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ConspiracyTextVersion

This is an AutoGeneratedTextVersion of Conspiracy

C o n s p i r a c y
Version 2.1.1
Version Date 20-Mar-2002
Number of Players 4
Game Length 30-90 minutes
Author Brad Johnson, tempus42@sbcglobal.net
Copyright ? 2002 Bradley T. Johnson
E q u i p m e n t
•  1 piecepack (see www.piecepack.org)
•  1 opaque bag or bowl to hold 24 coins
•  Paper and pencil
•  1 game board (optional, see Initial Setup below)
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Unknown to most citizens of the world, huge conspiracies of unfathomably
powerful people compete with each other on a global scale. These people wield
the tools of national government, international economies, world wars, and
religious dogma with the ease that you or I move pawns on a chessboard. And
all of them share the same goal: control of a new world order tailor made to suit
their personal tastes.
A conspiracy with almost unlimited resources can afford to take the long view.
They must view time on the scale of years, decades, and generations. A
recession in the U.S. this year can lead to an increase in public sentiment
favoring war in 10 years, which in turn can lead to the issuance of a papal bull
condemning assassination. And no one knows how these events benefit the
Rosicrucians or the Bilderbergers until the desired fascist dictatorship emerges in
Columbia two generations hence.
This game is intended to put the players in role of one of these global
conspiracies. Major global forces are abstracted into the 4 piecepack suits:
Crowns for Sociopolitical influence, Arms for Military influence, Moons for
Economic influence, and Suns for Philosophical influence. Through the clever
positioning of piecepack coins (representing events) on the piecepack tiles
(representing desired results), the players can construct far-reaching plans, and
plans within plans, which they must foster carefully to see them come to fruition.
Throughout the game, time marches on! Each row on the game board
represents about a decade of time, with the top row representing “now” and the
rest of the rows representing plans being laid in the future. Periodically, the clock
will tick forward, and plans that have been successfully completed in time will
come to be in the present, while foiled plans are forgotten in the sands of time
(and probably never noticed at all by the general public). Each player has a
secret goal, and the first player to see his goal realized wins the game. Of
course, the other players are simultaneously trying to achieve their own, possibly
overlapping goals. You must make your decisions very carefully.
I n i t i a l   S e t u p
1.  If desired, print out the game board on the last page of these rules and lay it
out in the center of the table. The board consists of nothing more than a

simple grid to help keep track of tile placement. This board is made to fit the
“standard” 2 inch piecepack tiles. You can create a different board to fit
different size tiles, or you can play the game easily without using the board if
you wish.
Design Note - The choice of three columns on the board is very important.
The first draft had four columns, but that seemed to be too easy for each of
the four players to pick a column to work in and avoid conflict with each other
until very late in the game, if at all. So I reduced the number of columns to
one fewer than the number of players to virtually guarantee that the players
would have to be fighting for “elbow room” right from the beginning. For now,
this game is only really intended for 4 players, but feel free to try it with 3 or 5.
2.  Shuffle all 24 piecepack tiles together and deal all of them facedown evenly to
the 4 players. Each player receives 6 random tiles. Each player may look at
his own tiles and may keep them secret from the other players.
3.  Mix all 24 piecepack coins into the bag. Each player must draw 3 random
coins from the bag. Each player must choose the following:
•  One of the suits (Crown, Arms, Sun, or Moon) represented on at least one
of the coins he drew, and
•  One of the numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) represented on at least one of the
coins he drew. Note that for this purpose a blank coin denotes the
number 0 and a spiral symbol denotes the number 1.
You may choose the suit and number from the same coin if desired. You
must note your chosen suit and number on a piece of paper and keep it
secret from the other players. This is your secret goal for winning the game!
When finished, you must return all 3 coins to the bag.
Strategy Tip - Take a look at the tiles you were dealt before you choose your
suit and number. You would probably do best to choose a goal that is the
best match for your tiles.
O b j e c t   o f   t h e   G a m e
To be the first to end your turn with both your chosen suit and your chosen
number shown in the top (“present”) row of the board, representing your
conspiracy’s domination of the world.
S e q u e n c e   o f   P l a y
Once setup is complete, the game is played as a series of rounds. Each round
consists of the following activities, in this order:
1.  Determine the order in which the players will take their turns this round (see
Determine Player Order below).
2.  Check each of the 3 columns on the board to see if any advance (see Time
Marches On below).
3.  In the determined order, each player takes his turn (see Execute Player Turns
below).
4.  If no one has won the game, return to 1 to start the next round.

D e t e r m i n e   P l a y e r   O r d e r
1.  If any player(s) have a coin face-up before them from their previous turn,
players will take their turns in descending order of number showing. Consider
a blank coin to be 0. Spiral coins are special -- see 4 below.
2.  Break ties by die roll, highest roll going first. (Consider the blank face on the
die to be 0 and the symbol face to be 1.) Re-roll as necessary until all ties are
resolved.
3.  Players with no coin face-up before them are considered to have a 0 showing.
Thus, all players with no coin and all players with a blank coin are tie for
moving last. Resolve these ties if necessary by die roll as described in 2
above.
Example - One player has a coin showing 3 face-up before him, two players
each have coins showing 2, and one player has no coin. The player with the
3 coin will play first this round. The two players with the 2 coins each roll a
die, getting a 4 and symbol. The player who rolled the 4 will play second this
round, and the other player will play third. The player with no coin will play
fourth.

