Coming Soon: The Battle of Red Cliffs

A few months ago I wrote of review of Tien Zi Que.  It is one of my favorite card games and I was honored when the designer commented on my review.  Then, to my further amazement he asked me to play test a game he had been designing in the same line of Tien Zi Que and his game the Battle of Red Cliffs.

Of course I took him up on the offer and soon had the prototype for Red Cliffs in my hands.  With the help of friends and family we played the game and tried to offer our best praise and criticism (though there wasn't much of this).  It has been amazing to be a part of this process and I am excited about seeing this game published.




Goal of the Game:

Battle of Red Cliffs is a card variant of mahjong. Like Mahjong, each game of Red Cliffs takes several rounds of play.

What is unique about the Battle of Red Cliffs is that during the round, players collect sets of cards and keep one card from each set.  These are used for end of round scoring. When one player has five or six score cards, the round continues until the last player finishes his/her turn. Each player adds victory points to the score board based on the combinations of the score cards.  Play then continues to the next round. The game ends when one player, or a team, reaches a certain Rank level.  The player, or the team, with highest score wins the game.

Components:

Because I am play testing this game I can't comment on exactly what the final version will look or feel like.  I am excited because I like the anime and Asian style of the artwork.  Fans of he older version of The Battle of Red Cliffs will recognize the artwork as being very similar is design.  There are a lot of cards (117), a score board and more coming with this game.

 

Number Cards

- Zero- 16 total (4 Red, 4 Blue, 4 Green, and 4 White)
- Numbers 1 to 9 -  63 total  (18 Red, 18 Blue, 18 Green, and 9 White)

Special Cards    

- Beauties -  28 total (8 Red, 8 Blue, 8 Green, and 4 White)  The beauties are called warrior, dancer, maiden, and damsel.

 - TZQ - 9 total (These are the black cards)

- Event - 1

There are also 9 Command cards that give players special abilities, 9 player aides, one score board, and 7 score tokens.

Game Setup:

Players must first choose which game type they are playing: man on man or teams.

• Man on Man for 2 to 7 players
• Teams of Two for  4, 6 or 8 players. (Team members must sit at least one or more seats away from one another.)
• Teams of Three for 6 or 9 players. (Team members must sit two seats away from one another)

Next, players must place the score tokens on the Score Board accordingly.  

For Man on Man each player chooses a color and places the token on the "Level 1" space of the score board.  For teams of two each team chooses a color (red, blue, green or white) and places it on the "Level 1" space of the game board.  Or, for teams of three each team chooses a color (red, blue or green) and places the score token on the Level 1 space of the scoreboard.  The remaining tokens are placed back in the box.

Now, each player randomly takes one Command Card and one the Player Aide card for his/ her team color.  The remaining cards are removed from the game. The youngest player will be the Starting Player.

Round Setup:

For the first round of a new game, each player takes one TZQ card into his/her hand and then shuffles all remaining cards face down to form a Draw Pile. Make sure to leave extra space for three discard piles next to the draw pile. For all other rounds, each player takes one TZQ card from the Trash Pile into his/her hand.  Remember, you DO NOT shuffle cards to form a draw pile at the end of a round.
 

Now each player draws five additional cards from the draw pile into his / her hand. If an event card is drawn, draw another card.  Then, shuffle the event card back into the draw pile.  When this draw pile is depleted at any time during the game, shuffle the Trash Pile face down to form a new draw pile.  Players do not reveal their hand cards to other players, including team members.

Game Play:

The round begins with the starting player, and each player takes a turn proceeding clockwise.  During each turn, the active player takes four steps in specific order.  These steps are:

1. Peng!
2. Draw
3. Actions
4. Refill

Step 1: Peng!

Peng! is an interpretive action.  Players take two hand cards an a top card from Discard Piles B or C to create a Trips Set.  After creating the trips set, the interrupt players chooses one cards as a score card and places the two other cards in the trash pile accordingly.  The active player then continues with his are her turn.

