Midgard

Midgard is a two player print-and-play abstract strategy game of dominance. Players take on the roles of Odin and his brothers in creating Midgard, the homeland of humanity from the remains of the vanquished ice giant Ymir. One player-god creates the seas and other the land masses. See Download Extras below to print a play sheet.

Player turns alternate starting with the sea player. Each turn, players are required to place one of their tiles on an empty ice cell that does not share an edge with any occupied terraformed cell. The newly occupied cell is terraformed into a sea or land cell and influences the transformation of its adjacent cells. These adjacent cells are referred to as blizzard cells because what they will become is unclear. Later, more sea and land tiles are placed and regions of blizzard cells may become completely enclosed. The blizzard cells are assigned to and terraformed by the player that exerts the most influence on the enclosed regions. A player’s influence is determined by counting owned edges around the enclosed region. In the case of a tie, half the cells are filled with sea tiles and the other half by land tiles. The gods have decreed that this will always be possible!

When the board is completely terraformed or a player has no more tiles in hand, the player with the most tiles on the board wins the game. If the players tie for most tiles, the player occupying the most perimeter cells wins.

Components

The game of Midgard requires the following:

A 10 x 10 regular triangular grid of cells with more triangle cells affixed to 24 of its border triangles. The board has a total of 124 cells which includes 27 perimeter cells - cells that are adjacent to exactly one other cell. The center cell is a blizzard cell.
70 sea tiles
70 land tiles
50 blizzard tiles

Figure 1. Midgard Board -Initial Setup

Set Up

The board is placed in the center of the playing area and one blizzard tile is placed on the center cell. See Figure 1.

Each player receives a set of either 70 sea tiles or 70 land tiles. Only 63 tiles are needed to ensure victory but the extra tiles will allow the players to easily quantify their victories. Gods enjoy boasting about their magnificent achievements.

There are 49 extra blizzard tiles that are put aside for the standard Midgard game. The blizzard tiles are used in the Mere Mortal (beginner) variant or used to seed a few extra interior ice cells at the start of the game. See Variants below.

Important Terms

Terraformed cell: A terraformed cell is a cell containing a sea or land tile. See Figure 2.

Adjacent cells: Cells are adjacent if they share a common edge. Cells that only touch at one point are not adjacent. In Figure 2, cell ‘a’ is adjacent to cell ‘b’ but cell ‘a’ is not adjacent to cell ‘c’.

Figure 2. Cell Types

Ice cell: An ice cell is an empty cell not adjacent to a terraformed cell. Ice cells can only be adjacent to other ice cells or blizzard cells. In Figure 2, all the cyan cells are ice cells.

Blizzard or influenced cell: An empty cell that is adjacent to a terraformed cell. The board’s center cell is considered to be a blizzard cell even though it is not next to a terraformed cell at the beginning of a game. In Figure 2, all the grayed cells are blizzard cells. Blizzard cells are to be considered empty even though they may contain a blizzard tile when playing the Mere Mortal variant. Blizzard cells will sooner or later be terraformed into sea or land tiles.

Game Play

Starting with the sea player, players take turns performing the following two actions:

A player must drop one of his or her tiles on any empty ice cell that meets the following restrictions:

The ice cell is not adjacent to any sea or land cells. See Figure 3 for samples of legal and illegal drop moves. In fact, in Figure 3, any cyan ice cell is legal.
The cell is not the center blizzard cell. Ymir was already starting to melt before the gods got to work. This helps counter-balance a slight advantage for the first player.

Figure 3. Legal and illegal drop cells

Once placed a tile terraforms the newly occupied cell into a sea or land cell and influences its adjacent cells. The adjacent cells become blizzard cells and neither player can drop tiles on these cells. Blizzard cells are grayed in the figures.

If a player is unable to place a terraform tile the game ends and a winner is determined. See Winning the Game below.

2. If the newly terraformed cell completes the enclosure of one or more regions of blizzard cells, each of these regions’ cells must be terraformed with the tiles of whichever player influences the region the most. If a tie occurs, each player covers half of the enclosed cells, starting with the moving player. Note that only the number of cells matters for scoring purposes so placement can be arbitrary.

A player’s influence on a blizzard region is determined by counting own edges on the border of the enclosed region. The player with a clear majority wins all the cells of an enclosed region. When multiple regions are enclosed by the placement of a tile, it is possible for either player to win some, all or none of these regions. The regions are assessed one at a time.

In Figure 4, if a player placed a tile at cell ‘a’, he or she would enclose a region of three cells and wins the region by influence counts of 3 to 2. If a player placed a tile at cell ‘b’, he or she would enclose a perimeter cell and wins it by influence counts of 1 to 0. If the sea player placed a tile at cell ‘c’, he or she would enclose and win two cells by influence counts of 3 to 2. If the land player placed a tile at cell ‘c’, he or she would enclose the region but only tie the sea player; 2 to 2. In this case, both players would win one cell. Figure 5 shows the cells captured by enclosure; the cells are indicated by dots.

Figure 4. Enclosure moves

Figure 5. Enclosure results

Winning the Game

When all the cells on the board are occupied by land or sea tiles or one player runs out of tiles, the player with the most tiles on the board wins. In the case of a tie, the player who occupies the most perimeter cells wins. The perimeter consists of the 27 outermost cells, each of which is adjacent to exactly one other cell.

Tip: The easiest way to determine the number of owned cells on the board is to subtract the number of tiles in hand from 70.

You are now ready to build a world.

Variants

Mere Mortal (Beginner) Variant

The Mere Mortal variant uses all the Midgard rules but adds a player aid. Blizzard tiles are used to indicate blizzard cells as they are created. This helps players easily see potential regions that could be enclosed and helps locate isolated ice cells.

Odin (Advanced) Variant

The Odin variant uses all the Midgard rules but delays the capture by enclosure. Instead of assigning enclosed regions when they are enclosed, players wait until the game ends. The end comes when both players agree there are no more ice cells to be found. The all knowing Odin can easily find ice cells, but can you?

If enclosure procedures start and an ice cell is discovered, these ice cells are treated as if they were blizzard cells!

Loki Variant

The Loki variant uses all the Midgard rules but instead of placing only one blizzard token on the center cell, players seed the interior cells of the game board with a few more blizzard cells. Do not seed perimeter cells which are still needed for breaking ties. The players are free to try any setup that they both agree to but it is suggested that center cell symmetry is maintained. See Figures 6 and 7 for examples.

Figure 6. Symmetry setup

Figure 7. Ymir setup

Download Extras

The following Midgard files are available for download from my Game Files page:

Midgard.pdf - Midgard rules
Midgard Playsheet.pdf - Brief rules and four playable Midgard grids
Midgard.swf - Playable Flash app!!

Please note that for now these game rules may be duplicated and distributed via the web. All rights are reserved. Those that wish to program or sell this game in any form should contact the author at philleduc.pled@gmail.com for permission or a license to do so.

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