Parley Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Components
• Game Setup
• Course of the Game
  • Siege
  • Admiral
  • Blackmail
  • Privateer
• End of the Game
• Special Cards
• Questions
• More Questions

Introduction

There are 20 ports on the map which are not belonging to any country at the beginning of the game. These ports are represented with the open hexagonal cells. The closed hexagonal cells with the monster figures on them are not accessible during the game.

These 20 ports will be sieged one by one during the game. At each turn 3 countries will attack one port while the other 3 will try to defend it. The 3 victorious countries become joint owners of the port. Since all the countries have the same strength, the expected result will be a draw. However, your corsair fleet is capable of breaking this balance.

Players decide which alliance wins by their own votes. Every player works for one of the countries in secret. Therefore, it is expected from each player to support their secretly enrolled countries. On the other hand, if one does this openly, the other players can easily understand this player's secret benefactor country easily.

The aim of the game is make your country to rule as many ports as possible to get your share from these ports. The connected ports are more valuable than separated ports.

You can also earn money by blackmailing another player by guessing which country they are working for. The amount of ports your country owns and the money you earn or lose from blackmailing will determine your overall success in the game.

During the game, you can prefer to be privateer of any country openly to get more benefit in addition to benefits from your main country.

Components

• Main board
• Score board
• 4 Admiral tokens
• 1 Pointer (anchor)
• 42 Gold coins (cardboard tokens)
• 42 Silver coins (cardboard tokens)
• 84 Markers
• 152 cards:
  • 18 Special vote cards (1 Blunder, 2 Reveal, 6 Abstain, 4 Last, 2 Change, 2 Cancel, 1 Mutiny)
  • 60 Plain vote cards (swords 1/2/3: 14, 10, 6 cards; shields 1/2/3: 14, 10, 6 cards)
  • 6 Mission cards (one per country)
  • 6 Corsair cards
  • 20 Port cards (all 20 different colour combinations)
  • 6 Privateer cards
  • 36 Blackmail cards (all 36 combinations of 6 corsairs and 6 countries)

The six countries and marker colours: Berberis (white), Venetians (yellow), Spaniards (black), Français (navy/blue), Turks (red), Mamluks (green).

Game Setup

1. Place the main board to the middle of the table.
2. Place the score board next to the main board.
3. Each player chooses a corsair card and places it in front of them face up.
4. Shuffle the mission cards and deal one card to each player. The players place their mission cards in front of them face down. The missions are secret. The players must not reveal their mission card until the end of the game.
5. Every player proceeds to acquire the blackmail cards with their corsair's picture. The players may keep their blackmail cards in their hands or in front of them face down.
6. The remaining corsair cards, mission cards and blackmail cards are kept out of the playing area.
7. Shuffle all the voting cards together (plain and special) and distribute 6 cards to each player.
8. Place the remaining voting cards next to the main board face down.
9. Shuffle the port cards and place them next to the main board face down. Turn the topmost port card face up.
10. Place the anchor shaped pointer next to the port card pile.
11. Distribute 7 gold and 7 silver tokens to each player (1 gold = 5 silver).
12. The remaining coins are kept out of the playing area.
13. Place 6 markers with different colours on the "START" at the scoreboard.
14. Put all the remaining markers next to the scoreboard.
15. Place 4 admiral tokens to the main board as shown in the sample setup. (Sample setup figure not reproduced.)
16. Put the privateer cards to the empty space on the scoreboard face up.

Course of the Game

At the beginning of the game, the players choose any one player as the Captain of the Corsair. This Captain rank will pass to the next player (clockwise) every turn. Being the first Captain has no distinctive advantage/disadvantage.

During their turn, the current Captain choses one of the following four actions and proceeds accordingly:

1. Start a siege
2. Relocate an admiral
3. Become a privateer
4. Blackmail another player

After completing the action, the next player on the left becomes the Captain.

Siege

Siege is the main action of the game. There are 20 hexagonal cells on the main board. Every cell represents one port of the Mediterranean Sea. Four ports are occupied by one admiral. The remaining 16 ports are subject to siege. There will be 16 sieges at these ports during the game. Siege is not allowed at the ports which are occupied by an admiral.

The captain puts the pointer to any port that is empty. This shows the siege has started on that port. The open card on the port deck shows which countries are attacking and which countries are defending the port.

Sample port card: at this port, Turks (red), Spaniards (black) and Venetians (yellow) are attacking the port. Français (navy), Mamluks (green) and Berberis (white) are defending the port.

Since the attacking and defending countries have equal power, the side who is supported by corsairs surely wins. The corsairs will decide the side which they will support by voting.