Design Note - At the start of the game, no players have any coins yet;
therefore, player order for the first round must be determined solely by die
roll.
4.  A player with a spiral coin face-up before him has a wild card. He may
choose to take his turn in any order he chooses during the upcoming Execute
Player Turns part of the round. He is not required to declare when he will
take his turn in advance. Determine the order of the other players normally,
excluding the player(s) with a spiral coin showing. Then, during the Execute
Player Turns part of the round, a player who has a spiral coin showing may
decide to take his turn immediately before or after any other player as the
opportunity presents itself, interrupting the determined turn order.
a.  If two or more players with spiral coins showing all choose to take their
move at the same time, resolve the ties by die roll, with the player
rolling highest taking his move. The player who wins the die roll must
take his turn now, but the player(s) who lost the die roll may still
choose to jump into the player order any time later.
b.  If a player with a spiral coin showing has not yet taken his turn after all
other players have taken their turns, he must take his turn last. If this
applies to two or more players, they must take their turns in
descending die roll order.
Example - Player A and player B each have a coin showing a spiral
face-up before them. Players C and D resolve their turn order
normally, while the players A and B have no defined player order yet.
After seeing the results of the Time Marches On part of the round, both
players A and B decide that they would like to play first this round.
They each roll a die; A gets a blank and B gets a 2. Player B takes his
turn first. When he finishes, player A may now choose to play ahead
of C, but he decides to wait. Player C plays next. When he finishes,

player A then decides to take his turn ahead of player D. Finally,
player D gets the last turn of the round.
T i m e   M a r c h e s   O n
1.  This activity may be skipped in the first round of the game and any other
round that there are no tiles currently located in any “future” rows (which is
quite unlikely after the first turn).
2.  Each column is checked independently of the others. You can check them in
any order you wish; advancement is considered to be simultaneous.
However, you must check all 3 columns and you must identify the column you
are checking before you roll the dice.
3.  To determine if a column advances, roll all 4 piecepack dice at once. If at
least 2 dice are successful, the column advances. If fewer than 2 dice are
successful, the column does not advance.
4.  A die is “successful” if it shows a symbol (Crown, Arms, Moon, or Sun) or if it
shows a number (2, 3, 4, or 5) that is less than or equal to the highest number
showing on a face-up tile of the same suit in the column being checked. Do
not include tiles already in the “Present” row for this determination.
Example - The column you are checking contains a face-up Crown-2 tile, a
face-up Crown-5 tile, a face-up Arms-3 tile, and a face-down tile. You roll
Crown-4, Arms-5, Moon-0, and Sun-1 on the 4 dice. The Crown die is
successful because 4 is less than the Crown-5 tile. The Arms die is not
successful because 5 is greater than the Arms-3 tile. The Moon die is not
successful because the blank is never successful. The Sun die is successful
because the symbol is always successful. The face-down tile is not
considered at all because it is face-down. This yields a total of 2 successes,
so this column will advance this round.

Design Note - Even columns with no face-up tiles in them can advance if you
roll 2 or more symbols on the dice. This gives a minimum of a 1 in 6 chance
for a column to advance even when no one has completed any plans in it yet
to prevent players from “sandbagging” too much.
5.  When a column must be advanced, all of the “Future” tiles in that column will
move up one toward the “Present”, and the current “Present” tile in that
column may or may not be replaced. Perform the following steps for the tiles
in the column being advanced only:
a.  If there is a face-up tile in the “Future 1” row, remove the tile (if any)
from the “Present” row and give it to the active player. The player who
receives the tile may add it to the tiles he was dealt and he may play it
normally.
 i.  For advancements performed during the Time Marches On part
of the round, the “active player” is considered to be the first
player, as determined in Determine Player Order above.
 ii.  For advancements performed during the Execute Player Turns
part of the round, the “active player” is considered to be the
player who initiated the advancement check.

 iii.  If the removed tile was marked by one or more players (see
Declare Progress or Victory below), simply return the markers to
them. Those players no longer have any chance of declaring
victory this turn.
Design Note - Tiles never leave the game. They keep getting recycled
from player to player. This helps prevent the case where the tiles you
need to win have been removed from the game. But beware! If
another player knows that a certain tile is valuable to you, he may
choose to keep it out of play to harm you.
b.  If there is a face-down tile (or no tile) in the “Future 1” row of the board,
leave the tile in the “Present” row where it is. Remove the coins (if
any) on the tile in the “Future 1” row and return them to the bag.
Remove the tile (if any) from the “Future 1” row and give it to the active
player, as described above.
c.  Finally, move each tile remaining in a “Future” row up 1 row toward the
“Present” row, regardless of whether the tile is face-up or face-down.
Thus, a tile in the “Future 1” row would move to “Present”, a tile in the
“Future 2” row would move to “Future 1”, and so on.
E x e c u t e   P l a y e r   T u r n s
Each player, in the order determined in Determine Player Order above, takes his
turn, performing the steps 1-10 below:
D r a w   C o i n s
1.  Pick up the coin (if any) you had saved from last turn.
2.  Draw enough coins randomly from the bag to equal 3 in your hand. If you
saved a coin from last turn, you will draw 2 from the bag. If you did not save
a coin from last turn, you will draw 3 from the bag. You may look at the coins
drawn and may keep them secret from the other players.
Design Note - Yes, this means that you get to re-use the coin that you used to
determine player order. The means to affect when you take your turn is also
the only means you have to save a coin from round to round. This becomes
a double-edged sword: If you want to save a low-numbered coin, you’re more
likely to move later, after other players have had a chance to meddle with
what you were hoping to accomplish. If you save a high-numbered coin, you
may move first, but all of the other players will have a chance to undo your
achievements. Spiral coins are very powerful, but they have their own
limitations (see Unexpected Effects below).
3.  If there were not enough coins available in the bag to fill your hand to 3, draw
as many as are available, and then pause play for a mandatory advancement
of all 3 columns on the board!
a.  Do not roll the dice to determine whether or not the columns
advance. You must perform the advancement steps on each
column as described in Time Marches On step 5.
b.  Continue performing advancements until at least enough coins
have been returned to the bag to allow you to fill your hand to 3.
(However, you must advance each column an equal number of
times.)

