How to play Rivalz
Free, turn-by-turn world domination you can play at your own pace — outwit 3–6 rivals and take over the map.
- 3–6
- Players
- 41
- Territories
- 6
- Continents
One world, six continents
The war plays out across 41 territories grouped into 6 continents. Hold every territory in a continent to bank its bonus armies at the start of each of your turns. Hover a continent to see what it commands.
Want to go deeper? The continent strategy guides break down where each one is won and lost.
Your opening position
The whole map is dealt out at the start — every territory belongs to a player, with no neutral ground. Your starting armies are then spread across your territories for you. The more rivals in the game, the fewer armies each of you begins with.
| Players | Starting armies each |
|---|---|
| 3 | 35 |
| 4 | 30 |
| 5 | 25 |
| 6 | 20 |
Three phases, every turn
Reinforcements
At the start of your turn you receive armies for the territories you hold — one for every three you own, and never fewer than three. On top of that, every continent you fully control pays out its bonus.
Example: hold 14 territories and all of Asia and you bank 4 for territories (⌊14 ÷ 3⌋) plus 7 for the continent — 11 armies.
Capture at least one territory in a turn and you earn a Card. Collect a set of three and trade them in for a burst of armies.
Let the dice decide
- Attack from a territory holding at least two armies — one army always stays behind to hold the ground.
- The attacker rolls up to three dice and the defender up to two; the more armies you commit, the more dice you roll.
- Dice are ranked and compared highest-against-highest; the loser of each pair removes one army.
- Ties go to the defender, so attacking is always a gamble.
- Reduce a territory to zero armies and it is yours — march your surviving attackers in to claim it.
Collect, then cash in
Infantry
Cavalry
Artillery
Wild- A Trade Set is any three cards that are all the same unit or all different units.
- There are three Wild Cards in the deck. A Wild stands in for any unit, so any three cards that include a Wild always form a valid set.
- Trade during your Place or Fortify phase to bank the reward as extra armies on the spot.
- Hold more than five cards and you must trade before you can end your turn.
What a trade is worth
By default every trade pays a flat 4 armies. Turn on the Trade Cost rule and each trade across the game is worth progressively more:
Three roads to victory
Mission Completion is only in play when the host enables the Mission Cards rule.
Optional twists
When creating a game the host can switch on any of these to change how a match plays: