Vinci II

Introduction

A game of Vinci spans the growth and decline of civilizations in Europe from Prehistoric times to the High Middle Ages.

During this long period of history, new tribes and civilizations made their mark upon the continent in many ways. Wandering into Europe from across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Ural River; or rising from the ashes of previous civilizations. The civilizations spread, made war upon each other, assimilated each other, and eventually vanished to make room for new and growing empires.

The players in Vinci control the destinies of several civilizations, each with different characteristics. Each civilization quickly grows into a vast empire, but the expansion is not infinite. Inevitably, there comes a time when a civilization can no longer grow, and falls into decline. Once this happens, the player ignores the failing empire, and chooses a new civilization to start anew. On Yucata, Vinci supports 2 to 5 players, depending on the map.

Contents

- Several game boards depicting Europe and different regions, divided into many provinces

- Double sided wooden pawns in 5 colors, representing population. One side for active civilizations and another for civilizations on decline

- Brown wooden pawns representing neutral civilizations which cover the board at the beginning of the game.

- White wooden pawns representing fortresses.

- 35 civilization tiles (larger counters) which show the different abilities of a civilization

- 1 cloth bag from which to draw civilization tiles at random

- Coin tokens to mark civilizations skipped.

The Basics of Vinci

The main object is to score as many victory points as possible. The more provinces controlled by a player’s population, the more points the player receives.

A civilization begins with a specific number of population pawns. It will never receive more (unless noted by a Civilization Tile, see below). The pawns allow the player to expand into new provinces. To take over a new province, a varying number of pawns are needed depending on the terrain of the province (mountains and forests offer natural defense and therefore require more pawns), the number of defenders already there and the skills of the attacking and defending civilizations. At the end of each expansion turn, the player redistributes the pawns of the active empire among its conquered provinces to strengthen its defenses, then scores victory points. On later turns, the player does the same thing, except that the civilization now has fewer pawns available in order to conquer new provinces and defend against encroaching empires.

When a player decides that his civilization has become too weak, the player can declare the civilization as being in decline. The player then chooses a new civilization which will enter play on the next turn. The provinces still held by the civilization in decline continue to score points for the player, until the provinces are conquered by other players.

At the beginning of each turn, there is an important choice to make: is it worth trying to expand the current empire, or should you choose a new one?

The game continues until a fixed number of rounds, which depends on the number of players:

End of the Game

Each new civilization has 2 special abilities (there are 35 different possibilities) which give the civilization various advantages (some civilizations score points more easily, and some are more stable).

Over the course of the game, each player will control several civilizations, each from its formation through its decline.

Setting Up

1. Each player chooses a color and starts with 5 victory points.

2. A brown pawn is placed in every province on the game board, except the gray mountain provinces, yellow desert provinces and in the blue water zones (rivers and seas). These pawns represent the early inhabitants of Europe and are not controlled by any players. These indigenous peoples will defend the provinces that they occupy against the arrival of the players’ civilizations.

3. The civilization tiles are placed in the bag. Twelve of these tiles are then drawn at random in pairs. The first pair is placed on the spaces marked ‘I’ on the top of the board, the second pair is placed on ‘II’, and so forth. Each of these pairs of tiles represents the special abilities of one of six civilizations ready to enter the game.

The available tiles depend on the setup: Diplomacy is omitted with two players. The Original map omits Drakkar and Camels; Mare Nostrum with three or five players omits Camels. The invitation option “Without Nomads / Culture” omits both Nomadic and Culture.

4. The starting player is chosen at random (players will then take their turns in clockwise order).

5. Each player takes his first turn, which consists of choosing their first civilization (see Choose a new Civilization below), and only in this first turn, the player must immediately start the conquest phase.

Rules of the Game

Choose a new Civilization

Players choose a new civilization at the start of the game, and periodically during the game when they decide to let their current empire slip into decline.

Start of the game

On his first turn, or after putting a civilization in decline, the player chooses a new civilization from the six available at the top of the board.

If the player chooses the first civilization (the pair of tiles in space ‘I’), no victory points are gained or lost for its position. Any coins already on the chosen civilization are still gained.