Design Note - Without this contingency, it might be possible (or even likely)
for the players to place all the coins on the board and leave the game in a
stalemate. Mandatory advancements are a good way to keep the game
moving -- no stalemate is possible.
4.  Now add to your hand any coins that may have been passed to you by other
players since your last turn. These are bonus coins that you may use this
turn. They do not count against your 3 coin draw limit.
T a k e   A c t i o n s
5.  You may take any combination of the following actions, in any order, as long
as the total number of action points required does not exceed 2 and you have
all the coins the actions require.
a .   P l a c e   C o i n
 i.  Placing a new coin on the board costs 1 action point.
 ii.  The coin you place must be selected from your hand and
placed in an empty space on the board. Additionally, the
following criteria must hold:
a)  The coin must be placed number side up .
b)  The coin must be placed horizontally, vertically, or
diagonally adjacent to another coin already on the
board or a face-up tile already on the board.
Exception: You can always place a coin in an empty
space at the top of “Future 1” row, immediately
adjacent to the “Present” row.
c)  The coin must be oriented such that its directional
mark points to a horizontally, vertically, or diagonally
adjacent coin or face-up tile already on the board.
Exception: You can point to an empty space in the
“Present” row.
d)  Coins may only be placed in the square spaces on
the back of face-down tiles on the board. Coins are
never placed directly onto the board nor onto face-up
tiles. (See iii below for placing new tiles onto the
board.)
Design Note - This means that you must place coins such
that they form connected chains. Most chains will lead back
to face-up tiles in the “Present” row or elsewhere. To start
off the game when there are no face-up tiles on the board,
you must start building from the spaces directly under the
“Present” row, extending downward into the “Future” rows.
 iii.  Before you place the coin, you may place 1 new tile from
those you hold onto the board for no additional cost,
provided that the following criteria hold:
a)  The tile must be placed face down.
b)  The tile must be placed horizontally or vertically (not
diagonally) adjacent to at least one other tile already

on the board. Exception: You can always place a
new tile in an empty space in the “Future 1” row.
c)  The tile must be placed in one of the 3 fixed columns
on the board. (You cannot create new columns.)
d)  However, there is no limit to the number of rows you
can have, even though the board only shows a total of
five. If you want to put a tile in “Future 5”, just keep
building the board off the edge of the page.
e)  The coin you are placing must be placed on the new
tile and must still adhere to all criteria under ii above.
 iv.  If the coin you placed shows a spiral symbol (a “wild card”)
you must immediately check for an unexpected effect. See
Unexpected Effects below for instructions.
Strategy Tip - If you only place coins on tiles you want to
reveal and protect, the other players will soon see through
you like a window. They’ll know to just meddle wherever you
last placed a coin. Mix up your plays with some attacks and
some bluff placements so your opponents waste time
defending themselves and chasing red herrings. And make
sure it’s not too obvious what type of tiles you’re placing, or
your opponents will know for certain how to most effectively
prevent them from being revealed.
b .   R e v e a l   C o i n
 i.  Revealing a number-side-up coin on the board costs 1 action
point. (Symbol-side-up coins are already revealed and
cannot be revealed again unless they somehow get turned
number-side-up again.)
 ii.  In addition to spending the action point, you must also give
any 1 coin of your choice from your hand to another player of
your choice. If you do not have a coin to give, you may not
perform the Reveal Coin action.
Strategy Tip - Look for opportunities to negotiate with the
player to whom you give the coin. If you agree to give him
one he needs, perhaps he will agree play it in a way that is
mutually beneficial (or at least not harmful to you). Or
maybe he’ll play out that tile he’s been keeping from you?
Giving coins as a payment for performing certain actions is
the only way of exchanging coins between players, so use it
to your benefit.
 iii.  A number-side-up coin may be revealed if either of the
following conditions are met:
a)  There is exactly 1 number-side-up coin pointing at the
coin to be revealed and the number it shows is
exactly equal to the number on the coin to be
revealed.

b)  There are 2 or more number-side-up coins pointing at
the coin to be revealed and the total of the numbers
they show is greater than the number on the coin to
be revealed.
 iv.  On the coin to be revealed, a blank counts as 0 and a spiral
counts as 1.
 v.  On the coin(s) pointing at the coin to be revealed, a blank
still counts as 0, but a spiral is wild. You may count it as any
number you wish.
 vi.  To reveal a number-side-up coin, simply turn it symbol-side-
up in its place. When turning the coin over, you must make
sure the directional indicator on the symbol side points in the
same direction as the number side did.
Strategy Tip - The fastest way to reveal a coin that no one
else has played on is to use your first action to place a spiral
(or a matching number) pointing at the coin you want to
reveal, and then use your second action to reveal it.
Otherwise, the best you can hope for is to play 2 coins
pointing to the coin you want to reveal this turn, and then
wait until next turn to reveal it. Unless of course you can cut
a deal with another player to share in the placing and
revealing somehow?
 vii.  After revealing a new coin, a chain reaction of one or more
additional reveals may be caused. Any number-side-up coin
that is pointed to by at least 2 symbol-side-up coins must
immediately be revealed, as described in vi above. Continue
to reveal coins in this way as necessary.
Strategy Tip - Through careful planning and coin placement,
it may be possible to chain a large number of coins together
in such a way that one action could cause many coins to be
revealed. This could be an ultra-fast way to get the
necessary support on a number of tiles all in one turn.
c .   A t t a c k   C o i n
 i.  Attacking a coin on the board costs 1 action point.
 ii.  In addition to spending the action point, you must also give
any 1 coin of your choice from your hand to another player of
your choice. If you do not have a coin to give, you may not
perform the Attack Coin action.
 iii.  To attack a number-side-up coin on the board, perform the
following steps:
a)  First, place a new coin from your hand onto the board
following the exact same rules as given for Place Coin
above. The coin you place (the “attacking coin”) must
point at the attacked coin.
b)  If the number showing on the attacking coin is greater
than or equal to the number showing on the attacked

