Game Rules

The authoritative rules reference for Basilika. Use the contents to jump to a section.

Overview

Basilika is a tactical strategy game that challenges players to think in several different ways at once. It is first and foremost a card game: players construct personal decks that support their intended strategy, Archetype choice, and individual playstyle.

Deck size is determined by the initial board layout:

Standard 7x7 game: deck size 50–60 cards.
6x6 game: deck size 40–50 cards.
Blitz 5x5 game: deck size 30–40 cards.
4x4 game: deck size 20–25 cards.
Super Blitz 3x3 game: deck size 15–20 cards.

Decks for a 3x3 or 4x4 game hold no Modifiers.

Card Types

There are 4 card types in Basilika.

Tiles

Make up the bulk of your deck.
The only way players can create the landscape of the board.

Classes / Piece Types

Set in front of you, next to the board. They indicate the rules and functions of your Piece Types.
Each Piece Type is set: Pawns, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, Queens, Kings.
Classes determine the behavior of each Piece Type and are chosen by each player before the game begins.

Archetypes

The core of your strategy. They are always your first Tile on the board and dictate the style and strategic function of your game.

Modifiers

Played on your Classes to change their properties, effects, rules, and movement.
Each Class has a set number of slots for Modifiers, and each Modifier has a set ability and usage.

Tiles

The main card you will be playing in Basilika is the Tile card. Tiles are played directly on the board, creating a landscape for your pieces to navigate. Each Tile card is a unique 3x3 pattern of black & white squares. Pieces use these squares to navigate across the board.

Anatomy of a Tile

Cost: What must be spent to play the Tile. Tiles can cost Actions, Discards, and Piece HP; paying HP isn’t damage.
Tile Pattern: The 3x3 pattern of black & white squares where pieces are placed and move once the tile is played.
Card Name: The name of the card. Identical card effects with different tile patterns are named with an ᵃᵇᶜᵈ suffix.
Card Text: Lists the effects of the card (see the Symbol Glossary below).
Tile Pattern Identifier: A number string signifying the tile’s pattern, corresponding directly with each square numbered left to right, top to bottom. A leading W means the white squares are numbered; a leading B means the black squares are numbered. The number is always ordered smallest → largest. (Example: W189.)
Set Identifier: The set icon for the set the card belongs to.

Tile Patterns

There are a total of 512 (2⁹) different patterns in this setup, and each has been made into a card. Archetypes populate the all-black and all-white Tiles, while the rest are normal Tiles used to construct your deck.

Card Text: Symbol Glossary

The card-text section lists out the effects of a card.

Trigger effects

Enters the Board: Triggers when this card is placed on the Board.
End-Game Effect: When there are no more spaces on the Board, this effect triggers when the tile is played instead of all other effects on the tile. Tiles played this way are removed from the game afterwards.
King-Landing: When your King lands on this tile for the xth time, trigger this effect. Some tiles have multiple effects, signified by (1), (2) … (x).
Perpetual: Governs the rules of this tile: how pieces interact with it, and how it interacts with other tiles.
Arch-Perpetual: Governs the rules of the current game. Can be isolated to an individual player or applied to all players.
Retinue: Start the game with the listed pieces, placed adjacent to your King. Exclusive to Archetype tiles.

Activated effects

Activated effects are only triggered by the direct action of players through their pieces. A piece must occupy a square on a tile to trigger its effects (unless otherwise stated). A piece used to trigger an activated effect may not use actions to move or attack for the rest of the turn. Pieces may Move or Attack to a tile and then activate its effects. An activated effect can only be triggered once per turn.

Discard (◆x): Discard x cards to trigger this effect. Discarded cards are placed in your Discard Pile.
Payment – Actions (xA): Pay x Actions to trigger this effect.
Payment – HP (−x): Reduce the HP of the piece activating this effect by x to trigger it. This does not count as damage taken.
Payment – Pieces (Sac): Sacrifice the piece activating this effect to trigger it. Some of these effects specify a required Piece Type.