If instead the player passes over the first civilization, and chooses the second civilization (space ‘II’), the player must pay one victory point. Each civilization further along the track costs an additional point (so civilization ‘III’ costs 2 points, civilization ‘IV’ costs 3 points, and so on.).

For each civilization that was passed over, the player places a coin token on it. Each one of these tokens represents one victory point.

For example, if a player chooses civilization ‘IV’, the player pays 3 victory points (move back the scoring marker), and places a coin token on civilizations ‘I’, ‘II’, and ‘III’. There may be several coin tokens on a civilization. When a player chooses a civilization with one or more coin tokens on it, the player gains 1 victory point for each token on the civilization.

Once a player chooses his civilization, that player takes the two civilization tiles, removes any coin tokens that were on the civilization (taking as many points), and shifts the higher-numbered civilization pairs (along with any pawns placed with them) to the left to fill the vacant space. Two new civilization tiles are drawn and placed on the ‘VI’ space (giving the next player a choice between 6 civilizations.). On Yucata, the replacement pair remains hidden and undrawn until the player explicitly reveals it or finishes the turn. Revealing new tiles commits the preceding actions, so they can no longer be undone. You must already have enough victory points to pay for the skipped civilizations; coins on the chosen pair cannot finance that payment.

Pawns of a new Civilization

Each time a player chooses a new civilization, the player receives a number of pawns in that player’s color. This number is the sum of the two red numbers on the civilization tiles for that civilization plus extra pawns depending on the map and the number of players.

The base population is added to the two red numbers whenever a new civilization is chosen. “—” marks an unsupported player count. Mare Nostrum uses the map variant matching the player count.

Example: In a 3 player game on original map, the civilization ‘Mountaineering + Galleys’ will give a player 18 pawns:

4 for Galleys + 4 for Mountaineering + 10 because there are 3 players.
In a 4 player game, the civilization would start with 14 pawns.

These pawns are all that the civilization will ever receive; no new pawns are added on future turns. (Exceptions: Medicine, Culture and conversion through Religion.)

Note: a player is not limited to the 25 pawns provided with the game. In the rare case that more are needed players can supplement their pawns by adding those of an unused color or the brown pawns.

The effects of the 35 civilization tiles are explained later in the rules and on the summary sheets.

Course of a Turn

On each turn, the player must choose between two options: whether to expand the current empire, or put it into decline and choose a new civilization to start on the next turn. The two options, and their basic steps, are listed below. Each option is fully described in detail below that.

An expansion turn consists of these phases:

1. Collecting pawns or choosing a starting province.
2. Expanding the empire, heeding the rule of cohesion.
3. Reorganizing pawns and checking cohesion.
4. Counting Victory Points.

A declining turn consists of these phases:

1. Removing pawns from the player’s previous empire in decline (if there is one).
2. Removing all but one pawn per province in the newly declining empire (except with Philosophy).
3. Placing a ‘declining’ counter in each province.
4. Keeping the two civilization tiles with the declining empire; only their decline effects remain active.
5. Counting Victory Points.
6. Choosing a new civilization.

Expansion Turn

1. Collecting pawns or choosing a starting province

Collecting pawns

At the start of each turn, the player collects pawns from each of the occupied provinces of his active empire, leaving one pawn behind in each province. The player may remove all of the pawns from a province, but in doing so gives up control of the province. A province thus vacated will belong to nobody and will cost its normal amount to re-conquer it. The pawns taken from the board can then be used to expand into new provinces - so the more an empire expands, the less strength it has for further expansion.

Choosing a starting province

When a player is entering a new civilization onto the board, all of the starting pawns for that empire are available to expand. (See Expansion below).

A new civilization enters from the edge of the board. It grabs a foothold in one province, then expands from that starting province into adjacent provinces.

The starting province can be a land province that touches any edge of the board, or a land province that can be reached from the edge of the board by crossing only one sea (dark blue) region. Thus, a player can start in Scotland or Ireland, but not in France or Northern Italy. The sea regions (dark blue) are never occupied. They can be crossed in order to start a new civilization, but are otherwise impassable (exception: see the Astronomy civilization tile.) On maps with controllable light-blue water provinces, an eligible border water province can also be the starting province.

The starting province must be conquered at its applicable cost, just like any later province (see Expansion and the special conquest abilities).

