TM
Design
Joe Morrissey
Doug Woolsey
Vince D’Amelio
Art
Doug Woolsey
Playtesting
Rebecca Morrissey, Michelle
Rice, Griffin Morrissey, Alex
Woolsey, Victoria D’Amelio,
Glen McKnight, Robert
Owen, Rick Luebbers
© 2014 Sand Hat Games, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this product may be reproduced without specific permission.
You are the ruler of a fledgling
kingdom in the land of Vye. Around
you are untamed lands ripe for the
taking. But you are not alone! Other
rulers
seek to
broaden
their
holdings
as well.
You must
carefully
protect your borders even as you race
to expand them. Will you control
the largest kingdom? Or will you see
your power splintered? Plan your
moves well - it will take strategy and
a little luck to win the battle for Vye!
1
Overview
Vye is a strategy card game played by 2-4 players. The goal of the game is to have the largest connected kingdom when the game ends.
You grow your kingdom by placing Land and
Family cards on the table, claiming the cards
you place and potentially others around them
in the process. The game is easy to learn and
can be played in about 20 minutes.
The Deck
There are a total of 53 cards that compose the
basic Vye deck. There are 36 Land cards, 16
Family cards, and 1 Inevitable Empress card.
Etc.
Also included in this edition of Vye are this
rulebook and 100 tokens.
Setup
• Find and set aside the Inevitable Empress card.
2
• Find and group by color the 16 Family
cards (Advisor, King, Queen, Heir).
• Each player chooses a token color to
represent him or her in the game. Each
player then takes the four Family cards
that match their token color.
• Each player sets all four Family cards
face up in front them in a line: Advisor
to the far left, next King, then Queen,
and, finally, Heir.
Blue player sideboard.
• Choose one person to go first by determining the person last in a place of royalty (the porcelain throne counts).
• The person to the right of the player taking the first turn will be the dealer.
3
• After thoroughly shuffling the deck, the
dealer should deal 4 cards to each player
from the top of the deck. These cards are
kept secret from the other players.
• The dealer will
then play the
top 5 cards from
the deck and
lay them out
in the center of
the table in the
order shown.
These cards are
unclaimed. Do
not place tokens on them.
5
4
1
2
3
• Next, take the bottom 3 cards from the
deck and shuffle them together with the
Inevitable Empress. Place this stack of
cards on the bottom of the deck.
• Play now begins with the player to the
left of the dealer.
4
On Your Turn
• Play a card from your hand or a Family
card from your sideboard. You must always play a card.
• Score your card by placing one of your
tokens on top of it.
• If you’ve played a Family card, perform
any special actions of the card.
• If you’ve played a Land card, check to
see if a chain is created. If a chain is created, place tokens on all captured cards.
• If you played from your hand, draw back
up to four cards in your hand. Do not
draw a card if you play from your sideboard.
• Play then passes to the player to your left.
Green player hand and sideboard.
5
The Cards
There are two types of cards you may play in
the basic Vye set, Lands and Families (expansion sets add more card types - see the rules
for those expansions for more information).
Cards are played face up on the table next to
other cards along one of their four sides. Diagonal placement is never allowed (although
diagonal capture is allowed when specified
by the card being played - more on that later).
Valid Card Placement
Invalid Card Placement
6
Land Cards and Card Matching
When you play a Land card, you are the owner
of that card. Place one of your tokens on that
card. If the Land card you have played is next
to another Land card with a matching picture,
then you also capture that Land card, even if
it has another player’s token on it. When you
capture a Land card that belongs to another
player, remove their token and place yours on
the card. If there are multiple matching cards
in a non-diagonal path, you can capture them
all with one Land card placement of the same
picture.
Green player captures a matching Land card.
7
Green player captures two matching Land cards.
Valid Captures
Diagonal Chain Not Allowed
8
Connected Cards
Cards are considered connected if they share
card borders. Remember, diagonal connections do not count.
The goal of Vye is to own the largest number
of contiguously connected cards when the Inevitable Empress is drawn and the game ends.
A
B
D
E
C
In the illustration above, cards A and B are
connected and cards B and C are connected
for a total of 3 connected cards. Cards C and D
are not connected because they do not share a
border. Cards D and E are connected for a total
of 2 connected cards.
9
Family Cards
When you play a Family card, you are the
owner of that card. Place one of your tokens
on your Family card. You also capture cards
surrounding your Family card as determined
by the symbol on the Family card.
Advisor
King
Queen
Heir
The Families and their corresponding symbols
and color groups are:
• House Midnight - Blue
• House Immortal - Green
• House of the Thousand Roses - Red
• House of Ladders - Gold
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The following illustrates the way each Family
card captures the cards connected to it.
The
Advisor
–
When played, you
gain control of this
card, plus all eight
cards
surrounding
your Advisor.
The King – When
played, you gain
control of this card,
plus the four cards
adjacent on the top,
bottom, and sides of
your King card.
11
The Queen – When
played, you gain
control of this card,
plus all four cards on
the non-connected
diagonals of your
Queen.
The Heir – When
played, you gain
control of this card,
plus one adjacent
card, which you
choose from among
the eight cards surrounding it.
12
Color Capture
In addition to the standard capture rule for
Family cards, when you place a Family of
one color group
next to another
Family in the same
group, you may also
capture that Family
as well.
In the example
shown, the Queen of Ladders (gold queen)
would capture the Heir of Ladders (gold
heir), even if the Heir is not in a valid capture
location for the Queen.
Ending the Hand
The hand ends immediately when the Inevitable Empress is drawn.
No one else gets to
take a turn.
13
Scoring
Vye is played in a series of hands. When a
hand finishes, each player tallies his kingdom
score and a winner of that hand is declared.
Depending on desired play time, the number
of hands varies.
• Short: 1 hand
• Normal: 3 hands
• Long: 5 hands
• Epic: 7 hands
Kingdom Score: You earn a number of
points based on your single largest holding at the end of each hand. Count the
number of cards under your control that
share a border. You may have multiple
groups of connected cards, or holdings.
Your largest holding at the end of a hand is
your kingdom score for that hand.
14
In the example
shown, the player
with the blue token has a kingdom
score of 5, red’s is
6, and gold’s is 7.
Determining The
Winner: Once you
have played the desired number of hands, add up the total kingdom score for each player. The player with
the largest kingdom score wins the game.
Game Variant
Warlords (Luck of the Draw) - All Family
cards for all colors are shuffled into the deck.
Each player draws four cards during setup,
but does not have a sideboard. Players may
play any Family cards. Each player’s token
color does not need to match a family. Note
that this variant can be played with more
than 4 players.
15
Things you can do on your first turn:
• Play a Land card that matches one on
the table.
• Play a Family card and capture multiple other cards on the table.
• Consider capturing the center card as it
will become more difficult to capture
as the hand progresses.
What to do when your holdings are fractured?
It often happens that your holdings will be
fragmented as other players seek to expand
theirs. If this happens, do not despair. Keep
an eye on the deck and aggressively defend
a corner of the map if you can. In three and
four player games, it often happens that the
other players will duke it out and fragment
their holdings in the process, while you spend
a few turns quietly rebuilding. Planning a
comeback in the late game is a viable strategy
in games with three or more players.
16