coin, the attacked coin is removed and returned to the
bag.
•  Blanks always count as 0.
•  If the attacked coin is a spiral, it counts as 1.
•  If the attacking coin is a spiral, it counts as any
number you wish.
Design Note - Attacking a number-side-up coin is nothing
more than performing a normal Place Coin action with the
added cost of giving away a coin for the privilege of
removing a coin from the board. Requiring the cost of a coin
in addition to the action means that you will only have
enough coins to make one attack per turn, unless someone
else has given you another coin as part of their action costs.
It’s no accident that this can help encourage players to back-
stab each other.
 iv.  To attack a symbol-side-up coin on the board, perform the
following steps:
a)  First, place a new coin from hand onto the board
following the exact same rules as given for Place Coin
above. The coin you place (the “attacking coin”) must
point at the attacked coin.
b)  If the number showing on the attacking coin is greater
than or equal to all numbers showing on number-side-
up coins that point to the attacked coin (“supporting
coins”), the attacked coin is flipped back to its number
side.
•  Blanks always count as 0.
•  If a supporting coin is a spiral, it counts as 1.
•  If the attacking coin is a spiral, it counts as any
number you wish.
c)  Additionally, you may choose to give a second coin of
your choice from your hand to another player of your
choice in order to remove the attacked coin instead of
flipping it. If you do not have a second coin to give,
you may only flip the attacked coin.
Design Note - Attacking a symbol-side-up coin is exactly
the same as attacking a number-side-up coin, except it’s
a little more expensive to eliminate the target completely.
But just flipping the coin off of the symbol side may be
enough to delay your opponent as much as you need.
Remember that just the simple cost of one action to re-
reveal the coin (assuming all of the supporting coins have
been left in place) is enough to prevent him from
revealing the tile (which costs 2 actions) in the same turn.

d .   R e v e a l   T i l e
 i.  Revealing a face-down tile on the board costs 2 action
points. (Face-up tiles are already revealed and cannot be
revealed again unless they somehow get turned face down
again.)
 ii.  In addition to spending the action points, you must also give
any 1 coin of your choice from your hand to another player of
your choice. If you do not have a coin to give, you may not
perform the Reveal Tile action.
 iii.  A face-down tile may only be revealed if there are currently
at least 2 symbol-side-up coins on that tile.
 iv.  To reveal the tile, perform the following steps:
a)  Remove all of the coins from the tile and turn the tile
face-up in its place on the board. Add up the values
of the coins that are symbol side up. (Ignore coins
that are number side up.)
•  Coins whose symbol matches the tile’s symbol are
worth their printed value. (Blanks count as 0 and
spirals count as 1.)
•  Coins whose symbol opposes the tile’s symbol are
worth minus their printed value. (Crowns and
Arms oppose each other; Suns and Moons
oppose each other.)
•  Coins whose symbol neither matches nor opposes
the tile’s symbol are worth 1 regardless of their
printed value.
b)  If the total value of the symbol-side-up coins is greater
than or equal to the value of the tile, the tile must
remain in place face-up. (A blank tile counts as 0 and
a symbol tile counts as 1.)
c)  If the total value of the symbol-side-up coins is less
than the value of the tile, the tile must be removed
and given to the active player.
d)  Regardless of the outcome, all of the coins that were
on the revealed tile are returned to the bag.
e)  All other tiles and coins on the board remain in place
regardless of their placement or orientation. This may
mean that some coins now point into an empty area
of the board, or a tile is “disconnected” from the other
tiles. That’s ok.
Example - A tile with an Arms (3) coin, a Crown (1) coin, a
Moon (blank) coin, and a 5 (Arms) coin on it is revealed and
found to be the Arms-4 tile. The 5 coin is ignored because it
is not symbol side up. The Arms coin is worth its printed
value, which is 3. The Crown coin is worth minus its printed
value (because Crowns oppose Arms), which makes -1.

