Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation
Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Equipment
The Board
The board is in two sections. These sections are placed side by side to form the full board. There are various regions marked on the board:
- City regions (yellow) represent the major cities of the area shown on the board.
- Urban regions (red) represent highly developed industrial centres.
- The remaining regions are classified as Rural (green), Mountain (brown), Wasteland (white) or Sea (blue).
One small square coloured counter = one army. Each player takes a set of 140 counters of one colour and uses them for his armies.
Black Radioactive Markers are used to distinguish radioactive regions.
City Counters are used to determine the Empires at the start of the game.
White interlocking units make up missiles.
A die is included but is never thrown as in games of chance. It is used in a novel, skilful manner to determine army attacks.
How to Play and How to Win
The players take it in turn to move and attack with missiles and armies as they attempt to expand their own empires by eliminating their opponents. The winner is the last player left with armies on the board.
How to Start
The 28 City Counters are turned face down, shuffled and distributed equally among the players. The counters are then revealed and each player places one of his armies on each of his cities. Unallocated cities remain vacant and may be occupied during the normal course of play. Players may not barter or exchange their cities.
What to Do on Your Turn
The most inexperienced player takes his turn first. When he has finished, it becomes the turn of the player to his left... etc. Your turn consists of 3 Phases. Each Phase must be completed before you go on to the next Phase.
- Phase 1: Firing and exploding missiles.
- Phase 2: Adding extra armies to the board.
- Phase 3: Moving and attacking with your armies, building up new missiles or reconstructing.
Phase 1: Missiles
Missiles can be obtained in two ways: by making successful army attacks as explained in Phase 3 or by capturing enemy missiles.
Firing Missiles
You may fire a missile only if you own it (i.e. your armies occupy its site). A 1-range missile (made up of 1 unit) may cross up to 1 boundary before exploding. A 2-range missile (made up of 2 units fitted together), 2 boundaries... etc. You may choose to keep some of your missiles for use on future rounds (but beware of your opponents capturing them from you). Whatever happens to them, missiles can never be moved from their site unless they are being fired and exploded.
Effect of a Missile Explosion
When you explode a missile on a region it becomes radioactive. Put a Radioactive Marker on that region to show what has happened. All regions next to and including the radioactive region are devastated. Remove all armies from these regions, including your own. Also explode all missiles in those regions on their sites. Exploded missiles are removed from the board.
Examples: This is the area of devastation if you explode a missile on Wales (left) or Thames (right). Note the chain reaction in the second case.
Beware Chain-Reactions. Since within a devastated area all missiles explode on their sites, these secondary explosions will create a wider devastated area, possibly exploding still more missiles.
Radioactive Regions
Radioactive Markers stay on a radioactive region until it is reconstructed. Armies must never occupy radioactive regions until they have been reconstructed. Armies may enter devastated regions that did not become radioactive.
Phase 2: How to Claim Extra Armies
How many distinct Empires have you got? An Empire is a linked collection of regions occupied by your armies. It does not have to contain a City. Examine each separate Empire and claim:
- 1 extra army for each city region (yellow),
- 1 extra army for every 2 urban regions (red),
- 1 extra army for every 3 rural regions (green),
- 1 extra army for every 4 mountains (brown).
You gain no extra armies for seas or wastelands. In claiming extra armies, the number of armies on a region is irrelevant; what matters is the number and type of regions that you hold.
Example: Two distinct Empires are shown. How many extra armies can each claim? Northern Empire: 1; Southern Empire: 2. Confirm this by referring to the board.
How to Add Extra Armies to Your Empires
You must add extra armies somewhere within the Empire for which they were claimed. But within that Empire, you may distribute them in any way that you like: all on one region or spread among several. You cannot store extra armies, nor can you move or attack before you have completed adding extra armies to the board.
Phase 3: How to Move Armies
You may move some of your armies out of a region subject to two conditions:
- You must leave at least 1 army behind.
- The armies must be moved into an adjacent, unoccupied region.
You may carry out a whole series of moves and attacks in any order.
Examples of Moves That You Cannot Make
- You cannot move out of a region leaving it empty.
- You cannot move into a region where you already have an army.
- You cannot move into a non-adjacent region.
- You cannot move into an empty region from two directions.
How to Attack Enemy Held Regions
Any region with 2 or more armies in it may attack an adjacent enemy-held region. You may not combine armies from two or more regions to make one attack.
The Attacking Procedure
Secretly select any number on the die not greater than the number of armies on the attacking region. Conceal the die under a cup. Say where you are attacking and challenge the defender to guess the secret number. After guessing, the defender lifts the cup and inspects the die:
Has the defender guessed correctly?
- YES: Remove from the attacking region the number of armies that was guessed.
- NO: Look at the Empire of the successful attacking armies. Immediately add 1 missile unit to any land in that Empire. If the region already has a missile, the unit must be used to increase its range. Remove just one army from the defending region.
(Note: in the source, the boxes "YES" and "NO" are separate from their text; the assignment above follows the printed order of the text.)
Has the defending region lost its last army?
- The number of armies last staked on the die must move from the attacking region (even if the attacking region is thus left empty).
- You have completed this particular attack. You may attack again or move and attack elsewhere.
(The source shows "NO" and "YES" branch labels for this second question without clear association to the two boxes above.)
Special Rules of Attack
- For attacks on a city: You may not select a '1' on the die.
- For attacks on a mountain region: You may not select a '4', '5' or '6' on the die.
- For attacks from sea to land: The defender makes two simultaneous guesses, only one of which need be correct.
- For attacks into a sea region: The die is not used. The attacker always wins. He removes all defending armies but does not get missile units for removing them. He must occupy the now empty sea region, as normal.
Note: These are cumulative. E.g. attacking a city from a sea region means the attacker may not select '1' and the defender gets 2 guesses.
General Reconstruction
An Empire that fires no missiles and makes no army attacks during its turn may move into radioactive regions and remove the Radioactive Marker so that they become ordinary regions again. The Empire may do this to as many radioactive regions as it can enter that turn, but must not reconstruct any region(s) and then continue that turn by attacking. Other vacant regions may also be occupied by that Empire's armies during that turn.
Alliances
Although two players are not permitted to combine armies or form joint attacks, any other tricks permissible within the rules are acceptable. For example, a player may capture a missile from an ally by making a pre-arranged attack on the ally's missile site. Similarly, a player may arrange with an ally that the ally be attacked by him so that an easy missile unit may be gained, or so that the player may pass through to attack a third party. BUT all these 'phoney' attacks and defences must be made legitimately (i.e. choosing a number, hiding the die, guessing, etc.), even when the colluding parties have agreed in advance on the result of an attack. The ritual of attack must still be followed. The number selected on the die must never be shown before the guess is made. You are allowed to double-cross your ally.