The captain decides the way of voting. There are two ways of voting:

1. Open voting: Starting with the first player on the captain's left, each player, one by one, openly reveals one voting card from their hand.
2. Closed voting: Each player puts a card on the table from their hand, face down. The cards that are collected should be shuffled before opening. So, nobody sees the others' vote.

During both voting types, each player can play either one plain voting card or one special voting card (if they have any). See "Special Cards" for the explanation about the special voting cards.

The players are expected to support their own secret benefactor countries. Because the biggest part of the final scoring of each player is directly proportional to the success of their secret countries. On the other hand, it is not wise to support them openly, since such obvious support will reveal their secret mission.

If the total number of swords on the voting cards is more than the total number of shields, then the attacking countries have won the siege. If the shields outnumber the swords, the defence has won the siege. In the event of a tie, the captain decides which side will win. The captain does not have to decide according to the card he/she has played during the voting.

Sample voting result for 5 players: cards 3 swords, 2 swords, 2 shields, 1 shield, 1 shield = 5 swords vs 4 shields, attackers won.

After a vote count, one marker for each winning country is placed to the port under the siege.

If any special vote card/s are played during the voting, the rules written on the card explanations are applied.

After placing the markers to the port, the captain calculates the victory points. Each of 3 winning countries gets one victory point for this port. Additionally, if a country has control of any connected port to this final port, this country will get one victory point for each of these connected ports.

The three countries who lost the siege will not get any victory points.

Sample victory point calculation: the siege at Malta Port has just ended. The Turk (red), Spaniard (black) and Venetian (yellow) coalition has won. The markers of these countries have been placed on the Malta Port. The victory points of these countries are:

• Turks: 1 vp. They don't have any connected port to the Malta Port. They got only one vp from Malta.
• Spaniards: 3 vp. The ports number 3 (Sicilia) and 4 (Sardegna) are under Spaniards' control and connected to Malta Port. So, two victory points from these ports and one victory point from Port of Malta (port no 1).
• Venetians: 5 vp. Sardegna (4), Tunis (5), Sicilia (3) and Athena (2) ports are under Venetian control and all of them are connected to Malta Port. Venetians get 4vp for these ports and 1vp from Malta Port.
• Mamluks, Français and Berberis will not get any victory point since they were defeated at this turn.

The markers of the winning countries will advance on the scoreboard as their victory points. (Sample: markers of the Turks, Spaniards and Venetians move forward 1, 3 and 5 steps respectively.)

After scoring, all of the used vote cards are discarded. The players may discard one more card from their hands. Then all players draw cards from the vote card deck until each has 6 cards again. If the vote card pile finishes, the discarded card deck is shuffled and reused.

The port card is discarded and a new port card is opened. So, siege action is completed.

Admiral

A captain may change the location of one of the admiral tokens as an action. The captain cannot move the admiral token to any cell occupied by another admiral token or any country markers. Siege is not possible at the cells with admiral tokens. Any admiral token can be relocated only once during the game. Therefore, maximum four admiral relocations are possible during the game.

Sample: Player1 who works for Spaniards (black) prefers to move one of the admirals to a port in order to prevent further chain formation of yellow. By this way he/she gets the opportunity to establish a black chain in the North.

Blackmail

If a captain thinks that he/she has guessed which country one of the other players works for, the captain can blackmail that player. For this purpose, the captain gives the relevant blackmail card from his/her hand to the other player. The player which is being blackmailed has three options:

1. To say NO loudly: This can only be done if the blackmailer has guessed the country incorrectly. In this case, the game continues without any further action.
2. To say YES loudly: This can only be done if the blackmailer has guessed the country correctly. In this instance, the player pays the blackmailer the amount of silver specified in the table below. The game continues without any further action.
3. To say MAYBE loudly: In this case the player pays 2 silver coins to the blackmailer. Then the amount specified at the table below is placed on the closed blackmail card. This money cannot be used until the end of the game. At the end of the game, the card is revealed. If it turns out that the blackmailer had made a correct guess, then this money is paid out to the blackmailer. Otherwise, the money remains with the player that was blackmailed.

Number of completed siege	0-5	6-7	8-9	10-11	12-13	14-15
Payment for the blackmails	1	8	7	6	5	4

Other rules concerning the blackmail action:

1. A player cannot blackmail the same player twice during the game.
2. A player cannot blackmail more than once in a turn.
3. While the blackmailer is handing the blackmail card he/she must not show the card to other players. Same is valid for the player who is being blackmailed.

Privateer

If a captain decides to be a privateer, firstly he/she should pay the cost of the being privateer. The cost is indicated below.

Number of completed siege	0-5	6-7	8-9	10-11	12-13	14-15
Cost of the privateer cards	7	6	5	6	7	8

(Costs are in silver coins, paid to the supply.) Then he/she chooses one of the privateer cards (lettera di corsa) from the pile on the scoreboard and places it in front of his/her openly.

