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                                     MAGISTRATVM
                          A Group Projects game for the piecepack

Date                   1 November 2004 version 1.1
Number of Players      3 or 4
Game Length            90-120 min
Designers              Brad Johnson & Phillip Lerche
Copyright              ©2003 the designers
Equipment needed       a) 1 standard piecepack;
                       b) about $2 in change to represent gold (ideal breakdown would
                       be 50 x 1c, 10 x 5c, 10 x 10c;
                       c) tokens such as pieces from the game of Risk in 4 different
                       colors to use as influence markers (20 per player);
                       d) a printout of the Table of Offices and summary sheet from the
                       end of these rules

Introduction

Welcome to the Roman Republic! Each player will control a family of Patricians that will
vie for political control of the Rome and her Provinces using wealth and influence. The
player with the most influence in the Offices of Rome and the Provinces will win the
game.


Setup

The tiles represent the Roman Provinces. Each Province has a value from 1 (ace) to 6
(null). Shuffle the tiles face down. Randomly choose 6 tiles and turn them face up in 2
columns of 3 tiles each. These tiles form the contested Provinces of the electoral
circuit. Contested Provinces are those that have not held an election with a majority
outcome. Provinces that have been won by a player gaining a majority in an election are
considered decided, and are placed in the Family Estates. At the start of the game there
are no decided Provinces. The value of the tile is the amount of political influence the
province is worth at the end of the game. Keep the remaining tiles near the play area ­
they will enter the game when new provinces are added to the electoral circuit.

Each player takes the die, pawn and six coins of one suit. Each player also takes the 20
influence tokens in the color that matches (or is closest to) the color of his or her suit and
places them in front of him- or herself as the Family Estate, along with the matching
pawn which indicates the suit of the player. Place the gold as a central bank. If the bank
runs out of gold, simply add more.

The political maneuvering in Rome itself is played out through the political Offices table.
Place the Offices of Rome table near the Provinces so that everyone can clearly see it.
In four player games all of the spaces with a circle are available. If three are playing
then the gray circles are ignored. The values inside the circles indicate how much
influence a Magistrate is worth at the end of the game and during elections. The values
inside the arrows indicate how much gold it costs to move between the levels.

The coins represent Patricians and will be placed on the Offices table as Magistrates.
Magistrates are always initially placed suit-side up with the tick-mark pointing to 12
 
o'clock. A Magistrate with the tick-mark at 12 o'clock is available to take an action, and is
referred to as active. The values of the coins have no game relevance. If a Patrician is
recalled (from a decided Province or Office) then the Patrician is returned to its Family
Estate. Players start the game with all of their Patricians in the Family Estate. The
Offices give influence to the Magistrates and also provide special actions (see below).
Magistrates are turned 90 degrees to the left (so that the tick-mark is at 3 o'clock) after
certain actions have been taken during the game. A turned Magistrate is inactive.
Active Magistrates can also use their influence during the election phase (see below).
Magistrates can also be placed in decided provinces as Governors. Governors are
neither active nor inactive.

During setup, each player rolls a die. The player who rolls the highest (ace=1, null=6) is
the Prefect at the beginning of the game and places his or her pawn on the Prefect
space of the Offices. Re-roll if there are ties. All players now set their dice in their Family
Estates with the null-face uppermost ­ these are the Income dice. A player's Income die
provides gold to that player throughout the game. Each time a player uses his or her die
it is turned to the next lower number (null=6, ace=1). Once a die shows an ace (1) it
remains showing the ace value for the rest of the game.


Aim

The aim of the game is to win political control of the Republic. The two areas of play are
the Provinces in the electoral circuit and the Offices. Players will place influence tokens
in the Provinces in the hope of winning provincial elections which provide influence.
Magistrates and Governors also provide influence, and can be used to take special
actions which will help players defeat their rivals. The game ends once all 24 Provinces
have been decided, in which case the player with the most influence from both the
Provinces and the Offices wins.


Game play

The game is played in a series of turns. Each turn consists of the following phases:

    1. Income phase ­ all players receive gold income.
    1. Bidding phase ­ players bid for the privilege of the role of Prefect.
    1. Action phase ­ starting with the Prefect and moving clockwise, players carry out
       actions in the Provinces and Offices until all players pass in succession.
    1. Election phase ­ the Prefect determines where the electoral circuit will start, and
       an election is held in each contested Province.
    1. End of turn phase ­ several housekeeping actions occur


Income Phase

Players gain income in 4 ways: based on current influence in the contested Provinces;
from decided Provinces they govern; from the special action of the Quaestor Office; and
by using the Income die. Gold that is not used by the end of the turn is returned to
the bank, so players need to budget wisely for their campaigns in the Provinces and the
Offices during the action phase!
 
