This is a fork of the following repository: https://github.com/BrianRedd/Pompeii
The Downfall of Pompeii (aka Pompeii) is played in two phases: In the first, you try to bring as many of your own people into the city as you can by playing Pompeii cards. If you play a house number 3, for example, you may put one of your people into a build with that number. There are 2 "AD 79" cards. As soon as the second AD 79 card appears, Vesuvius erupts and the second phase of the game begins. Now, move as many of your people out of the city through the gates as you can before lava tiles cover Pompeii. You win if you are the player who has saved the most of your own people before the end of the game.
On your turn, you take three (3) actions, in the following order:
- Play 1 of the 4 cards from your hand
- Put 1 of your people on an open space in a build whose number matches that on the card being played
- Draw a card from the deck
The Pompeii cards contain 3 important pieces of information:
- The Number on the card corresponds to one of 11 buildings on the board. This is the build that you will place a person into when you play a card on your turn.
- The Color of the card (grey, turquoise, brown, or purple) corresponds to the color of a set of buildings on the board (and will match the color of the specific building designated by the number).
- The Symbols at the bottom of the card show both the number of the cards in the deck with that number, and the number and grouping of available spaces within the corresponding building. All of the buildings on the board show the number of available spaces for people to be put into. The specific group(s) of spaces within a building becomes important later in the game (see Phase One, Part II). In addition, there are neutral (beige) buildings on the board with no number. These become important in Phase One, Part II.
NOTE: The house numbers 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11 are building with at least two parts. When playing a card with one of these numbers, you can place your person in any part of the building.
When the first AD 79 card is drawn, you immediately get another card as a replacement. Vesuvius seethes.
From now on, there are two new rules:
When you draw an Omen card off the deck, discard it immediately. Then, take another player's person from anywhere on the board and sacrifice it. This piece is now a casualty and is out of the game. Then draw a replacement card. If you draw another Omen card, repeat the process. Your turn ends when you draw a non-Omen card as a replacement.
If you add a person to a building that already contains one or more occupants (regardless of color), you may optionally put additional pieces ("relatives") in different squares as part of the same move. Relatives can be placed in buildings of the same color or neutral (beige) buildings. Since there are no Pompeii cards for the neutral buildings, they can only be filled by meanws of the "relatives" rule.
For each game piece already in the part of the building you place your piece, you place another into:
- A different building of the same color
- Another part of the same building if the building has multiple parts/squares
- A neutral (beige non-numbered) building
You cannot place relatives into the same part/square of the building as your original piece was placed in. You may place relatives into multiple different neutral buildings, but never multiple relatives into the same neutral building.
When counting existing pieces to determine the number of relatives, ignore pieces in different parts of the same building. You can only place one relative into any given building in the same move.
Putting relatives into buildings that already have game pieces in them does not trigger the "relatives" rule again; in other words, there are no "chain reactions". It may happen that there are not enough free spaces for all relatives to be placed - that case, you cannot place the extra relatives.
If all of the spaces within a building belonging to the number on a card are occupied, you may play the card as a wild card. You put one person on any free space in any building, regardless of color of building.
However, pieces moved into a build by means of a wild card do not trigger the "relatives" rule!
The first phase of the game ends when the second AD 79 card is drawn. No more cards will be played, nor will any new pieces be placed onto the board.
Every lava tile shows one of six different symbols. For each symbol (scroll, vase, helmet, mask, coin, and column) there is a vent space on the board. The first tile of a symbol is put on its corresponding vent.
All lava tiles must be placed either on their vent or orthogonally (up, down, left, or right, but not diagonally) adjacent to existing tiles of the same type.
The player in turn after the player who drew the AD 79 card (and thus triggered the eruption!) draws the first lava tile and places it on its vent. Then the next player draws a tile and places it either on its vent or orthogonally adjacent to an existing tile of the same type, and so on until there are six (6) tiles thus placed upon the board.
Any pieces on a square that is covered with a lava tile are immediately removed from the board as casualties of the eruption!
Once there are six (6) lava tiles on the board, the second phase begins. Each subsequent turn consists of two (2) steps:
- Draw one (1) lava tile and place it on the board
- Move two (2) of your game pieces
The player whose turn it is starts by drawing a lava tile and placing it on the board. If it's the first tile of its type, the tile is placed upon its vent. Otherwise, it is placed orthogonally adjacent to an existing lava tile of the same type.
Any pieces on a square that is covered with a lava tile (even your own!) are immediately removed from the board as casualties of the eruption!
If there is no place to place a lava tile, no tile is placed. In other words, if you draw a Scroll lava tile but there are no available spots orthogonally adjacent to existing Scroll lava tiles, no tiles are placed and you move on to the next step of your turn.