This privateer card may or may not belong to the country he/she works for. The score marker of the base country (the country whose name is written on the card) moves two steps forward on the scoreboard immediately. At the end of the game, the base country will pay the prize to their privateer. The prize is one tenth (round it up) of the base country's final victory point. This prize will be paid with silver coins. If the base country is the country the privateer works for, naturally this payment can be omitted.

Additionally, the privateer will also take same amount of silver from the supply (even if he/she is working for the base country).

A player can collect more than one privateer card during the game but is allowed to buy only one privateer card per turn.

Sample privateer calculation: just after 8th siege, player1 has got the privateer card submitted by Venetians. Player1 has paid 5 silver coins to the supply for this card and the Venetian's marker has been advanced 2 steps on the scoreboard. At the end of the game, Player1 will get 4 silver coins as a prize (1/10 of 34 victory point that Venetians reached, rounded up) from player2 who supports Venetians. Additionally, Player1 will get the same amount of silver coins from the supply. End result: Player1: -5+4+4 = +3 profit; Player2: +2-4 = -2 loss.

Player3 has got the privateer card submitted by Mamluks (player's own country) after 11th siege and paid 6 silver coins to the supply. The Mamluk's marker moved 2 steps forward. At the end of the game, player3 can't claim 3 silver coins prize (one tenth of 29 victory point that Mamluks reached, round up) since the Mamluks are that player's own country, but he/she still will receive 3 silver from the supply. End result: Player3: -6+2+3 = -1 loss.

End of the Game

When the siege on the last available port finishes, the game ends.

All mission cards are revealed. The blackmail cards replied as "maybe" are revealed and paid (if applicable). The prize payment for the privateer cards are paid (if applicable).

The final score for each player is calculated as follows:

Final score = the amount of silver the player owns + the total victory points on the score board for the country the player was supporting.

(Gold coin = 5 silver.)

Special Cards

All the cards except "Reveal" can be played in both voting types, closed or open.

• ABSTAIN - [You have some important excuse, not possible to attend to the voting.] There is no effect on the voting. (6 cards)
• LAST - [You have to deal with some urgent matters on the deck so you will be back soon.] If you played this card in any voting then you can play another card after all the other vote cards. If more than one "last" card appear in one voting, they cancel each other out. (4 cards)
• REVEAL - You can play this card only at the closed voting type. If one or more players have played this card, then other players have to reveal which cards, irrespective of type, they played in the voting. Cancel, Blunder or Mutiny cards can't cancel this obligation. (2 cards)
• CHANGE - If you played this card, you can change position of the pointer after all the votes are revealed. The result of the voting will be valid for this new port, not the Captain's choice. The captain can't play this card. (2 cards)
• CANCEL - When you played this card, the current voting is terminated immediately and all voting cards used for that voting is discarded. The voting is repeated with the cards which have been left in the players' hands. (2 cards)
• BLUNDER - If you play this card during the voting, that means the original mission has failed. So, whatever decision was taken at the voting, the total opposite is applied. For example, if the corsairs decided (according to the voting result) to support the attackers, this card automatically change this result to "defenders win". (1 card)
• MUTINY - You revolted with this card. The voting is totally cancelled. The captaincy passes on the next player. The new captain can choose a new port. The open port card does not change. (1 card)

In all voting types, open or closed, if two or more Blunder, Cancel, Change or Mutiny cards are used, all these cards are considered void.

Questions

• What is Parley? It is the talk pirates hold to solve their issues before they fight each other.
• Corsair: The pirates who were active at Mediterranean Sea between the 14th and 17th centuries.
• Privateer: The pirates who are sailing and plundering under the protection of a country.
• Lettera di Corsa: The formal letter given to the pirates from a king to certify them as a privateer.
• How were the names determined? Ports: the official names used by the respective countries during that period in time (e.g. Konstantiniyye for Istanbul, as written on the Ottoman coins). Rulers: the real names and titles are used for the Kings, Sultans and the Doge. All of them are from the 16th century but some of them might not been ruled at same moment. Corsairs: totally fictional.
• Woman Corsair? There were few famous woman pirates but no known woman corsair. However, the designers wanted to add at least one woman character to the game, with a plan to add more at the second edition or expansions.
• Why did you call all the nations as cruel? We tried to be polite. Surely the corsairs were not even so polite.

More Questions

• I am playing for the Berberis. Can I blackmail another player as "Are you working with the Berberis?" Yes.
• Can I voice my suspicions as to who works for whom during the game? No. Please don't.
• Can I take notes during the game? No.
• In a game with less than 6 players, what happens if an unclaimed country wins? How embarrassing!
• Can one country get hold of all the ports? No. Each country has 13 markers for the ports.