1. Provincial influence

For each influence token a player has adjacent to the Provinces that player receives 1
gold. On the first turn no player has any influence in the Provinces. The maximum
amount of gold that can be gained this way is therefore 20.

Example: Susan has 12 of her influence tokens placed adjacent to the Provinces, so she gains
12 gold from the bank. (Note that in the middle and late game it is often easier to count tokens in
the player Estate and subtract that number from 20 to calculate provincial income).

2. Governed Provinces

If a player has a Governor on a decided Province, and the Province has gold on it, the
gold is always available for the player to use throughout the turn. Provincial gold does
not have to be returned to the bank at the end of the turn. Players do not have to state
how much provincial gold they wish to use in a turn, it is always available to the player
as long as the Province is governed.

3. Quaestor Office Special Action

Most of the special actions associated with the Offices occur in the Offices phase,
however the Quaestor special function is associated with the income phase.

Each Quaestor earns its owner 3 gold. After using the special action, the Quaestor is
turned 90 degrees so that its tick-mark points to 3 o'clock. Players may choose not to
use the special action, leaving the Quaestor active for subsequent promotion or other
action.

4. Income die

The player may choose to take gold from the bank equal to the value showing on the
face of the die. The player then turns the die to show the next lowest number. Null = 6,
ace = 1. Note that while this is optional, during the first turn of the game players this is
the only way players can gain income.


Bidding Phase

The player who currently holds the office of Prefect begins an auction for the position of
Prefect in the coming turn. This position is powerful as it is the Prefect who decides
which Province will be the first to hold an election at the end of a turn. The Prefect is also
always the first player to take an action in each phase.

The current Prefect always bids first, and may bid any amount of gold he or she has,
including zero. Then, in clockwise order, each player bids an amount of gold, which must
be at least 1 more than the previous bid, or passes. Players may not bid more gold than
they currently possess. A player who passes may not re-enter the bidding. Once
everyone has passed, the player who bid the highest places his or her pawn and the
gold that he or she bid on the Prefect space of the Table of Offices. All other players
keep the gold that they bid. If the current Prefect bid zero and everyone subsequently
 
passes, then that player retains the Office of Prefect, and there will be no gold
associated with the position.


Action Phase

In clockwise order, starting with the Prefect, each player carries out one of the possible
actions until all players consecutively pass. Play continues in clockwise order as long as
at least one player wishes to and is able to conduct an action. Players may take any of
the following actions, which may be repeated by the same player later in the same
phase.

The possible actions are:

    1.   Pay to place one or more influence tokens adjacent to a Province
    2.   Promote a Patrician to an Office
    3.   Promote an active Magistrate within the Offices
    4.   Use an active Magistrate to take a special Office action
    5.   Appoint an active Magistrate as Governor in one of your decided Provinces
    6.   Transfer a Governor to your Family Estate
    7.   Pass

    1. Pay to place one or more influence tokens adjacent to a Province

    Each influence token counts as 1 vote in an election. The 1st token a player places
    next to a single province costs 1 gold. Players pay 2 gold for the 2nd token placed, 3
    gold for the 3rd, 4 gold for the 4th, etc. If a player has placed all of his or her tokens, or
    cannot afford to place more, then that player may no longer choose this action.
    Players may place 1 or more tokens when taking this action.

    Influence token placement has one restriction: if influence tokens have already been
    placed in a Province, when another player wishes to place tokens he or she must
    equal or exceed the highest number of tokens any single player has already placed
    in the Province. This rule only applies when a player takes this action, and does not
    apply during elections or when taking special Magistrate actions (see below).

Example: It is the first turn of the game and Susan won the auction for Prefect. She places one of
her influence tokens adjacent to a 6-Province. This costs her 1 gold, as it is the first token she is
placing in this particular Province. Paul places 2 tokens in the same Province. He pays 1+2=3
gold. In order to place tokens in the 6-Province, Quentin must now place at least 2 tokens there
(to equal or better Paul's influence). He decides to place 1 token in a 4-Province instead, paying 1
gold. Rebecca pays 3 gold and places 2 of her tokens in the 6-Province where Susan and Paul
placed tokens. Susan places 1 token in the 4-Province alongside Quentin's token, which costs
her 1 gold.