The Moon coin is worth 1 because it neither matches nor
opposes Arms. That gives a total of only 3 points, which is
less than the 4 on the tile, so the tile must be removed. If
the tile had been a Sun 2 tile, then it would have remained in
place because the Arms and Crown would have contributed
1 point each while the blank Moon would have subtracted 0,
giving the minimum necessary 2.
e .   A d v a n c e   C o l u m n
 i.  Attempting to advance a column on the board costs 2 action
points.
 ii.  Choose a single column and roll the dice and perform the
advancement if successful exactly as described in Time
Marches On steps 3-5 above.
Design Note - This is the voluntary version of Time Marching On,
useful when a player has all of his plans in place and he only needs
to hurry them along. However, this action is costly and not a sure
thing since you have to roll the dice, plus it blatantly advertises to
the other players that you have a vested interest in a tile in the
column you’re advancing. On the other hand, you could also take
this approach as an offensive measure to try to eliminate tiles you
don’t like in the “Present” row. So which is it?
S a v e / D i s c a r d   C o i n s
6.  If you have any coins remaining, you may choose 1 of them to save for your
next turn. The coin to be saved must be placed number side up in front of
you where all the other players can see it. You are not required to save a
coin if you wish to discard them all.
7.  If the coin you saved shows a spiral symbol (a “wild card”), you must
immediately check for an unexpected effect. See Unexpected Effects below
for instructions.
8.  Return all other coins in your hand to the bag. (Thus, at this point, you must
have at most 1 coin remaining in your possession, and if you have 1, it must
be face-up in front of you.)
Strategy Tip - Saving a coin serves two purposes: Not only are you choosing
one of your three coins for next turn, but you get a chance to affect what order
you play in. It’s easy to let the saved coin just turn into a simple choice of turn
order, but don’t forget that you might be able to ensure a good move for
yourself next turn if you choose the right coin to save. Maybe you will need a
certain number next turn to reveal a key event or attack another player. Or
maybe you need to make sure you have a particular suit in hand to get a tile
revealed. Saving a coin for the suit on it is particularly sneaky because the
other players only get to see the number side of the one you save. You may
be able to bluff by making them think you need the number for a certain play
when you actually need the suit. But saving a coin is not always the best
play. If none of the coins you have left are particularly useful to you, you
might be better off discarding everything and taking your chances playing last.
Or in those times when there are only a couple of tokens left in the bag, the
coin you discard (or refuse to discard) may make the difference between the

next player making some mandatory advancements or not. And if you do it
just right, you may even get to discard such that you essentially get to choose
which coins the player after you will draw. Can you influence him to make a
play in your favor?
D e c l a r e   P r o g r e s s   o r   V i c t o r y
9.  At the end of your turn, if either your secret goal suit or your secret goal
number (or both) is shown on any tile currently in the “Present” row, you may
choose to mark one tile to indicate progress toward your victory.
Design Note - The idea of being required to indicate that you were getting
close to victory was not originally part of this design. However, it seems that
being able to deduce whether or not a player is making any progress just from
the clues of his coin plays is very difficult, particularly for first-time players. I
came up with this as a patch to add some tension to the game, so it’s not just
all of a sudden over and you have no idea what happened. It does make it
harder to defend yourself and can increase game duration. If you don’t like it,
play without it.
a.  You are not required to mark a tile just because you are able to, but
you may not declare victory until at least the next round after you
have done so.
b.  The tile that you mark must show either your secret goal suit or
your secret goal number (or both), but you are not required to
reveal which one is the match.
Strategy Tip - Don’t mark a tile to show progress prematurely. If
the second tile you need to win is not already in the “Present” row
or ready to move into it, revealing that your goal is half met will only
give information to the other players that you’ll wish they didn’t
have. Also, don’t mark a tile to show progress if your defense of
that tile in the “Present” row is shaky. As soon as the other players
know the tile represents half of your goal, they’ll do anything
possible to remove it. Ideally, you can declare progress by marking
a tile far from the easy reach of the other players while you secretly
have the second half of your goal ready to be advanced with a
near-sure-thing die roll on your next turn. Watch for opportunities
to take “back-to-back” turns to win: take the last turn in one round,
declare your progress, and then take the first turn in the next round
and win before anyone can do anything to try to stop you!
c.  Even if both your suit and your number are shown in the “Present”
row (and you have not previously marked a tile to declare
progress), you should only mark one of them. You are not required
to reveal both matches.
d.  You may mark a tile even if another player has already marked that
tile to show his own progress. (You’re in a race to victory!!)
e.  You may use any method that is convenient to mark the tile. Using
one of the piecepack pawns is recommended, as long as you can
remember which player is represented by each pawn.

10. At the end of your turn, if both your secret goal suit and your secret goal
number are shown on 2 separate tiles currently in the “Present” row and one
of those tiles was marked by you on a previous turn, you may reveal the
record of your secret goal and win the game! Congratulations!
Example - Your secret goal for world domination is Moon & 3. The tiles now
in the “Present” row are Sun-3, Moon-2, and Crown-0. Last round, you
marked the Moon 2 tile at the end of your turn, declaring that your goal was
half met. At the end of this turn you can announce that you have won,
because your Moon goal is met by the Moon-2 tile and your 3 goal is met by
the Sun-3 tile. If the tiles in the “Present” row were Sun-2, Moon-3, and
Crown-0, you could not announce victory because you can not meet both
parts of your goal on just one tile.
U n e x p e c t e d   E f f e c t s
1.  Each time a spiral (“wild card”) coin is played (onto the board through a Place
Coin or Attack Coin action, or in front of a player as a saved coin), an
unexpected effect may occur.
2.  Immediately when the spiral coin is played, roll 1 die twice to determine a
random tile on the board.
a.  The first roll indicates a column on the board: 0 (blank) or 1 (symbol)
indicate the left column, 2 or 3 indicate the middle column, and 4 or 5
indicate the right column.
b.  The second roll indicates a row on the board: 0 (blank) indicates the
“Present” row, 1 (symbol) indicates the “Future 1” row, 2 indicates the
“Future 2” row, and so on.
3.  If there is a tile at the indicated column/row location, it is immediately flipped
to its other side.
a.  If the tile is in the “Present” row, remove it from the board and give it to
the active player. (This is the only case where the tile is not flipped,
because face-down tiles can not be located in the “Present” row.)
b.  If the tile is face up, turn the tile face down in its place.
c.  If the tile is face down, return all chips currently placed on it to the bag
and turn the tile face up in its place.
4.  If there is no tile at the indicated column/row location, there is no effect.
Design Notes - This is just an interesting random effect to spice up the game
a bit and give a couple of opportunities to introduce a sudden unexpected
change that the players must deal with. This not only helps keep players in
the game by giving a chance of harming the leader or helping a non-leader,
but it also mitigates the power of the spiral wild cards by attaching some risk
to playing them. If you have a number of tiles that could meet your goal face
up and ready to advance, you may be wise to avoid the temptation of playing
the powerful spiral coins. Think of the spirals as particularly dangerous or
unstable events.

