Kingdom Wars/SGS differences in Gameplay

This is the Quick-Guide for KW/SGS differences that you will get with every purchase of KW from Sino-Games. It's simple, but i hope it will suffice as a condensed summary of the changes that occur!

Enjoy!!


Quick Guide to changes for Kingdom Wars Gameplay (for experienced SGS players)

1. Game Objective
a. There are no longer the 4 roles (Ruler 主公, Loyalist 忠臣 etc). Instead every player is teamed up according to the Kingdom that their characters belong: Shu (Red), Wei (Blue), Wu (Green) and Grey (Heroes).

b. There is one special Kingdom known as “Ambitionist 野心家”. It is a different Kingdom from the rest. All Ambitionists are their own Kingdom. They have no allies. (See section 4c)

c. The objective is to be the only Kingdom left standing after eliminating all the players from other Kingdoms.


2. Game Set-up
a. Deal 7 character cards per player. If there are 9 players or more, deal 5 characters per player.

b. Each player must select 2 characters from the same Kingdom.
 Eg: If you are dealt 4 blue, 2 red and 1 grey characters, you can either choose 2 out of the 4 blue, or the 2 red characters. You cannot choose the grey character)
 Some character pairs are “synergistic”. Look for the name of their synergistic partner at the bottom right of their portrait. All synergistic pairs are shown on the last page of the original Chinese game manual.
 “Synergistic pairs” gets a bonus during game play (See section 4d).

c. After selecting your pair of characters, choose one of them to be your main character 主将, the other as your supporting character 副将. Place both character cards faced down (hidden) with your main character next to your health card. Use the main character to cover the health card when you are damaged.
 Main character determines the gender of your combined character pairs when both are exposed.
 If only one of your characters is exposed, your gender is that of the exposed character.
 Both your characters share ONE health card. If your health becomes zero, you are out of the game.
 You can use ALL the abilities of both characters. If more than one ability can be activated at the same time, you can activate both by deciding the order in which to activate.

d. Your maximum health is the sum of both characters’ health limits. If the sum is not a whole number, round down to the nearest whole number.


3. Game play
a. Think of each player as one “combined character” possessing all the abilities in both character cards.

b. Most of the game play is the same as SGS. For eg: the different phases of a turn (drawing phase, action phase, etc), the distance calculations, etc.

c. The biggest differences are: Exposing Character Cards, and Rewards/Punishments for Kills.


4. Exposing Character Cards
a. You can only possess the character abilities and Kingdom affiliation of your characters if they are exposed.
 If both cards are hidden, you have no character abilities, and you belong to no Kingdom.

b. You can only expose your character cards if either of these 2 conditions are met:
(i) It is the start of your turn (before you perform any other action in your turn).
(ii) When you want to activate an ability of a hidden character. For eg:
 When the hidden character is Guo Jia 郭嘉 and you received damage outside your turn, you can expose Guo Jia and use his ability to draw 2 cards.
 When you are using Ma Chao 马超 and want to use his ability within your turn to use an ATTACK 杀, you can expose him to activate the ability.

c. If half of all the players in the game belong to the same Kingdom, the next player that exposes his character as having the same Kingdom as them will become an “Ambitionist”.
 For eg: There are 6 players, and 3 of them have already exposed themselves as Shu (Red), the 4th player to expose as Shu will be an Ambitionist. The 5th player to expose as Shu will also be an Ambitionist.
 For eg: There are 7 players and 3 of them have already exposed themselves as Wei (Blue), the 4th player to expose as Wei will be an Ambitionist.

d. The moment you expose your 2nd character, the following bonus can apply if you meet the corresponding criteria (the bonus only applies once in the whole game):
 If your total amount of max health units does not add up to a whole number (eg: 3.5 or 4.5), you can draw 1 card immediately.
 If you have a synergistic pair, you can either draw 2 cards or regain 1 unit of health immediately.


5. Rewards/Punishment for Kills
a. When you have both cards hidden, you get no rewards/punishment for killing another player.

b. When you have a character(s) exposed and you kill a character that:
 Is of the same kingdom as you, you lose all your on-hand cards and equipped cards.
 Is of a different kingdom, you draw as many cards as there were players from that kingdom the moment before that player died. (Eg: You killed a Wu (green) character and there are still 2 more Wu characters left, you draw 3 cards as your reward.)
 Has both characters still hidden, you must first expose the victims allegiance, and then proceed to meet out the reward/punishment as described previously.

END OF QUICK GUIDE. ENJOY!!