Siege is a card game I invented while I was bored. It uses a single deck of cards (no jokers), but that deck is split in two ― one half black cards, the other red. At the start of the game, players line up 5 cards in front of their deck. It’s hard to explain so here is a visual:
DEK* | |
Qh** | |
9d***| |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| | 5c****
| |10s******
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
| |DEK
*DEK will represent the deck from now on
**h represents hearts
***d represents diamonds
****c represents clubs
*****s represents spades
******it doesn't exist yet, but DIS will represent the discard pile
the order of the above is irrelevant, the cards are randomly picked
Notice that red’s cards are offset from black’s cards.
Objective and Basic Play
The objective of siege is to “kill” all of your opponent’s cards. There are a few ways to go about this: the first way is to get one of your cards to the spot in front of the opponent’s deck (Q♡ in the above example), The second is to kill all of your opponent’s cards in battle (more on battle soon), and the third is to have your opponent sign a “treaty” (treaties are like resignations or draw offering in chess, except that you can ask your opponent to resign). Since battle is the most important part of the game, we’ll start with that.
Before we actually get to battle, we need to know what we can do. Each turn, a player draws a card, and then chooses to either play or discard it. If it is discarded, it gets placed at the bottom of the deck and the player can choose a different type of move. If the player chooses to play the card, (s)he can either place next to one of his/her existing cards, or place it one space in front of his/her front-most card. The example below shows two turns, first black draws a 3♣ and places it next to his 10♠, and then red draws a 7♡ and places it in front of her 3♢.
Turn 1:
DEK| |
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| | 5c
| 3c|10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
| |DEK
Turn 2:
DEK| |
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| | 5c | 7h | |
| 3c|10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
| |DEK
So what now? The 5♣ gets “killed” by the 7♡ because black’s total value of the cards in that row is greater than red. For now that means that 7 beats 5. But let’s imagine that black put his 3♣ next to his 5♣ and then red drew 9♡.
Turn 1:
DEK| |
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| 3c| 5c
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
| |DEK
Turn 2:
DEK| |
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| 3c| 5c | 9h | |
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
| |DEK
Red still ends up winning, but black played smarter this time, he defended his weak front lines from attackers. How? The total value of his front line is now 8, and before it was 5. It’s the total value of a row that counts in battles. so if red’s card was an eight or lower, black’s front line would have been sufficiently defended.
More Complex Rules
So since red won a battle, what happens? If you guessed that the 3♣ and the 5♣ get “killed”, then you’re wrong. What actually happens is that the weakest card in the row that lost gets “killed” in this example, the 3♣ only.
Now suppose black draws another card and it turns out to be a 5♠. It’s not a great card on its own, but he can use it to win a battle. If he puts the 5♠ where the 3♣ was, then that row’s total is 10; which is more than red’s, 9.
Turn 3:
DEK| |
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | |
| 5s| 5c | 9h | |
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
|DIS|DEK
Now red lost her 9♡ and she draws a 2♢. She puts the 2♢ next to the 3♢ to defend it. It turns out to be sufficient, because on the next turn, black draws a 3♠, which isn’t enough to beat the 5 total value of red’s row. This is where discarding a draw comes into play. Black puts the 3♠ at the bottom of his deck so he can move a card. he moves his 5♣ one space forward to “attack” red.
Turn 4:
DEK|DIS|
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
3d | 2d|
| | 5s
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
|DIS|DEK
turn 5:
DEK|DIS|
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
| | 5c | 3d | 2d|
| | 5s
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
|DIS|DEK
Before we continue, here is a list of rules about moving:
- you can move once per turn
- you can move as many cards as you want from a single row per turn
- you can only move cards from a single row in a turn
- bonus rule that applies to moving: you can only have three cards in a row
Since the values of the rows for both players is the same, no card gets “killed”, in fact nothing happens. But now it’s red’s turn and she draws a 8♡ and places it next to the 3♢ and 2♢. This wins a battle and “kills” the 5♣.
turn 6:
DEK|DIS|
Qh | |
9d | |
6d | |
5h | |
| | 5c | 3d |2d |5h
| | 5s
| |10s
| | 2s
| | Kc
| | 8c
|DIS|DEK
Treaties
Imagine a position such as the following (not a continuation of the previous examples):
DEK|DIS|
Qh | |
Ad | |
Qd | |
Ad |Ah |Kd
Kc| Ac| As
| | 5s
| | 3s
| | 2s
| | 4c
| | 5c
|DIS|DEK
A-A-K is the most powerful row possible, since each player has only 2 aces. So if both players have that in their front lines, then there is no way for either side to win. So red might offer a treaty that says she wins because she has higher value cards and black would decline because he has more “territory”. Eventually they might decide to go with something like a draw, all one of the aces in both players’ rows be “killed”, or even something informal, like both of them kicking the first bum the see on the street.
Analogies to Actual Warfare
- the deck: training camp / capitol
- Different ranked cards: weapons
- rows: camps