On a later turn in the game, Susan has 6 tokens in a Province, Rebecca has 4, and Paul and
Quentin have none. In order for Rebecca to place tokens in the Province she must place at least
                                                                                           th
2 of them to match Susan's 6. This will cost Rebecca 5+6=11 gold, as they would be her 5 and
  th
6 tokens assigned to the Province. If Susan decides to place her 7th token there it will cost her 7
gold. If Quentin (or Paul) decides to try and compete in the Province he must place at least 6
tokens there, at a cost of 1+2+3+4+5+6=21 gold.
 
   2. Promote a Patrician to an open Tribune, Quaestor or Aedile Office space

   If there is an available space in the Tribune or Quaestor row of the Offices table, a
   Patrician from the Family Estate may be placed there at a cost of 1 gold. The
   Patrician is placed in the inactive position. Patricians can be placed directly to an
   available Aedile Office, but the payment is cumulative, i.e. the cost to promote a
   Patrician from the Family Estate to Aedile is 1+2=3 gold. This action may not be
   used to place a patrician any higher in the table than the rank of Aedile, and cannot
   be chosen if there are no available spaces at the level of Quaestor, Tribune and
   Aedile.

   Note that in a 4-player game all of the office spaces are available. If three are
   playing, the gray spaces are not in play

   3. Promote a Magistrate within the Offices

   An active Magistrate may be moved from its current Office to a higher Office by
   paying the cost to advance shown in the arrow. Magistrates can be promoted more
   than one level, but the payment is cumulative. eg The cost to promote a Magistrate
   from Quaestor to Praetor is 2+4=6 gold. If a vacant space exists in the new level, the
   Magistrate is simply placed there in the inactive state. A vacant space in the new
   level need not exist for a Magistrate to be promoted. If no space exists the promotion
   will result in the displacement of a rival Magistrate downwards in the Office table.
   The player owning the Magistrate that is moving up chooses which rival Magistrate
   will be displaced downwards. When a displacement occurs as the result of a
   Magistrate being promoted several levels, the Magistrate chosen to be displaced is
   moved down only 1 level, and if this results in a further displacement the player
   owning the first displaced Magistrate now decides which rival Magistrate will be
   secondarily displaced. Both active and inactive Magistrates can be displaced,
   however displaced Magistrates always retain their status. Displaced Quaestors or
   Tribunes are returned to the Family Estates. Note that Magistrates are always made
   inactive after they have been promoted.


Example: Susan wishes to promote her Magistrate from Tribune to Consul. She pays 2+4+6=12
gold to the bank. The two Consul spaces are occupied by Magistrates belonging to Rebecca and
Paul. Susan chooses to displace Rebecca's Consul. Rebecca then moves her Magistrate down
one level to Praetor. The four Praetor spaces are currently occupied, and Rebecca takes
revenge by displacing Susan's Praetor. Susan then must place her Praetor one level lower. She
places her displaced Praetor as an Aedile.

   4. Take one special Magistrate action

   The Offices have special actions associated with them. To take a special Magistrate
   action the Magistrate must be active. After the action is taken the Magistrate must be
   made inactive.

   The available Magistrate actions are:

   Tribune ­ place one influence token in the Province of your choice at no cost
 
    Quaestor ­ take 3 gold during the income phase
    Aedile ­ move one influence token owned by any player from one contested
    province to another
    Praetor ­ return up to 2 influence tokens (belonging to any player) from any single
    Province to their owner(s)
    Consul ­ recall one Magistrate (belonging to any player) from Office or one
    Governor from a Province (You may not recall a Dictator or Censor)
    Censors have no special function other than the influence they provide.
    The special function of the Dictator occurs during the election phase (see below).

    5. Appoint a Governor

    Move one of your active Magistrates from an Office to a decided Province you
    control that does not already have a Governor.

    6. Transfer a Governor to your Family Estate

    Move one of your Governors from one of your decided provinces to your Family
    Estate

    7. Pass

    Passing does not prevent a player from subsequently taking an action if they wish,
    however once all players have passed the action phase immediately ends.


Election Phase

There are three parts to the election phase.