Incremental Activated Effects. A (+) symbol on an activated effect means that each time you activate it, subsequent activations cost +1 more for the rest of the game. Opponents are unaffected, as the increase is relative to each player’s own usage. (Example: if Player A activates an Incremental Discard twice, their next activation discards +2 cards; Player B, who never activated it, is unaffected.)

Arch-Activated effects

Arch-Activated Effects. Triggered once per turn during that player’s turn. If the effect is on a player’s Archetype, only that player may activate it. If it is on another tile, any player may activate it during their turn.

Other effects & symbols

Numenolith: If a Numenolith tile is on the Board, no other Numenolith tiles may be played.
Nodes (Node B / Node W): This tile’s black or white squares act as the end-point of a Circuit.
Circuit-Perpetuals: While the Circuit is active, this effect governs rules that influence every tile that is part of the Circuit.
Circuit-Link: When this tile is played on the Board and it creates an active Circuit, trigger this effect or trigger the “Circuit-Link” of the coupled Node. This Tile is always a Node.

Keyword Glossary

Create: The designated piece enters the game from your reserves, placed in an adjacent square to your King.
Summon: The designated piece enters the game from your reserves, placed at the center of the tile which called for the Summon effect. If a Summon is triggered in end-game without a specified tile, the piece is placed at the center of your Archetype tile.
Overplay: This tile may be played over top of a tile already on the Board. Players may not Overplay tiles occupied by a King, tiles that contain walls, nor Archetype tiles. When a tile with pieces is layered via Overplay, those pieces stay in the same position, translated to the new tile.
Wall: A neutral block placed according to effects. Pieces may not move to or through squares that have a wall. “Place a Wall” means adding a wall to the Board from reserves; “Move a Wall” means selecting a wall already on the Board and placing it in a new location. Walls may be placed on any tile at any time, so long as that tile is not occupied by a King. Walls may not be placed on Archetype tiles. (A wall is placed flat on a square of a tile.)
Rotate: Select a tile already on the Board and rotate it 90°, 180°, or 270°, ensuring the new position is legal. Tiles with covered text may be rotated, given that a new legal position is possible. You may not rotate a tile’s text underneath an adjacent tile.
Shift: When a piece on white moves to black, or when a piece on black moves to white.
Piece*: This term means “any piece except Kings.”
Damage: There are 2 sources of damage in Basilika:
Combat: a piece attacks another piece.
Non-Combat: all other damage dealt (effects, triggers, etc.).
Kings take half damage from all non-combat sources, rounded up. HP payments or “−x” instances are not considered damage.
Adjacent: Positioned beside in a cardinal direction (N/S/E/W).
Roll: Roll the designated piece on the Board and perform a designated effect depending on the result.
Promote: Remove the designated piece from the Board and replace it with a piece 1 rank up, keeping the original piece’s HP total.
Demote: Remove the designated piece from the Board and replace it with a piece 1 rank down, keeping the original piece’s HP total if it is below the new piece’s maximum HP. If a Pawn is Demoted, it becomes a Wall.
Ranking: Wall ↔ Pawn ⇄ Knight ⇄ Bishop ⇄ Rook ⇄ Queen.
Capture: When a piece’s HP is reduced to 0, it is captured by the player who dealt the final damage. The captured piece is removed from the Board and held by that player until the end of the game, preventing its use in Create, Summon, Generate, Promote, and Demote effects. When captured via combat, the attacking piece replaces the captured piece’s position. When captured via non-combat, it is simply removed from the Board.
Healing: Increases a piece’s HP up to that piece’s maximum. When directly targeting a piece, it can only be healed to its maximum HP. Any extra points of HP left over can be given to an additional target. (Example: “Heal 8HP” targeting a Rook with 5HP heals it to 10HP, with 3HP left over for another piece.) Blanket healing that targets all pieces of a certain type, or all pieces on a certain tile, does not allow for additional overflow targets.
Active & Inactive: Active tiles have visible text; Inactive tiles have covered text.
Discarded Card: When an effect has you interact with Discarded Cards, this includes both your discard pile and the discard piles of other players.
Remove: When a card is “removed,” it is removed from the game for the rest of the game.