2. Expanding the empire, heeding the rule of cohesion.

Expansion

Once the starting province is conquered, the civilization can expand into adjacent provinces, and then keep expanding from the newly-conquered provinces. Any province that has been conquered can immediately be used as a base for new expansion.

Note: Original map considered sea regions as part of the own provinces, but new maps made them independent regions.

Pawns are not moved around on the board. In order to take control of a new province, each player uses pawns from his hand and adds them to the board in the new province (These pawns are either the civilization’s starting pawns or the pawns just collected from the board.). The placed pawns must remain in the province until reorganization, or until pawns are collected for Army’s second expansion.

Cost of a new Province:

To take control of a province, the player must use as many pawns as the province’s defense requires.

The Defense of the province is calculated as follows (defense can never be less than 1):

Base Defense from Terrain

+1 pawn for every neutral or enemy pawn currently residing in the province.

+1 if the province has a Fort (white disc).

-1 if the expanding player controls a mountain province adjacent to the target province.

Note: On some maps there are light blue regions that represent controllable seas. They have the same defence and rules as the rivers.

When an active civilization is conquered normally or through Espionage, it loses one pawn permanently (exceptions: Nomadic and Drakkar). This pawn is removed from the board and returned to the general stock. Neutral inhabitants also lose their pawn. Any surviving active defenders are returned to other provinces controlled by their civilization after the attacker’s reorganization and before scoring.

(Yucata implementation): Surviving active defenders are distributed automatically, one at a time, to their least defended active province after the attacker’s reorganization and before scoring. Ties are resolved by province number. With Warband, surviving defenders remain off board until their own turn. A conquered declining province loses all its pawns, including any retained through Philosophy; it counts as one defeated pawn for Culture and, if it belongs to an opponent, one point for Slavery.

If a defending civilization loses all of its provinces, any surviving pawns are removed from the board and may be used at the start of the player’s next turn to enter the board. These pawns enter the board as if the player were starting a new civilization. However, no additional pawns are added to this re-entering civilization.

Attacking civilizations never lose pawns.

Rule of Cohesion.

At the end of the expansion phase, a civilization must be connected; that is, the provinces controlled by the civilization must be contiguous (it must be possible to travel between any two of the civilization’s provinces by moving only through provinces of that civilization). This rule is only applied at the end of a player’s turn. If a civilization is split by attacks from the other players, the controlling player of the split empire gets a chance to reunite the civilization when it is once again his turn.

If a player does not establish, or cannot reestablish cohesion by retaking some provinces, the player may abandon some or all of the provinces when collecting pawns at the start of the turn. (The player may collect those pawns and use them for expansion.)

If after expanding an empire, it is not cohesive, the owning player must reorganize his pawns in such a way that cohesion is reestablished. Players must choose which portion of their non-cohesive empire to abandon, remove the pawns from that portion, and place them back anywhere in a cohesive portion.

The rule of cohesion does not apply to civilizations in decline, which may be broken up into several parts.

3. Reorganizing pawns

Once a player finishes conquering, the player may freely redistribute all of the pawns of the active civilization among the provinces controlled by that civilization. This is done to defend certain provinces.

All of the pawns of a civilization must be placed on the board, including any leftovers which were not used for expansion (there are often only one or two pawns left, because expansions cost dearly.)

The player must leave at least one pawn in each province.

4. Counting Victory Points

At the end of the turn, the player scores one point for each province controlled by his civilizations (including his declining civilization, if any). Mountain, desert and river provinces, however, score 0 points. The scoring marker is advanced around the outside of the board to indicate the new score.

Note: Some civilization tiles modify the points scored by a civilization.

Declining Turn

At the beginning of any turn, a player may abandon his current empire and declare it to be in decline.

1. On Yucata, both civilization tiles stay with the declining civilization, including tiles without a decline effect. They return to the bag only when this player next declares a civilization in decline.

(Yucata implementation):

Only Agriculture, Livestock Breeding, Mining and Port Building with a broken-column symbol continue to give scoring bonuses. Fortification keeps its forts, and Philosophy keeps the population pawns.

