War: Império Romano

War: Império Romano Rulebook

Table of Contents

Important: Differences from WAR

If you are a WAR player, these are the main differences of War: Império Romano:

The game is adapted for up to 4 players, not 6.
The board depicts the Roman Empire in AD 140.
Territories are called provinces and continents are called regions.
Armies are called legions. They are represented by the legionary (equivalent to 1 legion), the cavalry (equivalent to 3 legions) and the catapult (equivalent to 10 legions).
The three figures on the province cards (triangle, square and circle) are called helmet, sword and shield.

Components

1 board
4 sets of legions in different colours
14 objective cards
42 province cards
2 wildcard cards
3 red dice
3 yellow dice

Value of Pieces

Legions are represented as follows:

Legionary = 1 legion
Cavalry = 3 legions
Catapult = 10 legions

During the game, when the board is full of legions, each player may choose to exchange 3 legions for a cavalry, or 10 legions for a catapult.

Legions

Each player chooses the colour of his legions from the 4 possible colours (red, beige, black and green). This choice may be made by lot or by common agreement among the players.

Objective Cards

Each player is dealt one objective card at random. Once a player learns his objective, he does not reveal it to his opponents.

Note: The remaining objectives are not used in the game.

Before the draw, players who are new to the game should read all the possible objectives.

Note for 3-player games: In a game with 3 players, the objective that relates to the legion colour that is not being played must be removed from the draw. For example, if nobody plays with the black legions, the objective card that says to destroy the black legions must be removed.

Distribution of Legions and Provinces

Each player takes one die and rolls it. The player who rolls the highest number is the dealer.

The dealer takes the set of province cards, removes the wildcards and deals the province cards out clockwise, starting with the player to his left. At this point each player must place 1 legionary of his colour in each of the provinces dealt to him. At the end of this operation, all provinces will be occupied by 1 legionary of one of the participants.

The dealer then gathers the province cards, sets the wildcards aside again and shuffles the cards. He places this face-down pile near the board, where it must remain during the game.

The Game

The game begins with the player following the one who received the last province card.

First round: In his turn, each player receives legions, places them on the board according to his strategy, and passes the turn.

Second round, and every round after it: In his turn, each player carries out the following steps, always in this order:

Receive new legions and place them on the board according to his strategy.
Attack opponents, if he wishes.
Move his legions, if it is convenient.
Receive a province card, if he has conquered at least one opposing province.

Receiving Legions

At the start of every round, there are 3 ways to receive legions:

A) from the number of provinces owned;
B) if the player owns an entire region;
C) if the player can trade cards (see the Card Trading section below).

A) Provinces Owned

At the start of his turn, the player adds up the number of provinces he owns and divides that number by 2. The result is the number of legions he must receive (counting only the whole number of the result).

Example:

If a player owns 8 provinces, he receives 4 legionaries.
If he owns 11 provinces, he receives 5 legionaries.

At this moment, the player must place all the legions he receives in one or more of his provinces, according to his strategy.

B) Region Conquered

If, at the start of his turn, a player owns an entire region, he receives, in addition to the legions from counting his provinces, further legions according to the values of TABLE I printed on the board.

Note: The legions received for owning a region must be placed necessarily in the provinces of that region.

Example: Imagine a player owns 19 provinces: 15 spread across several regions and 4 in the Middle East region. The reasoning at the start of his turn is as follows:

Number of provinces owned: 15 + 4 = 19
Number of legions to receive: 9 (19 ÷ 2 = 9.5)
Number of legions to receive for owning the whole Middle East region: 2 (see TABLE I)

Total legions to receive: 9 + 2 = 11, of which the 2 corresponding to the Middle East region must be placed in that same region.

Note: The minimum number of legions to receive is always 3, even if the player owns fewer than 6 provinces.

Attacks

From the second round onwards, players may or may not attack an opponent, trying to conquer more provinces. In each province there is always at least 1 legion. That legion is called the occupation legion.

So, to attack from a province, at least 2 legions are needed in that province.

How to Attack

The attacker uses the red dice, and the defending player uses the yellow dice.
An attack, from any province, may only be directed at an adjacent opposing province (one that shares borders or that is connected by the dotted line).
The attacker must announce from which province he is attacking and which province is being attacked, as well as how many legions will be used to attack.
The maximum number of legions taking part in each attack is three, even if there are more legions in the attacking province.
A province may be attacked regardless of how many legions it has.
The attacked province may use its occupation legion as well, to defend itself.
In his turn, each player may attack as many times as he wishes to conquer an opposing province.
Attacks may start from one or several provinces, but always one at a time, according to the attacker's strategy. The player may also attack several provinces in his turn. For each attack, there must be a dice confrontation (explained in the Battle section).
The attacking player rolls the number of dice corresponding to the number of his legions taking part in the battle; the same applies to the defending player. Thus, if the attacker uses 3 legions against 1 of the defence, he rolls 3 dice against 1 of the defender.

Battle

Example:

1) Attacker with 4 legions and defender with 3 legions

If the attacker has 4 legions in his province and the defender has 3, both may roll 3 dice, that is, both the attacker (Syria) and the defender (Mesopotamia) fight with three legions.

After the battle (carried out by rolling the dice), the attacker's dice are compared with the defender's dice to determine who loses legions. The highest die of the attacker is compared with the highest die of the defender. The winner is whoever has the higher number. In the case of a tie, the defence wins.

Next, the second-highest die of the attacker is compared with the second-highest die of the defender, and the winner is decided in the same way as before.