D e s i g n   N o t e s
I saw a mention of the piecepack “Time Marches On” contest in rec.games.board
on 21-Feb-2002. This was the first time I had heard of piecepack, but I like to
enter something into any game design contest I can find if possible, so I looked
into it. I design games just for the fun of designing them. I’ve never yet
attempted to publish anything, although I hope to someday.
The theme of the contest immediately intrigued me because time is a concept in
which I am highly interested, and I have attempted to work aspects of time,
particularly time travel, into a number of past game designs. In fact, there is one
design that I have been tinkering with for literally two decades with the working
title “Tempus”. I first conceived of it some time in my high school days as an
improvement to the old Yaquinto “Time War” board game. I loved the concept of
that game (changing history to meet the goals of the present), but I always
thought Yaquinto’s version was much too dry and uninteresting. After going
through at least three very distinct versions that never got past the paper stage, I
finally created a functional prototype about 4 years ago, but it still never quite
gelled. It’s been sitting on the shelf since then.
“Time Marches On” immediately made me remember “Tempus”, but “Tempus”
relied on seeing all of time as a fixed “fabric”. You could go back and make
changes here and there, but the whole thing was always “there”. There wasn’t
really any “marching” to speak of. So I inverted the concept somewhat and
thought about vast global conspiracies (just as interesting to me as time travel)
not traveling back in time, but building vast Byzantine plans out into the future,
hoping to see them realized when the present caught up to them. I wanted to
capture the idea of a network of interconnecting global events, combined with the
delicate balance of making plans far enough in the future that the plots have time
to bear fruit, but not so far that there is time for the plots to be detected and
overcome by your enemies.
Looking at the piecepack parts, I saw that they were an excellent fit for most of
my existing ideas already, even though I had to completely retool everything from
scratch to make it work. I had once done a little exploration into making an
abstract version of “Tempus” that could be played using a deck of standard
cards, so I already had such ideas as the grid and the four suits in my mind. As it
turns out, the two-sided tiles and the matching coins (with directional sensitivity!)
and dice really made some of my problems with regular playing cards melt away.
I’m calling this version 2.1 because “Tempus” was a version 1.0 of sorts, and 2.0
was my first draft on scratch paper.
I got the basic game rules worked out right away; I knew how I wanted the game
to flow and what I basically wanted the players to be able to do, but I got hung up
on how to make the exact mechanics of the Reveal and Attack actions work out
right. Once I settled on centering everything around playing coins onto the
board, everything clicked together.
There is one thing in the piecepack specifications that I still find mysterious: the
spiral icons on the “ace” coins. I realize that an icon that was distinguishable
from the suit icons was needed, but the choice of a spiral still somehow seems
not quite right to me. So for that reason, I just had to work in some kind of

special effect connected to the spirals. It was a late add-on to the basic design,
but I think it fits rather nicely.
I admit that these rules got quite a bit lengthier than I anticipated, but I do still
think that the core of the game is quite simple; I’m just a fan of thoroughly written
rules that cover all the possible cases. I also admit that this design has been
very minimally playtested, but I believe I was able to flush out most of the
obvious first-draft trouble spots, which accounts for most of the special cases and
extra explanation that padded up these rules in places. In terms of the judging
criteria for the “Time Marches On” contest, I believe this game is in the ballpark
of playable in an hour, is very focused on displaying the strengths of a piecepack,
and has a fun and interesting theme (as much as an abstract game can have).
I’ll leave it up to the judge to say whether or not the rules were anywhere near
quick to read and easy to remember, but I suspect I may have overshot his
tastes in that area. That’s ok -- I really did it all for myself anyway.
Future development of this game would obviously include lots of playtesting, plus
testing for different numbers of players. I have a feeling that there may be a
number of degenerate strategies inherent in the mechanics that haven’t emerged
yet, but I’m confident they could be addressed with tweaks to the costing of the
various actions. I would definitely like to do some more work on distinguishing
the suits from each other, too. As it stands, it’s a little more symmetrical and
abstract-y than I’d prefer. In my opinion, the key difference between a pure
abstract game and a strongly-themed game is abstract games are usually
completely symmetrical, and strongly-themed games usually strive for balanced
asymmetry. I have ideas about tailoring certain aspects of the game, depending
on what types of tiles are in the “Present” row at any given time. For example,
maybe players draw 1+N coins each turn, where N is the number of
Moon/Economic tiles in the “Present” row, representing varying levels of
economic funding. Or maybe the different types of coins have different attack
effects. For example, Sun/Philosophical attacks allow you to rotate the attacked
coin, Crown/Sociopolitical attacks allow you to flip the attacked coin, and
Arms/Military attacks allow you to remove the attacked coin. I actually had some
of those sorts of ideas in version 2.0, but I deleted them since they were
complicating the rules even further and I didn’t have time to work them out fully
anyway. And in my heart of hearts, I’d really still like to take the improved ideas I
got from this exercise back to my original non-abstract, custom-card-driven
game.