The interpretive player may not refill their hand cards until the Refill step on their turn.  But there is no limitation of Peng! actions hat player may make per round.  Sometimes more than one player may be able to take a Peng! action. Priority goes first to the active player.  After this the player who sits closest to the active player has the priority. 

Step 2: Draw

The active player now draws one card from the draw pile and takes it into their hand.

Step 3: Actions

The active player may create 1 or 2 sets and play at least on action card.  This may be done in any order.  For example, the player may play an action card, create a set, and then play another action card.  If the active player does not create a set or play an action card they may discard 1 or 2 hand cards.

Creating a Set:  A set contains three cards.  These cards by be a straight or a trips set.  A Straight Set is three consecutive numbers.  For example 1, 2, 3 or 7, 8, 9.  1 and 9 are NOT connected and cannot be used to create a straight set.  Three different Beauties may also be used to create a set. When creating a set with three Beauties the players may choose to take one set action from one Beauty.  If they use a TZQ and two Beauties they may still only take the action from one Beauty.

A Trips Set is a set of three cards of the same card.  For example three ones or three beauties.  After creating a beauties set, the player may, if they wish, take the (Set) action on the card.

Sets may be created from the players hand or by taking two cards from the players hand an a top card in either discard pile B or C.  Color is irrelevant when creating a set. A great feature of Red Cliffs are all the special cards.  The Zero card is a numerical wild card that can be used when creating a straight set.  For example, using 0 as a number 3 to create a straight of 2, 0, and 4.  Three zeros can also be used to create a trips set.  

The TZQ card is a super wild card, and it can be used as any of the beauties or any number including 0.  But, a player cannot create a trips set with three TZQ cards.

After creating a set, the player chooses one card as a score card and places it in their play area.  The other cards are discarded.  There are a few rules when discarding.  TZQ cards and 0 cards are always discarded to the A pile.  Remember, players may not take cards from the A pile to Peng! or create sets.  If both cards are not wild cards, players may place them in pile B or C in any order of one in pile B and the other in pile C.  If either pile B or C are empty the player must discard to the empty pile first.  Players may look through the discard piles at any time during the game.

Playing an Action Card:  An action card is also the number 0 card.  When playing an action card, follow the description on the card.  When a player finishes, discard the action card in discard pile A. 

Step 4 - Refill

Now the player draws cards form the top of the draw pile until they have six cards in their hand.

Event Card

When a player draws and even card during the turn, first redraw another card, and then resolve the description on the event card.  When finished, place the event card in the trash pile.  

When the active player finishes their turn, the player to the left continues with a new turn.  

If the active player has five or six score cards at the end of the turn, the round continues until the last player or the player sitting to the right of the starting player finishes his or her turn.  When the round ends, follow the instructions in the End of Round and Scoring.  

End of Round and Scoring 

 

When the round ends all players put their hand cards and all the cards in the discard piles into the trash pile.  Trash pile cards are kept facing up, and no one can look through the pile during the game.

Each player uses the Player Aid / Score Card as a reference and then based on their score cards, accumulates victory points (VP) from the following sections.

1. 2 or more cards of the same numbers
2. 2 or more cards of the same Beauty
3. 2 or more Beauty cards
4. 3 or more cards in Red
5. 3 or more cards in Blue
6. 3 or more cards in Green
7. 3 or more cards in White
8. 3 or more cards in Black
9. 4 or more cards in different colors
10. 4 o more cards in a straight

There are no wild cards in scoring.  Number 0 is a ZERO with a color.  TZQ is simply a black color.

After calculating the victory points, each player adjusts their score token accordingly.

For example if a player has 2 blue sevens, 1 green six, 1 red 8, and one blue 9 they would receive 10 points.  They would get 2 victory points for having 2 or more cards of the same number (7s), 2 victory points for having 3 or more cards in blue (7s, 9), and 6 victory points for having 4 or more cards in a straight (6,7,8,9).