2. A player may not have more than one civilization in decline. Any remaining pawns from an earlier declining civilization owned by the player are removed from the board (along with the decline counters.) and returned to the player’s stock.

3. The player removes all but one pawn from each of the newly declining empire’s provinces and adds a ‘Decline’ counter to mark the age of decline for that civilization. With Philosophy, all pawns remain instead.

4. The player scores points. The decline bonuses described above still apply; other active scoring bonuses no longer apply.

5. As on the first turn, the player then chooses a new civilization. This new civilization will be added to the board on the player’s next turn, following the rules for starting a new civilization. During a declining turn, there is no expansion.

A civilization in decline can have remnants on the board for several turns if it is not absorbed by another empire. Each player scores points for the provinces of two civilizations - his active empire, and his declining one (if any).

Note: These two civilizations are treated separately; civilization tiles of the active civilization do not benefit the declining one, and vice versa. The active civilization and the declining civilization of the same player may not come in contact. A player may conquer a province adjacent to his declining empire, but the adjacent provinces of the declining empire must be immediately cleared (the pawns removed from the board and returned to the player’s stock). THIS IS ONLY APPLIED TO NON-RIVER PROVINCES. You can be adjacent to your declined provinces as long as any of the provinces (active or decline) is a river.

Note: This does make it easier for the active empire to claim the old territory, as the province will then be empty.

Special Case: It is possible that an active civilization can lose all of its pawns through enemy attacks. The empire can be preserved (perhaps to keep an existing declining empire intact) or declared in decline. It still takes, as usual, a complete turn to put the empire in decline. If placed in decline, the previous declining empire is still removed from the board - even though the new declining empire has no provinces. For one turn, the player will be completely off the board.

End of the Game

The game ends when the game reaches a fixed number of rounds:

The player with the most points wins the game. If you finish on equal points, it is a tie. There are no tiebreakers.

Civilization Tiles.

These tiles represent the abilities of each civilization. Playing to the strengths of your population is one of the keys to victory. All of the modifiers on these tiles are cumulative.

Ground rule: civilization tiles supersede the normal rules.

If they are marked with the symbol of a broken column, the Agriculture, Livestock Breeding, Mining and Port Building tiles remain active during an empire’s decline.

Agriculture. Plain provinces (yellow) earn +1 victory point. Agriculture comes in two varieties, one with, and one without the symbol of the broken column.

Livestock Breeding. Meadow land provinces (light green) earn +1 victory point. Livestock Breeding comes in two varieties, one with, and one without the symbol of the broken column.

Mining. Mining provinces (with a pickaxe) earn +2 victory points. Mining comes in two varieties, one with, and one without the symbol of the broken column.

Port Building. Port provinces (with an anchor) earn +1 victory point. Port Building comes in two varieties, one with and one without the symbol of the broken column.

Currency. Each province in the empire earns +1 victory point (including the mountains and deserts, but no rivers).

Slavery. Each enemy or neutral pawn eliminated from a province (except Fortification pawns) earns +1 victory point. Only pawns that are removed from the board, and returned to the player’s (or the neutral) stock pile are counted, not those that are relocated. This modifier applies to enemy pawns from civilizations in decline as well.

Espionage. Once per turn, a province can be conquered at the cost of two pawns, regardless of how heavily it is defended. All other modifiers are ignored (including province type, other civilization tiles, etc.). Legions may pay part of these two pawns, but at least one normal pawn is required. This ability may only be used once per turn, including both expansions with Army. Reachability and peace still apply.

Legions. The civilization receives seven temporary extra pawns for conquests at the start of its turn. Each normal conquest or Espionage conquest requires at least one normal population pawn. Used Legions are removed immediately and cannot be reused that turn; unused Legions expire before reorganization.

Fortification. Place a fort token (white disc) on each non-river province. Fort tokens give +1 defense and remain in decline.

Militia. Place a fort token (white disc) on each non-river province. Fort tokens give +1 defense and are removed when the civilization goes into decline.

Mountaineering. Conquering a mountain province (gray) costs one pawn less. These provinces also earn +1 victory point.

Galleys. Expanding into a province next to a river or a sea costs one pawn less.

Weapons. Each expansion into a new province costs one pawn less.