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

Future 4

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?2002,BradleyT.Johnson

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E x t e n d e d   E x a m p l e
S e t u p
The tiles are dealt out:

Player A:

 
5   

 
   

 
2   

 
   

 
2   

 
5 

Player B:

 
3   

 
4   

 
4   

 
3   

 
5   

 
4 

Player C:

 
   

 
3   

 
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Player D:

 
   

 
   

 
   

 
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Then the players draw coins from the bag to
determine their secret goal:
Player A: Draws   /   4  ,   /     , and   /  4 

Chooses   and    

Player B: Draws   /   4  ,   /     , and   /   

Chooses   and   4 

Player C: Draws   /   3  ,   /   , and   / 

Chooses   and   3 

Player D: Draws   /   5  ,   /   3   , and   /  2 

Chooses   and    3   
It’s just a coincidence that 3 of the 4 players
chose their suit and number from the same
coin -- each player focused on making choices
that best fit the tiles they were dealt. Players
make a note of their secret goals and then
return the chips to the bag.
R o u n d   1
Determine Player Order
First, player order for the round is determined.
No one has any coins yet, so all 4 players must
roll a die:

Player A:
  5  

Player B:
  3  

Player C:
 

Player D:
  3  

Time Marches On
No need to check in round 1.

Player A’s Turn
Player A begins by drawing 3 coins. He gets
  /  5   ,   /  2  , and   /  3   . The Arms-5 would
be great for getting out the
Arms-5 tile in his hand, but
he doesn’t really have a
way to make that happen
quickly, and he doesn’t
want to risk losing that tile
so early in the game. So
he decides to begin a little
less aggressively by playing
the Moon-0 tile in column 3 and placing his
Crown-2 coin on it (action 1), followed by his
Crown-3 coin diagonally below it (action 2).
Notice how the coins point a path back to the
“Present” row. To end his turn, player A saves
his Arms-5 coin for next turn by playing it  5  
side up in front of himself.
Player D’s Turn
Player D draws   /   4     ,   /   3     , and   /   2    . He
would like to stake out his own claim early too,
and he really doesn’t have any hints at all
about A’s goals yet, so he
plays his Crown-1 tile in
column 1 and puts his
Moon-2 coin on it (action 1).
Then he boldly grabs
column 2 as well with his
Arms-1 tile, placing his
Arms-3 coin on it (action 2).
He would like to see the
Crown-1 tile advanced, but he really doesn’t
care about the Arms-1 tile much. It’s a red
herring so if another player wants to attack
him, there’s a 50% chance he may attack the
tile that D doesn’t care about. Also, by
blocking the “Future 1” row, he’s helping
prevent the next players from quickly making
progress. Player D then saves his Crown-4
coin on the    4     side and ends his turn.
Player B’s Turn
Player B draws   /     ,   /   3     , and   /   . His
immediate prospects are slim, but he decides
he wants to get his Moon-3 tile on board with
his Moon-3 coin on it. He could do this by
playing a coin below one of the coins D played

Player A will play first.
Players B and D roll off
their tie, resulting in
player D playing second,
player B third.
Player C will play last.

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

2
3

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

2
3
2 3

in columns 1 or 2, but that would cause him to
burn a coin and an action,
so he decides to play it
directly off of the second
coin placed earlier by A
(action 1). Then, because
he can, and because he’s
worried that A has a good
chance of revealing the tile
he played soon, B plays his
spiral coin as an attack on A’s 3-coin (action 2).
First, he must pay his last coin (the Moon-0,
which he didn’t really want to save anyway) to
a player of his choice, and he chooses Player
D, who has already moved, so it can’t be used
against him this turn. D sets the coin aside for
next turn, separate from the coin he saved for
himself. Then, as the spiral (“wild card”) coin is
placed, B must check for unexpected effects.
He rolls
 
then
  4  , which indicates the
“Future 4” row in the left column. There is no
tile located there, so there is no effect. (There
are only a few tiles on the board so far, so
there was little risk.) Then he resolves his
attack. He would need a 3 or better to remove
the attacked coin, but the spiral is wild, so the
attack is successful and the 3 coin is removed
and returned to the bag. Player B then has no
coins to save or discard and his turn ends.
Player C’s Turn
Player C plays last in the first round. He draws
  /   ,   /   4     , and   /   3     . Note that this is the
fourth 3-coin that has been
seen already, so C knows
the two 3s still on the board
are definitely not Suns.
Coin-counting and
deduction are important for
figuring out what your
opponents are trying to do.
C decides to set himself up
for a good move next turn. He plays his Arms-
4 coin off of the 2-coin (action 1) and then
plays his Sun-3 coin on his Crown-3 tile off of
that. Then, he saves his spiral coin by playing
it   side up in front of him. That triggers
another unexpected effects check, and he rolls

a
  4   followed by a
 
, which indicates the
second row down (“Future 1”) in the middle
column. The tile there is flipped face-up and
the Arms-3 and Arms-4
coins on it are returned to
the bag! C’s turn, and the
round, then ends.
R o u n d   2
Determine Player Order
Three of the four players
saved a coin from last turn:
Player A:  5  

Player C:  

Player D:  4  

Therefore, Player A will play first again this
round, followed by player D, followed by player
B. However, player C may decide to take his
turn at any point in that sequence.
Time Marches On
All 3 columns are now checked to see if they
advance. At this point, few of the players are
hoping any of the columns advance since few
of the tiles have had time to be revealed.
However, player A probably wouldn’t mind
seeing the Arms tile advanced for free.