Archetypes

When building your deck, first select a single Archetype tile. Each Archetype has distinct abilities that influence the rules of Basilika. Every game begins with players placing their Archetype tile in the starting location. All tiles you play must stem from your Archetype.

Classes & Piece Types

Each type of die represents a Piece Type:

Dice and their Piece Types
Die	Piece Type
D4	Pawn
D6	Knight
D8	Bishop
D10	Rook
D12	Queen
D20	King

There is a 7th Piece Type, sharing the D10’s form but with a multiple of 10. Its identity and capabilities remain obscured.

Each Piece Type has a distinct Class associated with it. As of the foundational games, only the Classic Set has been discerned.

Classic Set

Pieces move and attack only across the squares of played tiles: an empty board space stops a move or an attack like the edge of the Board, though a Jump passes over it. Walls block attacks just as they block movement. For Bishops and Rooks, the color that counts is the starting square’s: they may pass over squares of the alt color to land on their own color beyond, or stop on the first alt-color square, but never on a later one.

Classic Pawn

Movement: one square in any cardinal direction; Leap* three squares in any cardinal direction.
Attacking: one square in any diagonal direction.
Special
- Pawns may Move and Attack on the same turn.
- A Pawn’s Attack costs 0A.
- Outside of Tile/Card effects, Pawns ignore color.

Classic Knight

Movement and Attacking: Jump* two squares in any cardinal direction, then Jump one square in a perpendicular direction (an L shape).
Special
- When a Knight Captures a piece, it gains +2 Damage until the end of turn and may Attack again for 0A. The bonus stacks: each Capture grants another 0A Attack and a further +2 Damage.
- Outside of Tile/Card effects, Knights ignore color.

Classic Bishop

Movement and Attacking: any number of squares in any diagonal direction, landing on the same color as the starting position (ignoring the alt color), or landing on the first alt-color square encountered. All pieces in the Bishop’s path, including in alt-color squares, block attacks and movement.
Special: for 1A, a Classic Bishop may Restore 2HP of an adjacent piece.

Classic Rook

Movement and Attacking: any number of squares in any cardinal direction, landing on the same color as the starting position (ignoring the alt color), or landing on the first alt-color square encountered. All pieces in the Rook’s path, including in alt-color squares, block attacks and movement.

Classic Queen

Movement and Attacking: any number of squares in any cardinal or diagonal direction. Pieces in the Queen’s path block attacks and movement. Queens may not attack any piece on the alt-color unless the Queen is directly adjacent to it.

King

Movement and Attacking
- One square in any direction.
- Leap three squares in any cardinal direction.
- Kings may only Leap-Attack if the attack will Capture the target piece.
- Outside of Tile/Card effects, Kings ignore color.
Special
- All “Create” effects place created pieces in any open adjacent cardinal square to the King. If there is no open square, the piece is not created.
- Generate: for 1A, −x your King and Create a piece of your choice, where that piece’s full HP = x.
- Halve all non-combat damage dealt to the King, rounded up.

Modifiers

Modifiers are other cards you include in your deck alongside tiles. They are played on the Class Cards, augmenting how the pieces operate.

