The first phase: untap (un-rotate) all your cards.
Check for active conditions and status effects.
Draw cards equal to Maneuver + 2.
Play up to 4 cards face-down from your hand to your Cost Zone. No other card types can be played this phase.
Hannibal draws and plays the same number the Roman player draws, minus 1.
Exception: if the Roman player is at Maneuver 2+, Hannibal draws and plays Maneuver + 2.
Defend ambush or suffer Chaos. Play Defense and Tactic cards. Every active ambush is then settled one way or the other: defended, or failed.
Play Maneuver, Encampment, and Token cards. Rotate field cards to activate abilities. Tactic cards may be played now.
Discard down to your hand limit. Nothing else happens here — this is where the turn ends and passes on.
Power & Maneuver
Start at 3/10 Power. Power is changed only by card effects (e.g. "Gain X Power" H+X, "Defend an Ambush → Gain X −3 Power") and by failing ambushes: −1 Power H-1 if you have any; if Power is already 0 H0, the overflow forces a discard per point — from hand OR Cost Zone (your choice). Placing cards in the Cost Zone does not change Power.
Reach Domination L3 on all roman players to win. Level up Maneuver by playing Maneuver-type cards: each resolved Maneuver Card raises your Dependence level by 1 (0 → 1 → 2 → 3).
Right-click the Power or Maneuver badge to adjust either stat manually (house rules, testing, or card effects not yet implemented).
✦ Level Abilities — "Mature Together"
The Roman team can unlock shared abilities. Each time all players reach the next Domination Level (L1, L2, L3), you collectively choose one ability for the whole team — free. You may also purchase an ability by spending Cost (11 high-tier / 7 low-tier) right after your own Cost Zone phase (from the abilities bar, bottom-left).
- Benevolence / Double Defense — any player may spend their own Cost Zone to help defend an ambush (not just the targeted player).
- Brotherly Horse — redirect your next card's beneficial effect to a teammate.
- Restoration — once each time all players reach a new Domination Level, every Roman Player shuffles up to 15 random cards from their discard pile back into their own Deck. Recharges at every new shared level.
- ✝ Deliverance — once each time your team reaches a new Domination Level, break up to 3 Hannibal's Encampments in play (removed to the Defended pile). Recharges at every new level.
- Vibrancy — flip 2 Cost Zone cards face-up after your Cost phase.
- Cost Zone Power — gained 3+ Power this turn? Draw a card straight to your Cost Zone at end of turn.
- Speed — play 1 Encampment/Maneuver Card at any time on your turn.
- Foresight — reveal the Hannibal Deck's next draws at the start of your Cost phase.
Toggle the whole system on/off in the game menu (Level Abilities) or with ?matAbilities=0. These Roman abilities are also available in ⚔️ Duel mode (the lone Roman seat unlocks them by leveling up or purchasing with Cost).
Co-op Win Conditions
🏆 Roman Win: All players reach Domination L3 and there are no Hannibal's Encampments in play for one full round.
💀 Hannibal Wins: the Roman side has not won by the end of round 10.
The clearing round
Reaching L3 is not the win; it starts the clock on it. The moment the last player reaches Domination L3, a clearing round opens, and it runs from the start of that player's turn until their next turn begins — one full round, every seat getting one turn inside it.
- Clear every Hannibal's Encampment inside that round and the Roman side wins.
- Still one in play when the round closes and the Roman side loses — unless round 10 has not finished yet.
That last clause is the whole of it, so it is worth stating on its own: the clearing round never ends before the end of round 10, and it is never shorter than one full round.
- L3 reached in round 9. The clearing round runs to that player's next turn, in round 10. If an Hannibal's Encampment is still standing then, the table keeps going to the end of round 10.
- L3 reached in the middle of round 10. The round is nearly over, but the clearing round still gets its full length — to the beginning of that player's next turn — even though that is past the end of round 10. Nobody loses for reaching L3 late.
Lose L3 during the clearing round, or take a new Hannibal's Encampment, and you are simply not finished: the condition is judged at the end of the round, not the moment it started.