Left column:
 3   
  2   
 
 
 5  

The only success is the Crown symbol (which
is an automatic success), since there are no
face-up tiles in this row. The left column does
not advance.

Middle column:
 
 
 
 
  2   
  2  

That makes 2 successes
(the Moon symbol and the
Arms symbol), so the
middle column advances!
There is no tile in the
“Present” row middle
column to remove, so the
face-up Arms-1 tile simply
moves up to the “Present”
row while player A secretly smiles. The face-
down tile in the “Future 2” row then moves up
to the “Future 1” row.

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

22 3

3

3

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

22

3

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

22

3

3

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

22 3

3
4
3

Right column:
 
 
 5   
 

 

Even though the blank is a
guaranteed failure for that
die, the two symbols rolled
are enough to advance the
column. Again, there is no
tile in the “Present” row to
remove, but the tile in the
“Future 1” row is face-down, so it must be
removed. (A face-down tile can not advance
into the “Present” row.) The coin on it is
returned to the bag, and player A takes the tile
(because he is the first player this round). The
tile in “Future 2” moves up.
Player A’s Turn
Player C has a chance to take his move first,
but he decides to wait and see what Player A
will do. Player A picks up the   / 5   he saved
from last turn and then draws 2 coins from the
bag to make a total of 3. He gets   /   and
  /   4     . Since the tile and
coins he placed in the first
round have all unluckily
been removed, he doesn’t
have much to start with this
turn. He just tries to get
back on the board by
placing his Sun-4 coin on
the tile in the middle column
(action 1), followed by his
Arms-5 coin on his Arms-0 tile below that
(action 2). He fears the unexpected effects,
but he really doesn’t want to discard his spiral,
so he plays the   in front of him. He rolls
  2  

and
  5  , but there is no tile in the “Future 5”
row in the middle column to be affected by
unexpected effects. Before he ends his turn, A
decides to go out on a limb and mark the
middle column to indicate that the Arms-1 tile
satisfies half of his secret goal.
Player C’s Turn
Meanwhile, player C has been exchanging
veiled hints with player D about what may or
may not be on the table, and they realize that

they are both interested in getting the tile at the
top of the middle column revealed and
advanced. They decide to cooperate, so C
(who had played the spiral for determining
player order) jumps in and takes his turn now.
First, he picks up his   /  

and then draws   /   2     and
  /  5  . He places his
Crown-2 coin in the middle
column (action 1), and then
reveals the 3-coin that it
points to (action 2). This is
possible because there are
2 or more coins pointing to it
with a total value greater
than its own value. (Note how the revealed
coin still points in the same direction as
originally placed.) The cost of this action also
requires him to pass a coin to another player,
so he gives his Sun-spiral coin to player D, his
ally (at least for the moment). Player C saves
his  5   for the next turn.
Player D’s Turn
Player now picks up the   /   4     coin that he
saved last turn, and draws   /     and   / 5   to
make a total of 3. Then he additionally picks
up the   /     and   / 

coins that were each given
to him by other players.
This gives him many
options, but he follows
through on the agreement
with player C by playing the
Sun-spiral coin (action 1)
and then revealing the 2-
coin that C placed (action
2). This is valid because the spiral is wild and
can count as the 2 necessary for the single
coin exact count support for revealing a 2-coin.
The unexpected effects check is negative, and
player D gives the Moon-0 coin to C as
payment. Note that D was careful to set up
another possible tile for himself in column 1, as
a back-up plan in case the tile he already has
ahead of it in the same column fails to be
revealed. Finally, D saves the  5   in front of

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

2 33

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

2 33
4
5

A

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

3
4
5

A

2
2

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

3
4
5

A

2

him and must discard the other two coins,
returning them to the bag.
Player B’s Turn
Finally, player B gets his turn. He did not save
a coin last turn, so he gets to draw three from
the bag, getting   /  ,   /     , and   /   3     . For
illustration purposes, B decides to reveal the
tile in the center of “Future 1” (actions 1 and 2).
This may benefit him
because if it is a high-value
tile, there may not be
enough points worth of
face-up coins on it yet, and
he could get it discarded for
the cost of both of his
actions this turn. He
reveals that the tile is
Crown-3, and then adds up
the supporting points. The
   4     is ignored entirely because it is not symbol-
side-up. The   is worth 2 points of support
because it matches the symbol on the tile and
has a 2 on it. The   is worth 1 point because
it neither matches nor opposes the tile. That
makes a total of 3 points of support, which is
exactly enough to allow the tile to remain in
place, now face-up. The 3 coins are returned
to the bag. B chooses to save his    3     coin for
next turn, discards the other two he held, and
that ends Round 2.
A n d   S o   O n …
Round 3 would continue with A retaining
achievement of half of his goal (thanks to
player D’s placement of the tile and a little
luck), but C and D have joined forces to try to
bring that to an end this round. C or D would
be moving first, but A saved a spiral. Can he
move first and try to get the second half of his
goal met before anyone else can act?
Doubtful, because you can see getting a new
tile revealed takes at least a couple of turns,
even if you have the all the coins you need and
maybe a little help. The 2-action limit is a
significant throttle on the game, which will
reward careful planning and methodical
implementation.

Present

Future 1

Future 2

Future 3

3

5

A

2 3