Anatomy of a Modifier

Cost: Modifiers follow the same cost system as tiles.
Card Name and Tile Identifier: As on a Tile.
Applicable Pieces: The piece types a Modifier can be played on and moved to. Modifiers cannot be played on Kings.
Card Text: Specifies what the Modifier does, enables a piece to do, or imposes onto the piece. Some Modifiers have Activated Effects, which must be activated by the Piece Type the Modifier is attached to. These activations can be done anytime during your turn, regardless of whether the chosen piece has moved, attacked, or activated a tile effect.
Slot Requirement: Every Modifier occupies a set number of slots. All Classes have 3 slots.
Charges: Modifiers have a set number of uses. Charges specify how each Modifier is used and how long it remains in play:
Uses: when you initiate the specified action on this card, remove a charge.
Capture: when this piece is Captured, remove a charge.
Trigger: when a specified event happens, remove a charge.
Turn: at the beginning of your turn, remove a charge.
Perpetual: this Modifier does not have charges.

Modifier Rules

Modifiers are played overlapping a player’s Class Cards. To play a Modifier, pay the required Action cost and attach it to an applicable piece type that has available slots.
You may play on any player’s Class Cards, not just your own, so long as the Modifier can be played on that piece type and it has available slots.
When a Modifier is “Removed” or runs out of Charges, it is removed from the game entirely. If a Modifier in play is moved from one Class Card to another, it still follows its piece-type restrictions.

The Board

Board sizes and player counts
Board	Players
7x7	2–4 Players
5x5	2 Players
3x3	2 Players
Custom	2–100 Players

The standard game of Basilika is played on a Board of 7x7 spaces. On the same board, a 5x5 Blitz game or a 3x3 Super Blitz game can be played instead.

The printed board is a useful guide but is not required to play. Players can simply measure out the rough distance for the game mode of their choice and play. Basilika can be played with any board shape players want to experiment with. These rules focus on the standardized board shapes.

Tile Placement

Tiles must be played in an open space adjacent to a Tile stemming from your Archetype Tile.
Tiles may be played with text hanging off the board, similar to your Archetype.

Tile Orientation

Tiles can be played facing any cardinal direction. This orientation matters to how the tile pattern interacts with the landscape of the board. Tiles can be played at 0°, 90°, 180°, or 270°.

Illegal placements

Tiles may not be played in any orientation that would place a tile’s text box over top of another tile’s squares.
Tiles may not be played underneath any tiles that are already on the Board.

Active vs Inactive & Overplay

Tiles may be placed over top of another tile’s text. Covering a tile’s text makes that tile “inactive,” and all of its inherent effects are ignored for as long as it is covered. This is what constitutes Active vs Inactive tiles: active tiles have a visible text box, inactive tiles have a covered text box.
Overplay tiles follow these same rules for placement and orientation. When an Overplay card covers another tile, it may be played directly over it, or oriented so that both tile text boxes are active.

Conflict resolution

If there is ever a conflict of effects or a simultaneous landing trigger, Top → Bottom takes precedent.

Circuit Tiles

A Circuit Tile is a special kind of Tile that changes how you think about tile patterns and your landscape. The relevant symbols are:

Nodes: This tile’s black or white squares act as the end-point of a Circuit.
Circuit-Perpetuals: While the Circuit is active, this effect governs rules that influence every tile that is part of the Circuit.
Circuit-Link: When this tile is played on the Board and it creates an active Circuit, trigger this effect or trigger the “Circuit-Link” of the coupled Node. This Tile is always a Node.

How Circuits work

When a Node Tile is on the Board, it is dormant until it “connects” with another Node Tile of the same color.
Nodes connect by lining up the black or white squares on adjacent tiles.
When 2 Nodes are connected, the Circuit is “Active,” allowing “Circuit-Perpetuals” to take effect across every tile in the connected path.
If a tile on the path is rotated or a wall is placed on the path, the Circuit is rendered inactive.

Tile Note

Once a Tile is played on the Board, it is no longer “your” Tile but the Board’s Tile. This means that any player who occupies that tile has access to its Activated Effects.

How to Play

Players enter Basilika with a pre-made deck of cards. The deck includes tiles and modifiers, 1 Archetype Card, and a set of Class Cards. The tiles and modifiers are unique cards, with no duplicates (alt variants are considered unique cards). The Archetype Card and Class Cards are likewise unique cards.