The goal is to escape as many of your people from Pompeii as possible by passing them through the gates of the city. All spaces that are blocked from all exits (surrounded by lava with no access to any city gate) are also immediately covered in lava, with any pieces therein removed (since there is no way for them to escape).
On your turn, you may move up to two (2) of your game pieces. Typically, this would be moving two different pieces (exceptions are below). The total number of pieces (regardless of color) in a square determines the maximum movement for each piece in the square. You many move your piece one (1) city block (square) for each piece in the square that piece starts from. You are not required to move the maxiumum.
NOTE: During this phase of the game, you ignore the actual buildings; you are only concerned with squares. Thus a building covering two squares still counts as two spaces, not one. Also, ignore the maximum number of pieces a building can contain; while the city evacuates, there is no limit to the number of pieces that may occupy the same space.
You can move a piece vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally. Changing direction is allowed, even more than once in the same move, but moving back and forth is not. You may move a game piece onto any city square except those covered in lava or empty lava vents. You may leave "move points" unused if you do not want to move the maximum allowed.
Pieces that are moved through a city gate are safe from the volcano. Just moving to the gate is not enough; it takes one "move point" to pass through the gate and into safety.
You are allowed to move two pieces during this step. There are two exceptions that will allow you to move only one:
- If you only have one piece left on the board, you can move it twice. Each move will use the number of existing occupants in the square to determine "move points". For example: if a player's only place starts in a square with three people, they can move that piece three spaces. If that piece stops in a square with one other person, then it can immediately move two spaces (since when they start running, there are two people in the square they start from).
- If a piece is alone in a square at the start of your turn, you may move that piece twice instead of moving two separate pieces. The first move will be only one square (since it started in a square with only the one occupant), but the second move will be determined by the number of pieces in the square they moved into. There is one additional exception: If you do not have any pieces remaining on the board, you cannot move any pieces. Instead, your turn ends after placing your lava tile.
The game ends one of two ways:
When you draw the last lava tile, the game ends. All remaining spaces on the board are immediately covered in lava, and all pieces remaining are removed as casualties. If there are no game pieces left on the board, the game also ends. The player who has saved the most pieces wins the game! If there is a tie, then the player who saved the most and who has the least number of casualties is the winner.
If all players are human, you can select the Wild Lava Tiles variant. This adds three "wild" lava tiles that each can be played as either one lava tile type or another. For instance, there is a wild tile that can be played as either a Helmet or as a Mask.
This game is based on the board game The Downfall of Pompeii, and utilizes the same rules as the board game.
When starting the game, you can choose two (2) to four (4) players, and each player can either be a human or an AI. There are six AI players, and each uses a slightly different strategy based on different values (courage, sociability, and lawfulness).
Game play proceeds as described above. For humans playing against AIs, you may need to click the card deck or lava tile pile in order to draw the AI's card or tile. Otherwise, the AI's should play their own pieces.
When a human player has a choice of where to place a person, lava tile, or where to run a piece, the available choices will be highlighted, and you simply click on the one to make your choice.
At the top right of the game board an icon will appear next to the statistics icon; clicking this will either bypass any further placement of relatives or any further running (depending on phase).
Finally, there are some "Dev Mode" options which can be selected, which can enable/disable AI autoplay, set starting phase, allow pre-population of the board, disable the six turns of lava tile placement before pieces can run ("surprise"), and/or show the relative values the AI's place on their move choices.
This web app is unlicensed and not intended for profit; I simply love this board game and wanted to embark on the adventure of coding it in React. If you like this game, I highly recommend purchasing the physical version.
Any questions or comments, please email me (Brian Redd) at me@rbrianredd.com
Designer: Klaus-Jü Wrede
Dual Vent Variant: Morgan Dontanville
Development: AMIGO Spiel + Freizeit, GmbH
Artist: Oliver Freudenreich (contents) & Guido Hoffman (cover)
Translation: Alex Yeager
Production (2nd English Edition): Ron Magin & Pete Fenlon
Special Thanks: Richard Bertok, Peter Bromley, Robert T. Carty, Jr., Coleman Charlton, Dan Decker, Marinda Darnell, Morgan Dontanville, Nick Johnson, Misty Kesler, Kim Marino, Marty McDonnell, Brad McWilliams, Jim Miles, Jacqui Rex, Chuck Rice, Bridget and Larry Roznai, Loren Roznai, Brad Steffen, Brian Steffen, Guido Teuber, Bill and Elaine Wordelmann, Alex and Julie Yeager
Email: CustServ@mayfairgames.com
Copyright © 2006, 2013 Mayfair Games, Inc.