Card Game - Garrison
This card game was developed over the winter of 2022-23 with playtesting and refinement assistance from Benjamin Pitt.
The Idea
A game about building and conquering castles, played with a traditional 52 card deck.
Each card suit has a different function and represents a different group of people in your kingdom.
Spades are your levies, which you use to attack other kingdoms
Clubs are your garrison which you use to protect your keep
Diamonds are your stewards which you use to expand your keep
Hearts are your courtiers which care for your keep and manipulate the kingdom.
A few cards have special actions associated with them.
The Aces are spies
The Joker is a natural disaster
The Goal
The goal of the game is to be the first to build up your keep to a target value of combined court and garrison (Hearts and Clubs). Your target depends on how many players are in the game, and how long you’d like each game to last. For most games, 30 pts is a good amount.
Target Garrison + Court Value
| Number of Players | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quick Game | 30 pts | 30 pts | 30 pts | 25 pts | 20 pts |
| Medium Game | 40 pts | 40 pts | 35 pts | 30 pts | 30 pts |
| Long Game | 50 pts | 50 pts | 45 pts | 40 pts | 40 pts |
Number cards are worth the value of the number, the face cards are worth 10, and the ace is worth 11.
As an example, in a 4 player game, playing a medium length game, a winning keep could be made up of the following cards:
10 of Hearts
4 of Hearts (most recent card played)
Ace of Clubs
3 of Clubs
7 of Clubs
The moment this player plays the 4 of Hearts, they count their keep value and are declared the winner.
The Set-Up
A dealer shuffles the deck. Starting to the left of the dealer, each player draws and discards from the deck until they draw a non-face-or-ace heart card, placing all discarded cards next to the deck, away from the center of the table. This heart becomes their starting keep and they place it in front of them. The pile of faceup cards left over from drawing the starting court becomes the discard pile.
When everyone has finished drawing their starting keep, three cards are drawn from the deck and placed faceup in a line at the center of the table, extending out from the deck. This is the market. The final state of the starting cards will look like a line of cards on one side of the deck and the discard pile on the other. Finally each player draws 3 cards from the deck into their hand. Play starts with the player with the lowest scoring court.
Play
At the beginning of a each player’s turn they must first populate any empty market spaces with the cards at the top of the deck.
Each player may, on their turn do any number of the following moves.
Spend stewards value:value to upgrade their keep with a larger court or garrison
Spend cards from their hand 1:1 to take cards from the market
Send levies to besiege another keep
Spend levies 1:1 to fend off besiegers
Spend cards from their hand 1-card:1-court to rebuild a keep
Discard cards from their hand
Players may not have more than 3 cards in their hand at a time. When a player has done all they wish to, they end their turn by drawing until they have three cards in their hand. When the draw deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile back into the draw deck.
Upgrading The Keep
If a player wishes to hire garrison guards or grow their court, they will need help of the stewards. To add a club or a heart from their hand to their keep, players need to spend an equivalent value of diamond cards. For example, to add a 10 of hearts to your keep, you could spend a queen of diamonds, or a two and an eight of diamonds. The same would hold for a 10 of clubs.
Trading at the Market
A player may discard any one card in their hand to retrieve any 1 card from the market, or to take the top card of the discard pile. Neither the suit nor the value of card matters when trading.
Besieging and Rebuilding
On a player’s turn, they may send levies (spades) to besiege any player’s keep without having to pay any additional cards. Place the array the spades in front of the keep cards so all are visible. If the combined value of the spades exceed the combined value of the clubs and hearts (garrison and court), then the keep falls at the end of the besieging player’s turn. If not, then those levies stay in front of the keep. On subsequent turns, any other opponent player may add levies to the siege.
While besieged, a player may continue to upgrade their keep as normal. They may also spend spades from their hand on their turn to fend off the levies besieging them, costing one defending card to discard one offending card, regardless of value. Any player may add to the besieging army on their turn.
When a player’s keep falls, first all spades besieging the keep are discarded, then all the players clubs on the keep, then the player flips over all the hearts of their keep. The hearts stay flipped until the player rebuilds. While fully fallen, a player cannot upgrade their keep. To rebuild, on a player’s turn, they spend any number of their cards to flip over the same number of court cards. While partially rebuilt, a player may upgrade their court but not their garrison. Only when fully rebuilt may a player then add clubs to their keep.
An opponent may still besiege a partially rebuilt keep. The value of the keep is the combined value of all faceup heart cards.
The Spies
The aces, while being worth 11 each in their normal suited actions, each also have an alternate effect when used. They may be played from a players’ hand at any time, regardless of turn order. However a Spy cannot invalidate an action if the turn has ended with the player drawing up to 3. If playing a spy attempts to interrupt a move that would end the game, the spy must hit the play surface before the card being interrupted. The most recent spy action is resolved immediately, before any other action or effect.
The Ace of Spades: The Agitator
Forces all levies besieging a player to revolt and be discarded.The Ace of Diamonds: The Smuggler
Discard to search through the discard pile and take any 1 card and immediately put it into play, free of cost.The Ace of Clubs: The Thug
Invalidates the action of a joker or spy, or force the market to discard and refill from the deck.The Ace of Hearts: The Seducer
Remove one court member or garrison member from any player’s court, discarding it, unless that would leave them with zero court members.
The Disaster
The joker causes a natural disaster when they are drawn into the market or discarded, like an earthquake or flood. As flavor, when you draw or discard the joker, call out what natural disaster is occurring!
When a Joker is played, all besieging armies and the current market are discarded. All players reveal their hands. If the value of a player’s hand exceeds that of the player who drew or discarded the joker, their keep is fine. If not, their keep is felled by the disaster as if by an army. All players discard their hands and draw new ones.
A note on Spending and Discarding
During a players turn, cards will be spent and discarded. All cards spent or discarded as an action are added to the discard pile before the action resolves. If multiple cards are spent or discarded, they may be discarded in any order. Any cards from an opponent’s hand or keep to be discarded should be discarded one player at a time, going clockwise from the current turn’s player.