile in exchange may either:

• use the black tile to steal a tile from another player, in which case they are only entitled to 2 tiles in their common draw that turn, or
• return the black tile to outside the play area and draw a tile from the bag instead, to complete a common draw of 3 tiles.

So on their turn, they cannot simply keep the black tile in front of their cache — they must either use it to steal a hidden tile, or return it to outside the play area.

White Tile

The white tile can only be used by the player or players with the fewest tokens in play. The white tile permits only defensive moves.

If, during the game, all players have the same number of tokens in play, then all players may use the white tile. As soon as a player becomes dominant (has more tokens in play than at least one other player), they can no longer use the white tile; if the white tile was already in play it stays where it is, and if it was in front of that player's cache, they must return it to outside the play area.

On their turn, the player or players with the fewest tokens may do one of the following:

• Take the white tile from outside the play area and attach it to one of the tiles already in play. Be careful: at all times, the white tile may only touch a single tile already in play. This move can be used to prevent the dominant player(s) from completing a wheel at the spot where the white tile now sits. On their turn, this player is only entitled to 2 tiles in their common draw.
• Take the white tile — whether from outside the play area or already in play (a white tile currently in front of a player's cache cannot be taken) — and place it in front of their own cache: the white tile then prevents another player from stealing one of their hidden tiles. On their turn, this player is only entitled to 2 tiles in their common draw. On their next turn, this player must return the white tile to outside the play area, after which they may again have 3 tiles in their common draw.
• Move the white tile that is already in play to another spot on the board. However, making this move costs the player one tile; on their turn they are only entitled to 2 tiles in their common draw.
• Take the white tile that is already in play and return it to outside the play area, or simply leave the white tile already in play untouched — either choice entitles this player to 3 tiles in their common draw.

Team Play

Vizia can be played by two teams of two players. Players on the same team may not sit next to each other — they must sit across the table from one another. At the end of the game, points are counted exactly as if all players were independent. The scores of the two players on the same team are then added together to determine the winning team.