Ice Colony

Under development

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This game is currently under development, in the Nearly Complete stage. Feedback is strongly encouraged! Feel free to give comments on game design or structure on the talk page.

Ice Colony
Blake Cetnar
A game of trying to build up your colony and take control of a variety of terrain and eliminate your opponent.
:Players	Players:	2 - 4
:Time	Length:	Long
:Complexity	Complexity:	Medium
Trios per color:		5
Number of colors:		10
Pyramid trios:
Monochr. stashes:		10
Five-color sets:
- - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - -
opaque bag, 2 six-sided dice, 1 5x5 Volcano Board, 4 poker chips (or other tokens)
Setup time:		5 Min
Playing time:		45 Min - 60 Min
Strategy depth:		Medium
Random chance:		Medium
Game mechanics:		Direct conflict, Elimination
Theme:		The wikipage input value is empty (e.g. <code>SomeProperty::, [[]]</code>) and therefore it cannot be used as a name or as part of a query condition.
BGG Link:
Status: Nearly Complete (v1.0), Year released: 2011
Created in July, 2011

Ice Colony

Game design by Blake Cetnar, 2011
Last Edited 7.4.2011

What You Need

• 5 Xeno stashes
• 5 Rainbow stashes
• 1 opaque bag
• 2 six-sided dice
• 1 5x5 Volcano board
• 4 poker chips, or other tokens

Overview

To collect the most territories by expanding your own empire and taking over opposing territories.

Setup

Take all pieces of colors: White, Orange, Purple, and Light Blue and set them aside. These will be the pieces the players will use. If there are not 4 players, set aside the unused colors. From the remaining colors take all 3-pip pieces (referred to as terrain pieces) and place them in the bag. Set aside the 1-pip and 2-pip pieces of those colors. Starting with one corner of the board, each player draws one random terrain piece from the bag and places it on the board and proceeds to fill each space in that row and continues for all rows until the entire board is covered. All unused terrain pieces in the bag are set aside. Dice off to determine which player is first. Starting with the first player, each player takes one of the 1-pip pieces from his pool and places it on one of the squares of the board. Each player’s piece must be placed at least 2 squares away from any other players piece.

Play

If there are more than 2 players, at the start of every round of play all players dice off to see which player goes first. Note: This means in a 3 or 4 player game it is entirely possibly a player may end up with 2 turns back to back. If a player has an edge token he may use it to either increase or decrease (his choice) the result of his initiative role by 1 (but this must be done before the roll).

At the start of their turn, the player chooses a territory he currently controls (has one of his pieces on) and then roles the Fate dice. Apply the result to that territory. If the player no longer has any pieces on that territory he forfeits the rest of his turn. If the roll of the Fate dice results in more than 3-pip’s worth of units on the territory the player must choose to do a Move action from that territory for that turn (see Stacking). *Special: On the first round of play only, any player rolling a result of Reduce must reroll the Fate dice until he gets a different result.

Once the player has resolved the results of the Fate dice he may either pass, move, or attack.

• Pass: The player does not move any units from the active territory. He collects one Edge Token. A player may never have more than 1 edge token at any time.
• Move: The player may move some or all of his units to an adjacent unoccupied territory. If he chooses not to move all his units he may break up the unit into an equal amount of pips-worth of units (example: if the player decides to move a 3-pip piece but only wants to move 1-pips worth he may exchange the 3-pip in his pool for one 1-pip and one 2-pip piece, or three 1-pip pieces). If the player does not have the right units remaining in his pool to break up the unit then he may not break the unit and all pieces in the territory must move. If a player moves all his pieces off of the active territory he will no longer control it (though he will control the territory he just moved into).
• Attack: The player may move his units in the active territory to an adjacent enemy-occupied territory. The player must attack with all his pieces in the active territory. To determine who wins each player rolls one six-sided dice.

The attacker: adds the result of his roll to the number of pips-worth of pieces he is attacking with plus any benefit/penalty from the active territory he is attacking from. If he has an Edge Token he may spend it before the roll to add a +1 to his roll.

The defender: adds the result of his roll to the number of pips-worth of pieces he is defending with plus any benefit/penalty from the territory he is defending on. If he has an Edge Token he may spend it before the roll to add a +1 to his roll.

Ties favor the defender.

If the attacker wins, the defender reduces his pieces by a number of pips equal to how many the attacker used in the attack. If the defender does not have the right amount of units in his pool to break the unit appropriately then the unit is reduced to the next lowest amount (example: If the defender had a 3-pip piece and lost from an attack from a 1-pip attacker and the defender didn't have any 2-pip pieces in his pool and only had one 1-pip piece then he would reduce his unit to a 1-pip instead). Note this can potentially result in the defender being eliminated entirely. If the defender is eliminated the attacker moves his pieces in to that square. If the attacker has more than 1-pips worth of pieces he may choose to move any amount of units from the active territory to the new square (assuming he has sufficient units in his pool that he can break his unit up).

If the defender wins, the attacker reduces his pieces by a number of pips equal to how many the defender used in the attack. If the attacker does not have the right amount of units in his pool to break the unit appropriately then the unit is reduced to the next lowest amount. Note this can potentially result in the attacker being eliminated entirely.

Stacking

A player may never have more than 3 pips worth of units in a single territory. If a player has more than 3 pips of units in a territory he must use a Move action during his turn to move enough units off that territory that he has 3 or less in the active territory. The units moving off the active territory can move to either friendly occupied territory (if it does not violate the stacking rule) or to an unoccupied territory. If the player cannot make any legal move the units in the active territory is reduced to 3.

Edge Tokens

When a player takes a Pass action he gains an Edge Token. No player may ever have more than one Edge Token. Once an Edge Token is used it is put back in to the pool. The Edge Token is useful for 3 things:

1. At the start of a round of play before players dice off to determine turn order, a player with an Edge Token may spend it to either increase or decrease (his choice) his die roll by 1.
2. If the player is attacking, before the dice off he may spend his Edge Token to add a +1 to his attack roll.
3. If the player is defending, before the dice off he may spend his Edge Token to add a +1 to his dice roll.

Winning

The game ends when only one player has pieces on the board, or all squares on the board are occupied by players. If there is more than 1 player remaining at the end of the game, the winner is the player who controls the most territory.

Reference Section

Terrain

This section lists the effects each terrain has on play.

Black - Cancels the ‘Reduce’ result on the Fate dice. Increases the roll of units defending on this territory by +1.
Blue - Allows 1 extra Move action from this territory when it is the active territory.
Green- Increases the ‘Grow’ result on the Fate dice by +1. Reduces the roll of units defending on this territory by -1.
Clear- No effect. OR There is no territory here. No pieces can move onto this square. (All players decide on this before the start of game).
Red- Increases ‘Reduce’ result on the Fate dice by -1. Increases the roll of units defending on this territory by +2.
Yellow- Increases the roll of units attacking from this territory by +1.

Fate Dice

If you do not have a Fate dice you can substitute it with a normal six-sided dice. The results are:

1. ‘Reduce’ - Reduce the number of pips on the active territory by 1.
   • Special: On the first round of play only, any player rolling a result of Reduce must reroll the Fate dice until he gets a different result.
2. ‘None’ - No effect.
3. ‘None’ - No effect.
4. ‘Grow 1’ - Increase the number of pips on the active territory by 1.
5. ‘Grow 1’ - Increase the number of pips on the active territory by 1.
6. ‘Grow 2’ - Increase the number of pips on the active territory by 2.