For myself and a lot of other people out there, collectible card games have long since grown into something far beyond simple entertainment. These are serious games of skill and are treated as such, with tournaments held every week all over the world. Since the best players advance to the finals of the largest tournaments with a fair degree of consistency, it’s evident that there’s much skill involved in being a good player. Practice makes perfect, and playing to win is the only way to go if you want to be a tournament player. As enjoyable as the competitive aspects are, though - the hours and hours of making decks and perfecting your game - sometimes you just want to grab a pile of cards and play with your friends at the kitchen table. These friendly games have one very strong defining point: they get a whole lot better the more players you add to them.

Multiplayer games are usually more casual than head-to-head games, and generally played at a slower pace. When playing multiplayer you move more cautiously; for example, if I use one of my cards to destroy an opponent’s card, that just means both of us are one card down when compared to the rest of the players. This kind of one-for-one trade is not nearly as good in a multiplayer game as in a two-player game. If you focus exclusively on beating one opponent, you’re probably both going to lose in the long run. This is where you have to start thinking about politics.

At the beginning of a free-for-all game, everyone is your enemy, but since, as the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” then everyone is also potentially your friend. Knowing when to make or break an alliance can win you a lot of multiplayer games. The politics of multiplayer are my personal favorite part of the game and they can be very complex, so I feel the topic needs a whole article of its own to do it justice. That article will come at a later date, but what I mainly want to focus on here is laying down a few ground rules for multiplayer games of EVE: The Second Genesis.

I’ll begin with the most common type of multiplayer (the Free-for-all), after which I’ll introduce you to a new multiplayer format.

A Free-for-all has all the same rules as a normal two-player game, only there are more players. This does not mean you can play it the same way. If you want to win, you have to really think about what the other players are doing. If someone gets too far ahead, the other players might gang up on him. The same thing could very well go for the weakest player. If someone can eliminate you without compromising their own position, they will probably do it.

Although you use the same basic rules in a multiplayer game as in a two-player game, there is one important difference that needs to be addressed. When a player is eliminated from the game, the game continues. What happens to his cards?

The simplest option would be that the eliminated player takes all his or her cards, and the rest of the players continue the game. I don't feel that this is the best way to go, mainly because of the outer regions.

Outer regions and the locations they contain are an integral part of the game’s resource-gathering system. Since they can change ownership many times over the course of a long multiplayer game, having them eliminated with the owner would almost always be unfair to someone.

Free For All Rules:

1. Seats are chosen at random and the order of turns is clockwise from the beginning player.
2. The player who begins does not skip his or her first draw phase.
3. When a player is eliminated from the game, the following steps must be taken:
   I. All of that player's cards are removed from play, except his or her outer regions and whatever locations have been played into them.
   II. If any other player had ships located in the eliminated player’s home region, he or she must withdraw them.

Optional Variations

In a large enough multiplayer game, things tend to become rather chaotic. In an attempt to minimize the chaos, some people like to introduce limitations on who they may attack in multiplayer games (‘attacking’ here being defined as warping into enemy regions).

The most common limitation is the range limit. A range of one means that you may may warp only into the regions of the players sitting next to you. A range of two extends your reach to two seats on either side.

Another take on the range idea is the predator and prey system, which some of you might know from Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. The player to your left is your prey; he is the only player you may attack. The player to your right is your predator, and he is likewise allowed to attack only you. Once you have eliminated your prey, the next player in line becomes your prey.

Alliance Play

Alliance Play is a team-based multiplayer format. Now, the problem with incorporating Free-for-all rules directly into a team game is that it doesn’t allow team mates to attack together. In alliance play this problem is solved by having the team mates (the ‘alliance’) share a turn. Obviously this raises issues that need to be addressed: without further ado, here are the rules for alliance play.

1. Each alliance has one turn where all the members of the alliance have to go through the phases and steps together.
2. Priority within the alliance goes from left to right, with each member making as many plays as he wishes before passing priority. Priority is passed around until no player wants to make any more plays.
3. Members of an alliance may speak to each other, gesture, whisper and communicate in any way they want about the game and their strategies.
4. Each alliance has only one home region, where each member has one starbase.
5. Although each player has a starbase, the alliance only has one shield. Its hit point total is the combined total of all the starbases in the region.
6. Players may not share their ISK with alliance members.
7. Players may warp into friendly regions and stay there without taking control of them.
8. Ships with the trade command may trade in all friendly regions.

If you have any comments or suggestions, now is your chance. Join me on the forums to discuss the multiplayer rules. Your feedback is welcome. After we've had a healthy discussion about the rules, I'll put the final version of the official multiplayer rules up on the rules section of this website.

Until next time,
Tallest