Finally, the lowest dice are compared, following the same procedure.

Example of the comparison: Suppose the attacker has rolled 5, 4 and 1, and the defender 6, 3 and 1. The comparison is made as follows:

Comparison	Attack	Defence	Winner	Result
Highest	5	6	Defence	Attack loses 1 legion
Second highest	4	3	Attack	Defence loses 1 legion
Lowest	1	1	Defence	Attack loses 1 legion

In this case, the attacker loses 2 legions and the defender loses 1 legion. Thus, the province of the attacker, which had 4 legions, and that of the defender, which had 3, are each left with 2 legions.

If there is interest, the attacker could then make a new attack using 1 legion against the defence's 2.

Note: Observe that, although the attacker has been left with 2 legions in his province, he could only attack again with one of them, since the other is the occupation legion, which cannot be used for attacks.

Note: Legions lost in battles return to the supply box, and may be reused later.

2) Attacker with 3 legions and defender with 1 legion

If the attack has only 3 legions and the defence has 1, the attack may be made with 2 dice against the defence's 1 die. Suppose the dice show: attack (3 and 2) and defence (6). The attacker's die with the most points (3) is compared with the defence's only die (6), and the attacker's die with fewer points is discarded. The victory, in this case, goes to the defence, and the attacker removes one of his legions.

Note: Each time an attacker loses, he removes from his province only the number of legions used. In the example above, the defence used only one die, so the attacker loses only one legion.

3) Attacker with 10 legions and defender with 4 legions

In this case, as we have already seen, each side may use a maximum of 3 legions in each battle. Imagine that the values are:

Attack: 6, 3 and 1
Defence: 5, 4 and 2

Comparison	Attack	Defence	Winner	Result
Highest	6	5	Attack	Defence loses 1 legion
Second highest	3	4	Defence	Attack loses 1 legion
Lowest	1	2	Defence	Attack loses 1 legion

The result is a victory for the attack once and for the defence twice. Therefore, the attacker is left with 8 legions and the defender with 3.

If the attacker wishes, he may continue the attack, rolling again 3 dice against the defence's 3 dice.

Suppose the results are:

Comparison	Attack	Defence	Winner	Result
Highest	5	4	Attack	Defence loses 1 legion
Second highest	3	2	Attack	Defence loses 1 legion
Lowest	2	1	Attack	Defence loses 1 legion

The attacker has now won 3 times, so the defence must remove its last 3 legions from the province.

Province Conquest

If, after a battle (one or more dice confrontations), the attacker destroys all the legions in the defender's province, he has then conquered that province. He must move his attacking legions into the conquered province, where they remain.

This movement follows this rule: the maximum number of legions that may be moved at this moment is equal to the number of legions that took part in the last attack. In the example above, he could move 1, 2 or, at most, 3 legions.

After conquering a province and moving the permitted legions, the attacker may, if he wishes, make a new attack from the conquered province, still in the same turn. Only after that may he make a new movement of attacking legions into the attacked province.

Movements

There are two moments when a player may move his legions in his turn:

the first, mentioned above, refers to the movement of attacking legions into the conquered province;
the second refers to the movements permitted once the player has finished his attacks in his turn.

When he has finished his attacks, the player may, according to his strategy, move legions between his adjacent provinces.

These movements must obey the following rules:

In each province, at least one legion must always remain (the occupation legion), which can never be moved.
A legion may be moved only once, that is, a legion may not be moved to a second adjacent province in the same turn.

Example: A player who owns Macedonia, Thracia and Moesia may move his legions from Macedonia to Thracia, but may not move, in the same turn, those same legions from Thracia to Moesia.

Note: During attacks, legions may only be moved into the attacked provinces, and not into any other province.

Card Conquest

A player who conquers one or more provinces during his turn is entitled to one province card at the end of his turn (after his movements).

Note: The player receives only one province card per turn, regardless of the number of provinces conquered. The content of this card must be kept secret until it is traded. Each player may hold up to 5 cards in hand.

Card Trading

C) Trading Cards

A player who has 3 cards with different figures, or 3 cards with the same figure, may, in his turn, trade them for extra legions, according to TABLE II printed on the board.

Example: The first player to make a trade during the game receives 4 legions; the second player to make a trade receives 6; the third, 8, and so on successively. This sequence does not apply to each player's trades individually, but to all the trades made in the game.

The player is not obliged to make a trade when he has one of the combinations described. It depends on his interest at the time.

However, when a player accumulates 5 cards, he is obliged, in his turn, to trade 3 cards for legions.

The legions received from a trade are distributed among the provinces owned by the player who receives them, in whatever way he prefers.

If among the cards used in the trade there is one that represents a province owned by the player, he gains 2 extra legions, which must be placed, necessarily, in that province.

Notes:

The wildcard always gives the player the option of choosing any one of the 3 figures to make a trade.
Conquering one card per turn is very important, because cards give the right to receive more legions.
Traded cards are set aside. When all the cards have been used, they must be shuffled and placed back in the game as a new face-down pile.

Elimination of a Competitor

If, during the game, a player completely destroys one legion (another player), and this is not his objective (in which case he would win the game), he receives the cards of the eliminated player.

If, after adding the cards received from the eliminated player to his own, the player has more than 5 cards, a random draw is made: he removes, without looking, the number of cards needed to bring his hand down to 5.

End of the Game

The game ends when a player reaches his objective. At that moment, he must show his objective card, proving his victory.

Have fun!