Star Battle - a game invented by Merle Zimmermann Requirements: One deck of playing cards (four suits, 10 cards per suit plus three face cards ("Jack", "Queen", "King")). Four Different Kinds of Coins. A Large Table (or other playing-surface). These Instructions. Setup: 1. Shuffle the deck of cards. 2. Deal 8 (or more, if you like) cards to each player. 3. The Dealer puts down their highest valued card (King is high in this stage of the game) on the center of the table to represent the core of the galaxy (hereafter referred to as "The Galactic Core"). These Cards which make up the playfield shall be referred to as Systems (an abbreviation of Star System), sometime later in the rules. 4.0 The players take turns to put down a card that 'connect's to another card that is on the table using the following chart: Diamonds - Connects to all four adjecent cards. Hearts - Connects to the card(s) on the left and right of it. Spades - Connects to the card(s) to the top and bottom of itself. Clubs - Connects all adjcent cards (see diamonds). When the player's hands are exausted, each player chooses a card to be their Home Base, and puts a coin of type two, and a coin of type one on it. --Hereafter, coins of type two will be called "Dreadnoughts" and coins of type one "Scouts", and the coins in general will be called "Ships". Each player now draws a hand of cards equal to the number of Ships that they have in play (which should be two, if you have followed us up to this point). Round Sequence: - Aces are high if they are being discarded! - On each player's turn, they discard a card to do one of the following actions. 1. Build a Ship: If you discarded a card higher in value than one of the star stystems that you have a ship on, you can construct a ship according to the following table: Clubs - No Ships can be constructed on this type of card. ----- The following lines are crossed out and only apply to Revision 1 Games ----- Hearts - One Scout can be constructed on this card. Diamonds - One Dreadnought can be built. Spades - One Scout may be created. ----- Here ends the crossed-out line series ----- If the card discarded matches the location of the new ship in suit, the ship built is a Dreadnought, otherwise it is a Scout. 2. Move a Ship: You may use the card discarded to move a ship of any type to a card that is available if the card discarded is higher in value than the card the ship is moving to, AND the move is a legal one (according to the first table in the Setup section). NOTE: If a connection exists from the card you are leaving, the move is legal. 3. Battle Enemy Ships: Each player flips the coins that are attacking or being attacked; if any show heads, then they are destroyed, except for the Dreadnoughts, which shall be flipped immediately ONCE again, if the player desires it to be so. If all the coins in one of the Systems are destroyed, then a new card from the deck is dealt to the System that was emptied in battle. 4. Reconstruction: If one Ship is discarded in addition to the mandatory card discard, then the player may replace the card the Ship was resting on up until it's demise with the card that they discarded. Both players will then draw or discard cards until the number of cards in their hands are equal to the number of ships that each player has in play. (originally: Each player then draws cards (or discards) until the number of cards in his or her hand equals the number of ships that the player has in play. ) A player wins when they eliminate all of their opponent's ships, or if their ships occupy more than 3/4 of the galaxy, including The Galactic Core. If a player captures the center (by occupying it with at least one Ship), then they receive one (1) extra ship per turn at the beginning of each round. This extra Ship shall be placed according to the rules for the "1. Build a Ship" option.