How to play Kyrras

Overview

What is Kyrras?#

Kyrras is a strategy game for two to six players on a board of hexagons, inspired by the Cyvasse of A Song of Ice and Fire. Before a single piece moves, the players raise Mountains and deploy their armies in plain sight, so no two battles start alike. Then you take turns moving one piece at a time. Your aim is simple: capture the enemy King and protect your own. Think of chess, played on a battlefield you helped to build, with Dragons that fly, Elephants clad in steel and a peasant levy that can rise to become Raiders.

The army

The pieces#

Each player commands eighteen pieces. Elephants and Spears face a direction and carry a steel plate on that edge; every other piece can move in all six directions. Each diagram below is a real position: the lit hexes are the moves the game allows, computed by the same rules engine you play against.

Before the battle

Setup#

A game of Kyrras begins on an empty board. Setup happens in two stages, and every placement is visible to everyone.

1. Raise the Mountains. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player places one Mountain at a time on any empty hex, until all are placed: four each in a two-player game, two each with more players. Use them to wall off your King, or to choke the roads your rival will need.
2. Deploy your army. Then, again in turn, each player places two pieces at a time. Pieces go in your home territory, the rows nearest your edge of the board. Once your home territory is full, you may also use the rest of your half, but never past the centre line.

Never start a King in check. A setup must not leave any King threatened by an enemy piece. Random and automatic deployments always respect this, and if you place pieces by hand, the game warns you before a King would start threatened.

The board grows with the table: a radius of four hexes for two players, five for three, six for four and seven for five or six. You can also choose a smaller or larger board.

Play

Turns and rotation#

Players take turns clockwise. On your turn you move exactly one piece, and you may capture with it. A piece moves only within its pattern, and most cannot pass through others; see each piece above.

Elephants and Spears turn for free. Before moving one, you may turn it to face any of the six directions, then it moves straight ahead along its new facing. The turn is part of the move: you commit both together, only the piece you move can turn, and you cannot turn a piece without moving it or after it has moved. A piece that does not move keeps its facing, and with it the side its steel plate guards.

Combat

Capturing and check#

You capture by moving onto a hex held by an enemy piece, which leaves the board. Mountains and your own pieces can never be captured. Some pieces resist certain attackers:

• Steel plates. An Elephant or Spear cannot be captured through the hex edge it faces, except by an Elephant, a Knight or a Dragon.
• Dragons fall to Rabble only when at least two enemy Rabble or Raiders, the capturing Rabble included, stand beside the Dragon.
• Kings can never be taken by Rabble or by another King, and a King capture needs a supporting piece that could also reach the King.

A hex is threatened when an enemy piece could reach it on its next move. Elephants and Spears can turn before they move, so they threaten in all six directions, not only the way they face. A King that is threatened is in check.

You may never make a move that leaves your own King threatened, and your King may never step onto, or capture on, a threatened hex. The one exception: capturing the last opposing King ends the game at once, so that capture is always allowed.

The first round is safe. No King can be captured until every player has taken a first turn. Check is still shown and you still may not leave your King threatened, but nobody can lose or draw before moving.

Command

The Viceroy rule#

When your Viceroy is captured and your King still stands, the game pauses for you to crown a new Viceroy. Choose any of your pieces except the King. It stays where it is, gives up its own powers and moves as a Viceroy from then on.

You may also decline and play on without a Viceroy. Either way, the decision is made at once, before play continues, and declining is final. Crowning a humble Rabble keeps your strongest pieces exactly as they are.

Rising up

Rabble promotion#

A Rabble that reaches the far side of the board, the two rows along the edge opposite its home, is promoted at once to a Raider as part of the same move, even when it arrives by capturing. The tinted rows in the Rabble diagram above show where that happens, as the engine computes it.

The end

Winning, eliminations and draws#

• Capture the King. Taking an enemy King wins a two-player game, and eliminates that player in a larger one.
• Checkmate is a loss. A player whose King is in check and who has no legal move is checkmated. With two players left, the opponent wins; with three or more, the checkmated player is eliminated and play continues.
• Surrender. Resigning eliminates only you. With two players left, your opponent wins.
• Stalemate. A player who is not in check but has no legal move is stalemated. With two players left, the game is a draw.
• Only Kings left. When nothing but Kings remains on the board (Mountains aside), the game is a draw, because a King can never capture a King.

There is no draw by repetition and no move limit.

Three to six

Three or more players#

• Play passes clockwise. Each player places two Mountains, and neighbours’ home territories may overlap: both may deploy in those shared hexes.
• A player is eliminated when their King is captured, when they are checkmated, or when they resign or forfeit. Their remaining pieces leave the board (Mountains stay), and play skips them. The last player standing wins.
• A stalemated player chooses to pass (skip the turn) or forfeit (and be eliminated). If every remaining player passes in turn with no move in between, the game is a draw.
• Support for a King capture, and the two Rabble or Raiders needed to bring down a Dragon, may come from any player except the defender.
• While more than one opponent remains, a King capture that would leave your own King threatened is not allowed.

Counsel

Strategy tips#

• Build your fortress first. Place Mountains to close the straight roads toward your King. Dragons, Raiders and the Viceroy all travel in lines, and a Mountain stops every one of them.
• Face the danger. Turn Elephants and Spears so their steel plates meet the likeliest attack, and lock them together into a wall.
• Count the supporters. A King falls only to an attacker with a second piece in range. Keep enemy pieces from lining up two attackers on your King.
• Keep your Dragon clear of Rabble pairs. It is your fastest piece, but two Rabble beside it can bring it down.
• March the Rabble. A Rabble that crosses the board returns as a Raider, and the threat of promotion ties up defenders.
• Protect the Viceroy, but use it. Losing it costs you a piece’s powers to replace it, so trade it only for something better.

For the record

Notation#

In the game’s move list, hexes are named like chess squares: a letter for the file and a number for the rank, counting up from the first player’s edge. Game records use the engine’s full notation, which you can safely skip if you just want to play.