Rio Grande Games Alexandros 10 - Manual (Page 2)

The players take turns in clockwise order, starting with the starting
player. On his turn, a player must first move Alexander and then takes
2 further actions.
The move of Alexander is the basis for a player’s success or failure in
this game. Thus, it is critical that the players understand fully all the
possibilities of Alexander’s move.
1. Moving Alexander
On a player’s turn, he first chooses 1 of the 2 face-up cards (which
could be identical) and moves Alexander to the closest empty
triangular space with a symbol matching that of the card
chosen. This means:
- closest: the shortest distance between the point of the
triangle where Alexander now stands to the closest point of
the triangular space where Alexander could be moved.
- empty: a space is empty when it has no boundary walls on
any of its sides and no figure (guards or Alexander) standing
in it. A point of an empty space can be touching a boundary
wall.
When moving Alexander, a player tries to reach different goals
considering the situation at that very moment; many times he
simply moves Alexandros in the direction he prefers, but sometimes
he encloses a productive province that he can occupy (now or later)
or he reduces the size of an opponent’s province.
Figure 1: Alexander stands on the starting space and the 2 face-up cards show a
horse and a lyre. Thus, the player can move
Alexander to the closest empty space
showing a lyre or a horse. The red-bordered
spaces are the 2 spaces where the player may
move Alexander, depending on which card he
chooses. The player may not (if the player
chose the horse card) move
Alexander to the lower right horse
space as it is further (3 triangle
sides vs. 2 triangle sides) from
Alexander’s current position.
The player adds the chosen card
to his hand and draws another
card from the supply as the new
face-up card. If there are several
empty spaces showing the symbol
matching that of the card chosen that are the same distance from
Alexander, the player may choose which among them to move
Alexander to. Then the player moves Alexander to any one of the three
points of the triangular space he chose. The player need not choose a
point closest to Alexander, but may choose any of the three points of
the chosen triangle.
Next, the player places black boundary walls on the triangle sides
between Alexander’s previous position and his new position. The
shortest path must be followed. If there are several shortest paths,
the player may choose freely among them.
Figure 2: the player chose the lyre card, added it to his
hand, and drew a soldier card to replace it. Then, he must
move Alexander to any point of the empty lyre space shown.
Let’s say he chooses the eastern-most point in that space;
next he places 2 boundary walls between Alexander’s previous
position and his new one: it’s the only way to do that,
because any other path would require 3 steps instead of 2.
Figure 3: the situation is the same as in the previous
example, but the player moves Alexander to the
southern-most point
in that space. Next,
he places 3 black
boundary walls
between Alexander’s
previous position and
his new one. Note, that in this
case a small province has been
formed with 4 spaces, 2 with and 2 without
symbols. This is not the only shortest way to
make the connection. It is also possible, for
example, to follow the coastline.
Provided the shortest path rule is respected, a
player may choose any kind of path. For
example, a path along the coast (or the edge
of the playing area where there is no coast) or a
path that already includes boundary walls. If he does, he
places boundary walls also along the edges, but he does not place a
second boundary wall in a space where one already exists.
Playing the game
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