Prefer head-to-head? Try ⚔️ Duel Mode (Roman vs Hannibal decks) — its rules appear here when you launch a duel.
Game modesCo-op: the deck plays Hannibal · Duel: a person does
Co-op (the original game)
Any number of players on the Roman team, together against the Hannibal deck. Nobody plays Hannibal: the deck runs itself to a fixed set of rules, and the table wins or loses as one.
Solo — one player
The co-op rules, played alone: your Roman deck against the Hannibal deck.
Solo plays fine with the many cards that do not involve another player on your team. For a card that does need one — a boost somebody else would pay, an effect aimed at a teammate — pay a Target-Change fee of C1 and read the card as pointing at you. Pay it the ordinary way, by rotating #rot# a card in your Cost Zone.
Raise the fee to C2 or C3 for a harder game.
Duel (experimental)
People on both sides. One or more players run Roman decks; one or more run Hannibal decks, choosing which Ambushes and Encampments to play and who to play them at. That is the whole difference: in co-op the Hannibal deck follows fixed rules and cannot think, and in a duel it can. The Roman side still wins by Maneuver; the Hannibal side wins by grinding Power to nothing. Everything in the duel half of this book is the machinery that keeps a played Hannibal side fair — micro-rewards, micro-boosts, and a Cost Zone sized to how outnumbered each side is.
Playing a Card — the order of things
Every play follows the same five steps, whoever made it and whatever the card is. Boosts are not an exception to this; they are step five.
- Pay for the card and play it.
- It may be defended. The defense cost on the card — R5, RX — is what answering it takes. Defended, it never reaches the stack and nothing on it happens.
- Unresisted, it goes on the stack, ready to resolve.
- If nothing else is played onto the stack — an instant, a fast card — the card resolves fully: its rules text first, and then its boosts.
- Boosts, in any order. Whoever is allowed to pay may take any boost on the card, in whatever order they like — the printed order is how they are listed, not a sequence you are held to. Nothing is taken that is not paid for.
A boost goes on the stack like a card
Pay for a boost and its action goes on the stack, exactly as if it had been played as a card of its own. The same window opens: anyone may respond, and a response goes on top.
But a boost action cannot be countered — as the game stands today. A response can do its own work around a boost, and it can change what the boost lands on, but nothing takes a paid boost off the stack.
The boosts belong to the player who played the card, whoever is allowed to pay for them: the glyph says who may pay, never who decides.
The exception is marked on the card
A boost that changes what the card itself is about to do cannot wait until afterwards — by then there is nothing left to change. Those carry the fast mark, a bolt before the boost glyph, and they are taken before the card's own action. Everything else about them, the stack included, is unchanged.
If a card shows no bolt, its boosts are offered after the action. The bolt is the only thing that moves a boost earlier, so a card cannot be ambiguous about its own timing.
Boosts printed at the top of a card
Some cards print their boosts above the rules text. On those cards, if the card was boosted, its boost actions resolve first, before the rules text below them — which is what lets a rule ask whether it was boosted. A card with its boosts at the foot keeps the ordinary order.
For example:
#bb# C5: Choose one below and do it.
If this card was boosted, do both, otherwise choose one:
– D3 to .hand
– D1.cz .fup
Paid for, the first boost resolves before the card's text and does nothing but mark it boosted — so the rule underneath then does both. Unpaid, the card is not boosted and its controller chooses one. The second boost is a choice of its own, made when it resolves, before the rules text.
The Marks on a Card
Every symbol a card can carry, and what it means. These are the real marks, drawn by the same code that prints the cards — so this list cannot fall out of date with the deck.
Power Loss at 0 (Overflow Rule)
If a card causes you to lose Power H-1 while already at 0 H0, you must discard 1 card per Power lost from your hand or Cost Zone.
Card Rules Glossary
For every keyword, cost pattern, and trigger that appears on cards in the deck — boosts, rotate, search, attach, reveal, conditional effects, and so on — see the full 📖 Rules Glossary (opens in a new tab).
More reference
📖 Every keyword, cost pattern, and trigger on the cards: see the Rules Glossary.
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