The Current Rules




I: The Rules

  1. All players must at all times abide by all of the rules then in the ruleset.
  2. The Admin will make the final decision on all interpretation issues involving the rules.
  3. In the event that two or more rules contradict one another at any time, the following resolving actions will be taken:
    • If one of the rules defers to another rule or explicitly states that it has precedence over the other, then that rule will have priority.
    • If the above situation does not resolve the problem, the rule which has been in its current form for the longest amount of time will have priority.

II: The Admin

  1. The Admin for Nomic Risk will be Jeff Yakel.
  2. The Admin will be responsible for performing actions for players, receiving rule proposals from players, interpreting the rules, and maintaining an updated status of the game on the Nomic Risk web site.
  3. All decisions made by the Admin are final.
  4. The Admin may pause the game by emailing all players at least 24 hours prior to the pause, and giving an approximate date for an un-pause, and perhaps also a reason for the pause. While the game is paused, no turns will be taken, and no updates to the website will be done. The game may be un-paused by the Admin or by a unanimous vote by all players.

III: Players

  1. Each player will be required to have a valid e-mail address and a unique username.
  2. The Admin is not considered to be a player.

IV: The Map

  1. The Map will consist of a number of hexagon shaped territories. The map must always contain at least one territory.
  2. Each territory will be given a number for reference. If at any time a new territory is added to the map, it will receive a number one higher than the highest numbered territory previously used on the map. Other than for reference, the number gives no additional meaning or status to a territory.
  3. If two territories share a common border, or are connected by a shipping path, they are said to be adjacent to each other.
  4. All territories are either land or water. Water territories may not be occupied by units.
  5. Whenever a new territory is added to the map, the territory will have a (30 + 10X + 2Y)% chance of being a water territory, where X is the number of its adjacent territories that are water, and Y is the distance from the territory to Territory #3. If the territory has no possible path to Territory #3 due to water, the probablity of the terrtory being water is (10 + 10X)%, where X is the number of adjacent water territories. No territory that is occupied may be made into a water territory. The new territory will also have a 30% chance of having a shipping path placed in it. The shipping path will continue to connect randomly selected territories in both directions until it connects two land territories.
  6. If a player owns a territory, he may name it. The name may not contain any numbers, and may not contain any numbers spelled out as words.
  7. Any time a unit occupies a territory which does not have six adjacent territories, new territories will be added to the board adacent to the territory to ensure that it has six adjacent territories.
  8. The "distance" between two territories is the minimum number of moves needed to get from one territory to the other.

V: Units

  1. A player may have one or more units in a territory. A single territory may not contain non-space units owned by more than one player. The player with non-space units in a territory is said to be the owner of the territory.
  2. A full description of the units available in the game can be found on the Unit Descriptions page.
  3. Each player begins the game with one soldier on one territory.
  4. Whenever a player receives a unit, the player may place it in one of the following:
  5. Each player may make up to 3 "moves" during his turn. A move consists of transporting any number of units from one territory to an adjacent territory. The destination territory must be either an unowned territory or a territory owned by the player making the move. After a player has made his first move, he may not attack.
  6. Some units are created by upgrading an existing unit. The upgrade may be done by paying the specified cost and waiting the specified number of turns for the training to complete. A unit in training may not perform any other action.
  7. When a territory is attacked and one or more units must be destroyed, they are destroyed in ascending order of cost.

VI: Items

  1. An item is any object a player may possess during the game.
  2. An item may be "used" if there is an effect associated with using it. Using an item will cause whatever effect is associated with using the item to take place. Unless otherwise specified, using an item removes it from the game.
  3. There is no limit to how many items a player may possess.

VII: Proposals

  1. A proposal is one of the following:
    • The addition of a new rule
    • The removal of an existing rule
    • The modification of an existing rule
    • A change to the game state which does not necessarily fit into one of the above categories
  2. All proposals will be posted on the Nomic Risk website. Players may then place vote either Yes, No, or Abstain on the rule. The player who made the proposal will be assumed to have voted Yes unless the player specifies otherwise. The voting for a proposal ends when the player who made the proposal begins his next turn. Players who have not voted before this time will automatically vote Abstain.
  3. If a proposal, at the time the voting on it has ended, has received more Yes votes than No votes, the proposal is immediately added to the ruleset and/or the effect associated with the proposal immediately takes place.
  4. No proposal may take effect earlier than the moment at which is it accepted.
  5. The Admin has the right to veto any proposal which in his opinion is discriminatory, unfair, or in any way destructive of gameplay.
  6. Whenever a proposal is accepted, the player who proposed it receives one soldier.

