David Mershon

Players

Elfenland is a game of multilateral competition that should have only one winner. While it may be technically possible to tie with another player, the rules of the game do not name a tie as a plausible end game scenario and one did not happen during our group's playing of the game. It is possible to both cooperate with other players or impede their progress, but for the most part Elfenland feels like a race with relatively little interaction between each player and their opponents. This perception may be due to the fact that all of the players in our group were novices. Because moving our elves efficiently was initially difficult, everyone adopted the strategy of trying to visit as many cities each round as possible rather than playing defensively by placing trouble and transportation counters in such a way that the progress of other players would be retarded. The presence of the trouble counters, (which force players to spend additional movement cards when passing over them) indicates that the designer intended defensive strategy to be a part of playing the game.

Objective

Players in Elfenland are trying to visit all 20 cities on the board before the end of the fourth round. If one or more players reach this objective at the end of the third round the game ends. If more than one player has visited 20 cities at this point, the one with the most Movement Cards in their hand will be the winner. This is called "Special Victory". If this scenario is not reached, the fourth round is played and the score is determined by subtracting the distance(in cities) that a player is from their city card from the number of cities that they have visited(signified by the number of markers that the player has collected). As with the special victory if there is a tie, the player with the most Movement Cards in their hand wins the game. There is no tie breaking scenario for either Special Victory or a normal end game if both winners have the same number of Movement Cards in their hands.

Procedures

The game's procedures begin with a setup phase, followed by three or four rounds of play. Each round is divided into a dealing phase, a transportation counter placement phase and a movement phase.

Setup

Each player takes an Elf, which is represented by a token that looks like a wooden boot. This Elf token is color coded to match a set of 20 wooden City Markers. After choosing their elf, each player places one City Marker on each of the 20 cities on the game board, which looks like a map. If the game is being played with 6 players there will be a total of 120 City Markers on the board at the start of the game, with 6 markers on each city. All players place their Elf tokens in "Elf City" which is illustrated to imply that it is the capital city of the realm where Elfenland takes place. The 20 cities on the game board are linked by 6 types of travel routes; Open Roads, Forest Paths, Desert Tracks, Mountain Trails, Rivers and Lakes.

The four Round Cards, which are used to keep track of which round is currently being played are placed in a sequentially ordered pile(Round Card 1 on top then 2, 3 and 4) in a prescribed space in the corner of the game board. Players are each dealt one Trouble Counter. Every player is given a Playing Aid Card, which is a kind of cheat sheet which helps players determine how many Movement Cards must be spent when traveling over any given combination of terrain type and transportation method.

The players must select one person to hold the First Player Card, which is a card with an image of an elf printed on it that is held by the First Player. The First Player acts as a dealer during the game setup phase and during the play of each round. The First Player must shuffle the 12 City Cards and deal one to each player(including them self), face down. The remaining city cards are put away and have no further interaction with the game. The First Player then then turns all of the Transportation Counters face down and places them in a pile on the table.

Round Procedures - Dealing

At the beginning of a new round a new First Player is delegated by having the former First Player pass the First Player Card once to the left. Who the first player is at the beginning of the game or during any given round is functionally irrelevant to play and the role appears to be passed around for the purpose of sharing the work of dealing the Movement Cards and Transportation Counters.

The deck of Movement Cards is shuffled and every player is dealt 8 Movement Cards. Any Movement Cards which have not been dealt are left in the deck for use in the next round.

After dealing the Movement Cards, if it is the first round, the First Player turns 5 Transportation counters face up. Every player must the draw one of the face down transportation counters, which they may leave facing down until it is used. Then each player may either take one of the face up Transportation Counters, or they may choose to gamble and take one of the counters which is facing down. This process is then repeated three times, so that each player has a total of one face down Transportation Counter and three face up Transportation Counters. Players will want to choose Transportation Counters that match as many of their Movement Cards as possible.

Round Procedures - Transportation Counter Placement

Beginning with the First Player, each player may place one Transportation Counter on any transportation route that is compatible with the Transportation Counter being placed. Players may also choose to place their Trouble Counter on any route where a Transportation Counter has been placed. The placement of Transportation and Trouble Counters continues until all players choose to pass, or have run out of counters to place.

Round Procedures - Movement

Starting with the First Player, each player moves their Elf buy playing Movement Cards which correspond to Transportation Counters on the board until they have no movement cards left. If a player wishes to travel across a route which has a Transportation Counter which does not match any of their Movement Cards, they may brute force their way across by playing any three cards in their hand. This is called a "Caravan" when performed on land, and "Paying the Boatman" when performed on a lake or river route.

