Via Romana Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Preparing to Play
• How to Play
• Detailed Building Rules
  • Building on a City Space
  • Building on a Road Space
  • Building on a City or Road Space
• Scoring Roads
• End of the Game
• Variants for Experts

Contents

• 40 city (victory point) tiles
• 20 road signs
• 1 game board
• 1 legionary standard
• 96 building pieces [forts and milestones]
• 4 summary cards
• 5 goal tiles
• 55 playing cards [in each color, 2 temples and 3 of each of the other symbols]

Preparing to Play

Punch the pieces. Carefully remove the cardboard pieces from the frames. The road signs (to Rome) and the legionary standard are assembled from two pieces. See the picture.

Place the board. The board is placed in the middle of the table. All players should familiarize themselves with the colors, cities, and roads of the different provinces.

Player materials. Each player receives 1 summary card, 4 forts, and 20 milestones in their color.

Cards. The 55 cards are shuffled and 4 are dealt to each player, who takes them in hand. Another 4 cards are placed face-up on the appropriate spaces on the board to form a display. The remaining cards are placed as a face-down deck on the adjacent space.

Supply. On the supply space place:

• The legionary standard – this is worth 2 victory points at the end of the game.
• The 20 road signs – they are used to mark the scored roads.

Place the victory point tiles on the cities. Next to every city there is a space for the victory point tiles which contains two numbers. The number "1" gives the minimum victory point value of a city, the other number the maximum value. In each space a stack of tiles in the same color as the city is placed. [The temple cities all have a maximum value of 4, the helmet cities a value of 2, and the others 3. Note this is also the number of roads that connect to each city.]

Example: In the purple space containing 1 and 4 placed a purple marker with a "2", on it one with "3", and on top a marker with "4".

There are no tiles with a "1", because this is printed on the board.

Do the same for all other city spaces.

Goal tiles. The five goal tiles are shuffled and one is dealt to each player, who may look at it but keeps it hidden. Remaining tiles are placed back in the box without looking at them. A player who collects all the city markers shown on their tile will receive 5 victory points.

Determine a start player. Beginning with this player, everyone places one of their forts on any empty city.

Special rules for 2 and 3 players. With fewer than 4 players some roads are removed from the game – road signs are placed on them. Players may not build on any spaces on these roads.

• With 2 players the 10 roads with the red square are marked with road signs (see the picture to the right). Also, at the start of the game each player places 2 forts, alternating placements.
• With 3 players the 5 roads with the yellow square are marked with road signs.

How to Play

Each player's turn consists of three phases performed in a fixed order. The start player begins, with the other players following clockwise.

Check the number of cards held. At the beginning of his or her turn a player may hold no more than 7 cards in hand. A player who begins a turn with 8 or more cards must discard the extras – select the cards and place them face-up on a discard pile next to the board. A player who does not have to discard proceeds immediately to the build phase.

Build (play cards). Building is done by playing cards. The player whose turn it is may play up to 3 cards from their hand, placed face-up in front of them. The number and color of the cards played determines which building pieces the player may build in which places (the summary card has this information). Completed roads are scored.

The color of the cards determines the province in which the player may build.

A player who plays 2 cards of the same color may build a fort on a city space of that color. See detailed building rule 1.

For 1 card a player may build a milestone on a road or city space of the color of the card. See detailed building rules 2 and 3.

Special case: Joker. A player playing 2 cards of different colors may build a milestone on a road or city space of any color. See detailed building rule 5.

Building and symbols: all cards show one of the symbols which are displayed next to the cities. This symbol is important only if a player wants to build 2 milestones with a single card. See detailed building rule 4.

Draw cards. When the player has finished playing cards (up to 3), he or she places the cards on the discard pile. Then he or she draws 2 cards from the deck. This player's turn is over and their left-hand neighbor now plays. If the deck is exhausted, the discard pile is shuffled to make a new deck.

Detailed Building Rules

The source cross-references these rules as "building rule 1" to "5" but does not print the numbers. The numbering below follows the order in which the rules appear in the source text and is supplied for reference only.

Building on a City Space

Build a fort (city space) [building rule 1]. A player who wants to build a fort plays 2 cards of the same color. They place a fort on a vacant city space of their choice that is the same color as the cards. See the summary card.

Additional rules for all building projects:

• If the player has not yet played all 3 cards they are permitted, they may continue to play.
• A player can also play fewer than 3 cards, or even skip the building phase entirely.
• If a build (of a fort or milestone) completes a road (including both adjacent cities), it is scored immediately.
• When the player has finished playing cards, they are placed face-up on the discard pile.
• The player's turn is then finished and his or her left-hand neighbor plays.

Build a milestone (city space) [building rule 2]. Important: Unlike a fort, a milestone can only be built in a space that is adjacent to an existing piece (fort or milestone), regardless of who it belongs to.