VIII: Turns

  1. Players will take turns one at a time, in an order randomly determined before the start of the game. This order remains the same for the duration of the game.
  2. A player will receive an email from the Admin when it is his turn.
  3. A turn consists of the following actions, in any order:
    • Placing new units that have been received
    • Traning/Upgrading units (optional)
    • Making a proposal (optional)
    • Attacking, if the player has not previously made a move (optional)
    • Making up to 3 consecutive moves (optional)
  4. A player who has completed all actions he wishes to do on that turn must notify the Admin stating that he is done his turn.
  5. If, during a player's turn, the player does not respond to an email from the Admin within 48 hours of the time the email was sent, the player's turn will automatically end and all required actions to be taken by the player will be done by any specified default actions.
  6. Once a player's turn has ended, the next player in sequence will take his turn.
  7. At the beginning of each player's turn, the player will receive a number of soldiers equal to the number of territories the player owns divided by 2, discarding any remainder. The player will always receive at least 1 soldier, even if the player only owns 1 territory.

IX: Elimination

  1. When a player is eliminated, all references to that player in the game state are immediately removed.
  2. A player who is eliminated does not receive any more turns and does not vote on proposals.
  3. A player who at any time owns no units is immediately eliminated.
  4. A player may eliminate himself from the game at any time.

X: Winning the Game

  1. The game will immediately end without a winner if the Admin is ever on the receiving end of a lawsuit from any board game manufacturer.
  2. Once a player has been declared the winner, the game ends.
  3. If all players except one have been eliminated, the non-eliminated player is declared the winner.
  4. If the rules of the game make further play impossible, or the legality of a move cannot be determined with finality, or if an action is equally legal and illegal and cannot be resolved by the current rules, the first player unable to legally complete his turn is declared the winner. This rule takes precedence over all other rules determining a winner.

XI: Money

  1. Each player starts with $0.
  2. If a player has less than $0, he is said to be bankrupt.
  3. No player may take any voluntary action that causes him to become bankrupt.

XII: Attacking

  1. Players may use their units in a territory to attack another player's units in an adjacent territory. For reference purposes, the player doing the attacking will be refered to as the "attacker", and the player being attacked will be refered to as the "defender".
  2. A player may only attack during his own turn.
  3. A territory must have at least 2 units in it in order to attack.
  4. If the attacking territory contains n units, the attacker must select up to n-1 units, with a maximum of 3, from the attacking territory. If the attacker does not specify which units to use, the units with the highest (attack value * hit points) will be selected by default.
  5. The defender will have up to 2 units from the defending territory selected for him. The units selected will be those with the highest (defence value * hit points) from the defending territory.
  6. Each unit from the attacking side will have an n-sided die rolled for it, where n is the attack strength of the unit.
  7. Each unit from the defending side will have an n-sided die rolled for it, where n is the defence strength of the unit.
    8. The dice for each side are ordered from highest to lowest, with the highest dice from each side being compared, and the second highest dice from each side being compared (if applicable). For each pairing, the unit with the lowest roll loses 1 Hit Point. The defender wins ties. Once a unit reaches 0 or less hit points, it is killed and removed from the game.
  8. If a territory is attacked and there are no enemy units available to defend, then all units in the defending territory are killed, and the attacker may move as many units as he likes from the attacking territory to the defending territory, according to the current rules of moving. This does not count as the player's move for the turn.

XIII: Letters

  1. A player receives a letter if he has won at least one battle during his turn. The letter will be selected from the following probability distribution:
    • 10% - the letter is a randomly selected digit equal to either 2 or 3
    • 30% - the letter is a randomly selected vowel
    • 60% - the letter is a randomly selected consonant
  2. The letters a player has will be sent to the player each turn, and will not be revealed to the other players.
  3. At the beginning of a player's turn, he may trade in a set of letters. The letters must form an English word. A player who trades in letters will receive a number of soldiers equal to the sum of the values of each letter. The value of a letter is identical to the scoring used in Scrabble:
    LetterValue
    A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U1
    D, G2
    B, C, M, P3
    F, H, V, W, Y4
    K5
    J, X8
    Q, Z10
  4. A 2 added to a word will double the value of the word, and a 3 added to a word will triple the value of the word. Only one 2 or 3 may be used in a single word.

XIV: Resources

  1. Every territory on the map will have a certain amount of natural resources. The amount will be a random multiple of $1,000,000, ranging from $1,000,000 up to $20,000,000.
  2. A unit may be set to "harvest" on the player's turn. A unit that is harvesting may not perform any other actions (including defending) until the next turn of that player.
  3. Each unit set to harvest on a given territory will deduct the unit's harvesting rate from the natural resources of the territory, and add it to the harvesting player's money at the beginning of the player's next turn.
  4. The resources of a territory may not go below $0. If you harvest with more than one unit and the sum of the harvesting rates of units harvesting in a territory is greater than the resources available, the amount of resources remaining is divided amongst the harvesting units.
  5. If a harvesting unit is destroyed before harvesting is complete, no harvesting takes place and no money is transferred.
  6. The harvesting status of a unit is hidden from all other players until an action is taken that requires the status of the unit to be known.
  7. The amount of resources in a territory is unknown by a player until the territory is surveyed by that player. To survey a territory, a player must occupy or pass through the territory with a soldier.