    1. If the Dictator's Office is occupied there is a Dictatorial `election'
    2. The Prefect then declares where the electoral circuit will begin
    3. The electoral circuit occurs with each province holding an election in turn

1. Dictatorial election.

If there is a Dictator, then the player controlling the Dictator must choose 1 province
where he or she has at least 1 influence token, which the player automatically wins, i.e.
the rules for normal elections do not apply. The influence tokens of the all players are
immediately returned to their Estates. The decided Province is removed from the central
area and placed as part of that player's Estate. Any gold that was on the Province
remains there. The Magistrate in the Dictator position is then placed as Governor in the
won province or returned to the Family Estate, i.e. after the election the player's
Magistrate never remains as Dictator. If the player who controls the position of Dictator
has no influence tokens in the provinces then he or she moves the Magistrate in the
Dictator's Office to the Family estate and no election occurs.

If there is no Dictator, then the phase starts with step 2.
 
2. The Prefect chooses a starting Province

Elections will be held in every remaining contested Province. The Prefect must choose a
Province in which to start the election. The Prefect takes the gold from the Office of
Prefect and his or her pawn and places them on the Province where the electoral circuit
will start.

3. Election

Starting with the Prefect's chosen Province and proceeding clockwise through the
Provinces in the central area, each Province will hold an election. An election is won
when one player has an absolute majority of influence in the Province and that majority
is at least equal to the value of the Province. A maximum of 1 election is held in a
province per turn, so some provinces may hold elections several times in a game before
a clear winner emerges. Each influence token present in a province counts 1 vote.
Players may also use influences of Office by making one of their active Magistrates from
the Offices inactive, adding the influence of that Magistrate to the vote in a single
Province.

If no player has an absolute majority of influence in the Province then it remains
contested until next turn, however the player with the least influence in that province
must remove all of his or her influence tokens from that Province. The removed tokens
may be distributed among any of the remaining contested Provinces or returned to the
Family Estate. Redistribution is done in clockwise order, starting with the player to the
Prefect's left. If more than one player is tied for least influence in a Province then the
tokens of all tied players are removed from that Province, unless all players are tied, in
which case no tokens are removed. The Prefect thus chooses last when redistributing
tokens, which can be a significant advantage.

Players may not redistribute tokens to Provinces that have already held an election in
this phase. Thus the tokens of the losing player/s in the last election of this phase are
returned to the Estates. The Prefect's choice of starting Province can thus have a major
impact on the outcome of the election phase.

If one player has an absolute majority (i.e. more influence when tokens and Magistrate
influence is added than all of the other contending players combined) AND has a
number of tokens equal to or more than the value of the Province, then that player wins
the Province and the tile is moved to the player's Estate. All of the winner's influence
tokens are returned to the winner's Estate and the losing player/s may place their
influence tokens from that Province in any of the other contested provinces that have not
held an election this phase, or return them to their Estates.

Note: it is often beneficial to be on the losing side of an election, as your tokens are
distributed to other Provinces at no cost. However do not lose sight of the ultimate goal
which is to score the highest influence at the end of the game.

An example of the start of an election phase follows on the next 2 pages.
 
Example of play in the election phase part way through a game:

There is no Dictator, so the phase starts with Susan (playing black) who is the Prefect
selecting a starting Province.

Susan selects the 4-arms Province, and places the gold and Black pawn from the
Prefect space on the province tile.




The first election is held in the 4-arms Province. Susan has 5 influence tokens and Paul
(playing green) has 4. Paul has no active Magistrates to use to increase influence in the
Province, so Susan wins the Province since she has an absolute majority of tokens (5
out of a total of 9) and she has at least 4 tokens in the province. Susan removes the
Province with its gold from the electoral circuit and places it in her Family Estate. The 5
black tokens are returned to her Estate. Paul may now place his losing influence tokens
in any of the remaining contested provinces, which costs him nothing. He places all 4
green tokens adjacent to the 6-moon province.
Susan then moves to the next Province in clockwise order, the 5-crown province, where
the next election is held.
 
Quentin, playing blue, has the most influence tokens in the 5-crown province with 4,
however it is not an absolute majority since Rebecca (red) and Paul (green) have a
combined 6 tokens present. In order to win a province a player must also have at least
as many influence tokens present as the value of the province. Regardless, an election
is still held in the province. The player(s) with the least amount of influence must
redistribute their tokens. Rebecca could decide to use her active Tribune to add 1
influence to level with Quentin, however she feels that redistributing the tokens would be
best. Paul has no active magistrates and must now redistribute his tokens. Both
Rebecca and Paul decide to move their tokens to the 6-moon province.