Astronomy. Expansion may take place across one or more sea (dark blue) regions. Example: Ireland to Norway, then to Southern Italy. Two provinces of an empire with Astronomy are considered adjacent (for the rule of cohesion) if they are connected by one or more sea regions.
Note: Light blue sections of coastal provinces are not considered sea; these may be crossed by anyone.

Barbarians. No special abilities, but there are a lot of them.

Diplomacy. At the start of a turn, this player may choose one opponent with whom they are at peace. Neither player may attack the other until the start of the Diplomacy player’s next turn. This applies only to active empires; declining empires may still be attacked normally. The opponent with whom you are at peace may be changed each turn, or you may choose no player if you wish. You may also choose to be at peace with a player who is not currently on the board. On Yucata, explicitly choose an opponent or continue without peace before conquering.

Heritage. The active empire (with Heritage) may expand into provinces adjacent to the player’s own declining empire without removing pawns from the declining empire. If the player wishes, he may expand into his own declining empire’s province following the normal rules of conquest. Conquering your own declining provinces is also allowed without Heritage; Heritage prevents the automatic clearing of adjacent declining provinces.

Medicine. The civilization receives an extra pawn at the start of the reorganization phase, including on its first turn.

Messengers. This civilization can ignore the rule of cohesion. Conquests still follow the normal expansion rules.

Rebirth. The decline for this civilization is declared at the end of a normal game turn, after counting victory points (instead of at the beginning of the next). However, the victory points are counted only once. The player therefore does not spend an entire turn choosing his next civilization.

Revolutionaries. This civilization may start in any province, not just on the edge of the board. This starting province must be conquered normally. Bonuses from the civilization’s second tile, such as Mountaineering or Galleys, are still applied where appropriate.

Nomadic. An active civilization loses no pawn when conquered normally or through Espionage; all defenders survive. This protection ends in decline and does not prevent conversion through Religion.

Culture. At the start of reorganization, gain one pawn for every two population pawns defeated this turn (rounded down). Neutral pawns and conquests of your own declining civilization also count. Each conquered declining province counts as one defeated pawn, even if Philosophy left several pawns there. Conversions and surviving defenders do not count.

Religion. Conquer a province for 0 pawns and place a new pawn of your color in it from the stock. The province must be within conquest range and contain exactly one population pawn of an opponent’s active civilization. Forts do not prevent conversion. Use this ability once per own turn against each opponent, including both expansions with Army.

Drakkar. Conquering a river province costs one pawn less. An active civilization loses no pawn when conquered normally or through Espionage in a river province. This protection ends in decline and does not prevent conversion through Religion.

Philosophy. Keep all pawns on the board when going into decline (may reorganize before going into decline).

Fishing. Each active province next to a river or sea earns an extra 0.5 victory points. Add the bonuses for all eligible provinces, then round down the total; do not round each province separately.

Army. The player may take a second expansion phase, collecting all but one pawn from each active province again. Reorganization, Medicine, Culture and scoring occur only once, after expansion is complete.

Warband. The player leaves only one pawn in each province during reorganization, the other pawns are off board until next turn.

Cavalry. Each expansion into new plain, meadow and normal provinces costs one pawn less.

Camels. Each expansion into new Desert provinces costs one pawn less. Get 1 Victory Point for each desert province.

Additional notes

Army: You are only able to pick up tokens leaving a province empty at the start of the first expansion. So you can't expand into/from a province in the first expansion and then empty it at the start of the second expansion.

+

Army + Legions: The 7 extra armies are only available once, not for each expansion.

+

Religion + Culture: When this player converts a pawn using religion, it does not count towards the culture bonus.

+

Religion + Slavery: When this player converts a pawn using religion, they do not earn the victory point from slavery.

v

Religion v Diplomacy: A player with religion is able to convert the pawn of a player with Diplomacy who has declared them to be at peace.

v

Religion v Nomadic: The religion attack converts the pawn, so the nomadic player does lose a pawn.

v

Culture v Nomadic: When the culture player attacks the nomadic player, no pawn is removed so the culture player does not get any culture bonus.

v

Slavery v Nomadic: When the slavery player attacks the nomadic player, no pawn is removed so the slavery player does not earn the victory point from slavery.