XV: Ports

  1. A player may construct a port connecting one of his territories with an adjacent shipping path. The port will cost $4,000,000 and take 2 turns to build.
  2. Units in a territory with a port may use the shipping path it is connected to.

XVI: Mercenaries

  1. Whenever a new territory is added to the map, it will have a (30 + 20X - 10Y)% chance of containing a mercenary, where X is the number of mercenary units adjacent to the territory, and Y is the total number of player units adjacent to the territory. The mercenary is hidden, and can be discovered by surveying the territory.
  2. A mercenary unit, when created, is identical to a soldier. All mercenary units will have the prefix "Mercenary" attached to its name to distinguish it from regular units.
  3. When a player surveys a territory containing a mercenary, the player must either conscript the mercenary, or fight the mercenary.
  4. To conscript a mercenary, the player must pay $250,000 per turn. If the player at any time fails to pay this fee, the mercenary becomes neutral again, and must be fought if the player still occupies the same territory as the mercenary.
  5. A conscripted mercenary is considered to belong to the player who conscripted it, as long as it remains conscripted. Conscripted mercenaries may be upgraded in the same fashion as regular units. If a conscripted mercenary becomes non-conscripted in the future, it still retains its upgraded status.
  6. If the player chooses not to conscript the mercenary but rather to fight it, the fight is identical to a regular attack, except that the player may use all of his units on the territory in the attack. The fight continues until either the mercenary is killed, or all of the player's units on the territory are killed.
  7. During a battle with a conscipted mercenary an opposing player, the opposing player may double the mercenary's wage and have the mercenary become conscripted in his army. The wage remains doubled for the entire life of the mercenary. The wage may be redoubled again multiple times if other players wish to do so.

XVII: Buildings

  1. A building is any object that is built on a territory and is permanently fixed there until some other rule specifies otherwise.
  2. Currently, the following types of buildings can be built:
    • Port
    • Spaceport
    • Hospital
  3. Whenever a territory containing a building is captured by another player, the capturing player must pay $25,000 to own the building. If the capturing player does not have the money, the building is destroyed.
  4. If a territory is captured, and the territory had a building that was destroyed less than 3 turns ago, the capturer may re-build the building at half of the normal cost of the building.

XVIII: Spaceports and Space Units

  1. A player may build a Spaceport on a territory he currently owns. The Spaceport will cost $10,000,000 and take 3 turns to build.
  2. If a territory containing a Spaceport is captured, the new owner of the territory will become the owner of the Spaceport.
  3. A Spaceport will allow a player to create space units. A space unit may only be trained in a territory containing a Spaceport.
  4. Space units may occupy any territory, including those owned by other players, however, a single space unit in a territory will not cause the player to own the territory.
  5. Unless otherwise specified in the unit descriptions, space units may not be attacked by a land unit.

XIX: Scuba Units

  1. Every land unit has a "scuba" equivalent. A scuba unit will have "scuba" prefixed to its name. A scuba unit is identical to its counterpart, except instead of occupying and travelling only on land, it occupies and travels only on water.
  2. Scuba units and land units may not interact with each other unless otherwise stated in the rules.
  3. When a player receives a new unit, he may make the unit a scuba soldier, providing he owns a port. The rules for placement of the scuba unit is identical to the rules for placing land units, except the unit must be placed on water instead of land.
  4. Every building has a "scuba" equivalent. A scuba building will have "scuba" prefixed to its name. A scuba building is identical to its counterpart, except instead of being built on a land territory, it is built on a water territory. A scuba building costs $2,000,000 more than its land counterpart.

XX: Levels and Experience

  1. Every new unit when created, unless specified otherwise, starts at Level 1, 2 Maximum Hit Points, and 0 Experience Points.
  2. Whenever a unit wins a battle, it receives an amount of experience points equal to the dice roll of the unit it won against.
  3. A unit's level is determined by the total number of experience points it has:
    Experience PointsLevel
    0-191
    20-492
    50-893
    90-1394
    140+5
  4. A level n unit has n+1 maximum hit points.
  5. The hit points and level of each unit will be known to all players, but the unit's experience points will not be posted.

XXI: Hospitals

  1. A player may build a Hospital on a territory he currently owns. The Hospital costs $6,000,000 and takes 2 turns to build.
  2. Any units with less than their maximum hit point level beginning a turn in a territory containing a Hospital will gain 1 hit point.