End of Round Procedures

At the end of each round all Transportation Counters are cleared off the board and placed face down, back into the pile. Trouble Counters are removed and placed aside not to be used again during the game.

Rules

There are no particular constraints associated with the setup phase of the game aside from the basic procedures. The dealing, Transportation Counter placement and movement phases of each
round all have several unique rules.

Dealing Rules

When dealing the Movement Cards, if the player being dealt to has any cards left over from the previous round, they are only given enough cards to bring their hand up to a total of 8 cards, but not more.

The movement cards represent seven types of transportation; Giant Pigs, Troll Wagons, Elf Cycles, Unicorns, Magic Clouds, Dragons and Rafts. Each method of transportation is better across certain types of terrain than it is across others. Some methods of transportation may not be used across some types of terrain.

When dealing Transportation Counters after the first round, the First Player must make sure that a total of 5 Transportation Counters are facing up at the beginning of the deal. If a player chooses one of the face up counters during the deal, they must turn one of the face down counters face up before the next player draws.

The rules do not specify a maximum number of Transportation Counters that the player may hold at a time, if a player has counters left over from a previous round it is theoretically possible that they could hold more than four Transportation Counters at once. This never happened during play as it is highly desirable to place as many Transportation Counters as possible during each round. Players will always try to exert as much control as possible over their potential travel vectors so that they are able to visit as many new cities as they can every round.

Transportation Counter Placement Rules

Players may not place a Transportation Counter on a route where a Transportation Counter has already been placed. Players may not place a Trouble Counter on a route that already has a Trouble Counter placed on it. Transportation and Trouble Counters may never be placed on rivers or lakes.

Movement Rules

The player must play a certain number of Movement Cards if they wish to move over a route where a corresponding Transportation Counter has been placed. The number of Movement Cards that must be played to transit the route is based on the type of terrain that the Transportation Counter has been placed on. This can be determined by looking at the tables on the Playing Aid Cards. Players are not allowed to travel across any land route which has no Transportation Counter placed on it. If a Trouble Counter is placed next to a Transportation Counter, the player must play one additional card in order to transit the route, even if they are using a Caravan.

Because Transportation Counters may not be placed on rivers, the number of Movement Cards that must be expended to transit a river is determined by looking to see if the player is traveling upstream or downstream, which is indicated by arrows drawn on every river. To travel upstream the player must play two Raft Movement Cards, downstream requires one Raft.

There are two lakes on the Elfenland board which may be used as travel routes. The first lake, Mare Magnum requires the player to play two Raft cards to transit. To travel across the other lake, Mare Nebulae the player must expend only one Raft Movement Card.

Resources

Movement Cards and Transportation Counters are the main resources of Elfenland. In order to manage these resources effectively, players must plot possible routes from city to city, beginning with where their Elf is located at the beginning of the turn. In order to open up the best possible set of moves during the movement phase, players must select Transportation Counters during the dealing phase which facilitate travel over desirable routes without expending too many movement cards each time a route is traversed. The calculation that determines this selection is based on the Movement Cards the player holds in their hand, the desired route of travel and the terrain along that route. Players may wish to consider several alternative travel routes if they wish to maximize the effectiveness of their potential resources. An ideal resource/route selection would result in the player visiting one city for each card played.

Trouble Counters are a resource which may only be used once per player each game. Players will always want to place a Trouble Counter along a route where they believe their opponents will need to travel, but away from their own path. If a player has not played their trouble counter by the end of the third round, they will probably play it in the fourth round because they will have no reason not to.

Boundaries

The boundaries of the game are defined by the geometry of the routes on the board. The placement of the cities is not symmetrical or ordered along any sort of regular pattern. Landing in some cities at the end of a round will give the player many future travel options. One city in particular is located in an extremely poor place on the board, which is functionally similar to a cul-de-sac or dead end. At one point during our group's play session, two players got stuck for an extended period of time when they landed in the dead end city at the end of a round and other players placed trouble counters on the road leading up to it.

Outcome

Although it was observed during play that the game somewhat resembles the traveling salesman problem in mathematics, the irregularity of the connections between cities,the heterogeny of the resources needed to travel routes between them and the randomness of the dealing of Movement Cards make it basically impossible to plot an ideal solution to Elfenland based on this abstract mathematical problem. Victory must be secured through effective resource management and in some cases effective defensive play. Cooperation with one's opponents is possible, but is more likely to happen by chance than by intention. Only one player is supposed to win Elfenland, so there is no incentive to cooperate for the purpose of securing a shared victory.

Notes:

An English language translation of the rules was used to play Elfenland. The translation was obtained online due to the boxed game's instructions being not available in English. In this translation "Movement Cards" are sometimes also called "Transportation Cards". In this document I always refer to them as Movement Cards.