A player wishing to build a milestone in a city has two options:

• Play 1 card and place a milestone in a vacant city space of the card's color [adjacent to any milestone].
• Use a joker. See the summary card, line 5 [or detailed building rule 5].

Building on a Road Space

A road consists of several spaces which have edges in one or two colors. Each road space can have a single milestone placed on it. A milestone must be built adjacent to an existing piece.

Build a milestone (road space) [building rule 3]. A player wishing to build a milestone on a road space has two options:

• Play 1 card matching one of the road's colors and place a milestone on an vacant space of that road – one which is adjacent to an already-played piece.
• Use a joker. See the summary card, line 5 [or detailed building rule 5].

Build two milestones at once (road space) [building rule 4]. A player wishing to build 2 milestones with 1 card must take into account the symbols on the cards.

• He or she plays a card with the color and symbol matching the city from which to build.
• There must already be a piece (fort or milestone) in this city.
• There must be milestones connecting the city to the spaces where the new milestones are to be placed [if neither is adjacent to the city].
• The two new milestones must be placed next to each other.

Example: Yellow plays a blue helmet card and can now place 2 milestones on the spaces marked A or the spaces marked B. This is because:

• There is a piece in the blue helmet city.
• The roads on which the milestones can be placed connect to this city.
• These are road spaces, not city spaces.

Yellow could also play the card to place a single milestone, e.g. on space [label not legible in the source text], also so that he may put only one milestone, e.g. on space C or space D, neither of which is adjacent to the blue helmet city. See building rule 3.

Building on a City or Road Space

Special case: Joker (city or road space) [building rule 5]. Playing 2 cards of different colors together lets one build 1 milestone on a road or city space of any color. The symbols are ignored.

Scoring Roads

A road is completed when there is a milestone on every space and a piece on the cities at both ends. When this occurs, the current player's turn is immediately interrupted and the road is scored. All players who have pieces on the road or in the cities take part.

Award a city tile. Each player involved counts his or her pieces on the road and in the adjacent cities (the type of piece does not matter). The player with the most pieces wins the road. As a reward this player takes the top tile from one of the adjacent cities and places it in front of them. If neither city has any tiles, this player receives nothing.

If there is a tie for the most pieces and the player who completed the road is involved in the tie, they may take a city tile. If this player is not involved in the tie, the next player clockwise who is gets a tile.

If placing a piece causes several roads to be completed, the player who caused this determines the order in which they are scored.

Example: Blue plays a purple temple card. He may place 2 of his milestones on road spaces which are connected to the purple temple city by a chain of pieces. He places them on the spaces marked A.

Now Blue has 3 pieces on the road "temple to laurel wreath" – his fort in the city counts the same as a milestone on the road. Yellow and Red each have only 2 pieces, so Blue wins.

Award cards. All other players involved in the scoring receive cards from the display. Important: the player who won [or should have won] a city marker receives no cards! This begins with the player to the left of the player who won the road, with the other involved players following clockwise. Each player takes as many cards from the display as he or she has pieces on the road or in adjacent cities. If there are no cards in the display, players draw from the deck. Only when the scoring is finished is the display replenished to 4 cards.

After the scoring all the milestones are removed from the road spaces (only). Forts and milestones on city spaces remain and therefore can be involved in multiple scorings.

A road sign is placed in the middle of the completed road. The road is finished! – No more building here!

End of the Game

As soon as the scoring which results in the last road sign being placed is complete, the game is almost over.

The player who caused this scoring received the legionary standard, which is worth 2 victory points. The round is complete, which all other players having one more turn – the player who caused the last road sign to be placed does not get one.

If more scorings take place (which is possible, because there are more roads than road signs), city tiles and cards are given out as usual. However, milestones are not removed from the roads.

Final scoring. All players count their victory points.

• Every city tile is worth the number of points shown.
• Every fort is worth as many points as the number currently shown next to the city – at least 1 point.
• The legionary standard is worth 2 victory points.
• A player's goal tile is worth 5 victory points if he or she has 4 city markers in the colors shown.

The player with most victory points wins.

If there is a tie, the player with the legionary standard wins if involved. If that player is not in the tie, the next player clockwise from him or her who is involved, wins.

Variants for Experts

Obstinate Hands. No player may ever hold more than 7 cards in hand. If a player already has 7 cards, they may take no more – not even from the display.

At the beginning of his or her turn a player may discard cards in order to make room for more.

With this rule it is worthwhile to cause a scoring when another player already has 7 cards, since then they cannot take the cards they are entitled to.

Dangerous Ties. If there is a tie for a road and the player completing the road is not involved, no player receives a city marker and no cards are given out from the display.

With this rule a skillful player can prevent others from receiving victory points or cards in a scoring.