In a team play game, a team's victory points are a collective of its members.  For example, in the beginning of the round, Team A has 6 points.  At the end of the round, Mike from Team A receives 4 points, and Kristen from Team A receives 8 points.  The team would then score 12 points (4+8) total in this round.   With the six points from previous rounds, Team A now has a total of 18 points.

If any one player or team's token reaches the End of Game Conditions, the game ends immediately.  Other wise:

1. Move all score cards to the trash pile
2. The player who sits on the left of the starting player becomes the new starting player for the next round
3. If the score token is not on a ranking level, (first number on that row) move the score token to the next lower level.  For example 
1. If the score token is on "4," then more the token to "3," of the second level.  
2. If the score token is on "10," then do not move the token
4. Follow the Round Setup to begin a new round

End of Game Conditions:

- Man on Man:  When one player reaches 20 points or higher
        - Optional Rule:  For a 2 or 3 player game, when on player reaches 30 or higher
- Teams of Two:  When a team reaches 30 points or higher
- Teams of Three: When a team reaches 50 points or higher

Game End


When the game ends, the player or team with the highest score wins the game.  In case of a tie, the one who scores the most points in the last round wins.  If there is still a tie, the last player or team belonging to the last player of the last round wins.



My Thoughts

I already said that I really enjoyed Tien Zi Que but it just may be surpassed by Red Cliffs.  Red Cliffs feels like a grown-up version of Tien Zi Que.  There are more options on your turn, a deeper strategy, the special abilities of the Command Cards.  It is also able to support up to 9 players now! The fun, push your luck element I so enjoyed from its predecessor is still there.  It is also easy to learn and quick to play.  I'm sure I'll end up with multiple copies of this games to go along with Tien Zi Que collection.

During your turn you have the option to play one or more sets and play an action card.  Tien Zi Que limits you to creating only one set, so even if you have two sets you could create you couldn't.  With Red Cliffs you can Peng!, and create two more sets on your turn if you play your cards right.  It is a lot of fun when you are able to complete that move.

When I first started playing I wasn't sure that I would like the two different wild cards, the Zero and the TZQ.  Won't that make it to easy too make sets I thought?  But instead it actually adds a lot more strategy to the game.  Each round you get a TZQ card but it must be used wisely.  Use it to early and you may end up wishing you add it later on in the round.  Hold on to it for the perfect combination and it may just sit in your hand the entire round.

Zero also being wild for just numbers adds another layer as well.  If you have a lot of Beauties and want to go for that score a zero may not prove very useful.  Plus, you may want to use the Zero for its action rather than as a wild card.  Both the wild cards go into Discard Pile A and therefore can't be used to Peng! or make a set from the discard piles.



This brings me to the strategy of using the discard piles.  You wouldn't think that where you discard a card would matter but it does in Red Cliffs.  Choose the wrong card to place on top and you just may give your opponent a chance to create a set.  Of by placing strategically you may be able to use the same card over again to create a second set or to Peng! during the next round.  It really does take some thought even when discarding. 

I also love games that give players different special abilities so I was very excited about the Command Cards.  The Command Cards are just fun.  I like breaking the rules sometimes in games and being able to do something other players cannot.  It's fun to say with my Command Card I'm drawing back up to my hand limit after I Peng!.

I am very excited about seeing this game on Kickstarter soon.  It has been a privilege to see this project thus far and I can't wait to see the final version.  The Battle of Red Cliffs will be on Kickstarter toward the end of June so please support this great game by a wonderful designer. 

Quick Stats

Publisher:  Look for it soon on Kickstarter!
Designer: Ta-Te Wu
Artist: Ta-Te Wu
Players: 2-9

Time: 30 Min

Age: 10+

Mechanics: Partnerships, Set Collection

Photo Credits:  Ta-Te Wu, Johnny L (Sabruquitas)