7x7: 2–4 Players

Deck size: 50–60 cards.
Players roll a D20 to determine turn choice; the highest roll decides whether they go first or last. Turn order is clockwise.
The player going last then rolls a D6 to determine what the center of the 7x7 Board does:

7x7 center effect by D6 roll
D6	Center effect
1	Unplayable Space
2	The Tile played in the center has a Perpetual: “The first Player to land their King on this Tile Draws 3 Cards.”
3	Any Tile played in the center costs nothing.
4	When a Tile is played in the center, all Players create a Queen.
5	While a Tile is occupying the center space, all Players have +1A every turn.
6	Unplayable Space

6x6

Deck size: 40–50 cards.

5x5: 2 Players

Deck size: 30–40 cards.
Players roll a D20 to determine turn choice; the highest roll decides whether they go first or last.
The center of the Board is a normal playable space; all other rules are identical to the 7x7 ruleset.

4x4

(recommended for beginners)

Deck size: 20–25 cards.
Decks hold no Modifiers.

3x3: 2 Players

(recommended for beginners)

Deck size: 15–20 cards.
Decks hold no Modifiers.
Players roll a D20 to determine turn choice; the highest roll decides whether they go first or last.
The center of the Board is a normal playable space; all other rules are identical to the 7x7 ruleset.

Setup

Players place their Archetype Tiles in the corner spaces of the Board, opposite one another. The text should hang off the Board.
In turn order, players place their King and Retinue Pieces on their Archetype Tile.
Each player shuffles their deck and draws 6 cards.
Mulligan: players may select up to 4 cards from their starting hand, set them aside, draw that many cards, then shuffle the set-aside cards back into their deck.

Player Turn

Player gains 3A (3 Actions) for their turn.
Draw Step: player draws a card. Draw counts scale by game stage:
- Early Game: draw 2 cards.
- Mid-Game: draw 1 card. Mid-Game begins once a contiguous set of adjacent Tiles connects the two players' Archetypes.
- End-Game: draw 0 cards (see End-Game below).
Player can spend Actions and activate effects in any order they choose.
When the player spends their final Action, they end their turn. They may not activate or trigger any additional effects beyond those triggered by the final Action spent.
Move on to the next player’s turn.

Winning & Losing

You lose the game when your King is Captured, or when an opponent’s King lands on the center of your Archetype Tile.
In the event you have multiple Kings, only one needs to be captured for you to lose the game.
If there are more than 2 players, the player who eliminates an opponent gains control of 3 of that opponent’s pieces (removed and replaced, HP static); the rest are removed from the Board. The defeated opponent’s Tiles remain on the Board until the game is over.

Combat

Pieces move and attack based on the rules listed on their Class Cards. A piece’s Value is both its HP and its Combat Damage.

When your piece attacks another, it deals damage equal to its value to that piece. If the damage is enough to reduce that piece to 0HP, that piece is Captured.
When you Capture a piece with combat, your attacking piece moves to take the captured piece’s position.
When your piece attacks another and the damage dealt is not enough to reduce it to 0HP, that piece simply takes the damage and reduces its value by the damage total.
Pieces may either Move or Attack once per turn for 1A. This is considered a “Piece Action.”
Some effects might have a piece Attack or Move, but that is not considered a “Piece Action.”

End-Game

End-Game begins when the last Tile is played and there are no spaces on the Board where a new Tile can be played in a legal position (ignoring Overplay).
Players no longer draw cards from their deck at the start of their turn.
Tiles are now played exclusively for their End-Game effects, unless the Tile has Overplay.
After a Tile is played for its End-Game effect, it is removed from the game.
If, for any reason, a Tile is removed from the Board and a playable space is made after End-Game has begun, End-Game is maintained and the next Tile played must be played in that available space.
During End-Game, any non-specific Summon effects are summoned to the center of your Archetype Tile.