After redistribution, the 4 Blue tokens will remain next to the 5-crown province and the
Prefect pawn will move to the highly contested 6-moon province, where the next election
will be held. Following the election, the Prefect will move in turn to the 3-crown, 2-crown
and finally the ace-moon province, holding an election in each. The election phase ends
once each province in the electoral circuit has held an election.


End of turn phase

At the end of the turn three housekeeping actions occur.

1. New Provinces

If any Provinces have been decided after the election, the Prefect replaces each one
with a face down tile.

If there are not enough face down tiles to replace the decided provinces, then there is
one final round of elections. The Prefect decides which Province will hold an election
first. In this final electoral circuit the winner of a Province is the player with the most
influence, rather than the majority. If players are tied for most influence then the
Province is discarded and not scored, although players may redistribute tokens as for a
 
standard election. After all Provinces have been won or discarded, the game ends, and
scoring occurs.

2. Activate Magistrates

All Magistrates are made active by turning them so their tick-marks are at 12 o'clock
before the start of the next turn.

3. Surrender unused gold

Players may not carry any gold in their Estates over to the next turn unless it is on a
decided Province ­ all gold is now returned to the bank, and a new Income Phase
begins.


Winning the game

Players calculate their influence totals by adding the value of each Province they have
won plus the influence value of each Magistrate they control, regardless of whether the
Magistrate is active or inactive. Governors provide influence equal to the provinces they
are situated in. The player with the most influence wins. If there is a tie then the player
with the most influence in the Offices of Rome wins. If players are still tied, then the
player with the highest ranked Magistrate wins.


Bribery and player deals

Not unlike modern times, Roman politics was fraught with deal making, bribery and
backstabbing. In Magistratvm players may negotiate with each other and make deals; of
course such deals are never binding. Gold may change hands, but players may not
exchange their influence tokens or patricians as part of a deal. Players may, if they
wish, use a Magistrate's influence during the election phase to support a rival's
influence, but may not transfer influence tokens. Players can, of course, agree not to
make deals during the game.


                             ***************************************

Designer major contributions:

Brad Johnson - idea for Roman Republic setting, research of office titles, idea for
bribery, division of influence, streamlining of action round, re-organization of office table,
general rules tweaking

Phillip Lerche - idea for election game, turn phases, function of offices and prefect, rules
editing, general rules tweaking


                            **************************************
 
Copyright © 2004 by 1, 2. Permission is granted to copy, distribute
and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html.
 
PREFECT               DICTATOR

                                                              CENSOR

                                                                  6
                              8

                          CONSUL
                                                  6
                      4               4                           6

                              6

                              PRAETOR

                  3               3                   3

                  4                                           4

                              AEDILE

          2               2               2                   2

              2                                           2

         QUAESTOR                                 TRIBUNE

     1        1           1                   1           1           1

              1                                               1


          FAMILY ESTATES
 
Magistratvm - Summary Sheet


Phases of a turn

   1. Income phase ­ all players receive gold income
   2. Bidding phase ­ players bid for the privilege of the role of Prefect.
   3. Action phase ­ starting with the Prefect and moving clockwise, players carry out
      actions in the Provinces and Offices until all players pass in succession.
      Available actions:
          a) place 1 or more influence tokens adjacent to a province
          b) promote a Patrician
          c) promote a Magistrate
          d) appoint a Magistrate as Governor of one of your decided provinces
          e) take a special Magistrate action
          f) pass
   4. Election phase ­ possible Dictatorial election; the Prefect determines where the
      electoral circuit will start; an election is held in each contested Province.
   5. End of turn phase ­ new provinces placed in the electoral circuit if necessary, all
      unused gold returned to the bank, all Magistrates made active.

Special Magistrate Actions

Magistrates must be in the active position in order to take an action, and are made
inactive after taking the action.

   Tribune ­ place one influence token in the Province of your choice at no cost
   Quaestor ­ take 3 gold during the income phase
   Aedile ­ move one influence token owned by any player from one contested
   province to another
   Praetor ­ return up to 2 influence tokens (belonging to any player) from any single
   Province to their owner(s)
   Consul ­ recall one Magistrate (belonging to any player) from Office or one
   Governor from a Province (You may not recall a Dictator or Censor)
   Censors have no special function other than the influence they provide.
   The special function of the Dictator occurs during the election phase.