Playground Empires - How to Play. Complete, Clear, Concise Board Game Tutorial

Video in English, published by the channel Meeple University.

About this content: The summary, key points and topics below are generated automatically from the video transcript. They reflect the content, opinions, claims and predictions presented in the video and do not represent a position, validation or fact-check by Game ARX.

Video summary

The video explains the rules and gameplay of Playground Empires, a board game designed by Sterling Birdwell and published by Hachette Games, where players control factions of school children fighting for territory and playground equipment.

Key points

• Playground Empires is a game where players control factions of students competing for territory and play equipment at Watson Elementary, aiming to reach 15 victory points first.
• The game is played in rounds consisting of three main phases: recruitment, action, and prestige.
• During the recruitment phase, players spend popularity to recruit units like throwers and sluggers or to draw secret plan cards.
• The action phase includes bombardment from high ground, unit movement, and resolving battles in contested territories.
• The teacher patrols the middle ring of the board, preventing attacks in or adjacent to the teacher's territory.
• The prestige phase involves scoring points based on board control, granting popularity, and checking if any player has reached the 15-point winning threshold.

Topics

Playground EmpiresBoard game rulesRecruitment phaseAction phasePrestige phaseCombat mechanicsVictory pointsGame setup

Video transcript

Transcript from available captions; it may contain errors.

Children running around, defending their playground territories, the most subjectively important things in their life right now in Playground Empires. >> And today, we'll be teaching you how to play Playground Empires, game designed by Sterling Birdwell and published by Hachette Games. And check out the link to the project page in the video description below. >> And hey everyone, it's Dayla. >> And Tarrant, welcome to Meeple University. >> And hey, if you enjoyed this video after watching, like, subscribe, and comments, you know what to do. Now, let's get to the classroom. >> In Playground Empires, the bell has just rung for recess, and now the battle is on for the best play equipment. Now, this is nothing like my primary school, where each grade had their own assigned play equipment and sports grounds to avoid conflict, not at all. Here at Watson Elementary, it's a free-for-all. As the third, fourth, and fifth graders race and fight to claim and reclaim the most territory. They really needed to put more than one poor teacher on lunch duty. Round by round, each faction will build and hold their popularity, which they can leverage to recruit new troops, or develop secret plans for conquest. They'll gain points as they win territories and more points for holding them, and the first to 15 points will win the game. To set up, each player picks a faction. There are six to choose from, and take note that each faction has a special rival of the other faction in its same grade. Many of the game's actions, which give you victory points when you beat your opponents, will give you even more victory points when that opponent is your rival faction. In your color, you'll get all of these various pieces. Three faction cards, 20 control markers, which are used to keep track of the areas you control on the board, the home base edged in your color, and all of your potential units. Two leaders holding flags, 20 throwers holding dodgeballs, and 24 sluggers holding whiffle ball bats. In battle, sluggers will be your melee units, throwers will be your ranged units, and leaders act as both. The star is your popularity, which you track on your own board. It begins at four, and the square is your victory points tracked on the central victory point track. Jigsaw together the main board using all pieces in a five or six player game, or leaving out the middle pieces in four or fewer. Place the appropriate size Kitopolis in the center of the board. This is the jewel in the playground crown, the biggest, highest scoring, but hardest to defend of all of the tiles. Home bases should go in the spaces matching your player count around the edge of the board, and unless impossible, rivals from the same grade should not sit adjacent. If yellow is playing, they will be the first player, or otherwise determine with a die roll. The last player clockwise gets the last player token, as well as the whole monitor checklist. This has the round sequence, and this is the player who will keep track of the round as it proceeds. Both will rotate from round to round. Then build the rest of the map with tiles. For your first game, you can use one of the pre-printed maps in the rule supplement, but otherwise players will build the map together. Separate all of the tiles into popularity zero, ditches, popularity ones which aren't ditches, popularity two, and popularity three. Shuffle each face down, and then each player takes a specific combination of tiles according to the player count and their position in turn order. Each player shuffles the tiles they're dealt before drawing and placing them one at a time. In anything other than a two-player game, you'll do this in a snake draft order, meaning that you'll go once around in turn order, each placing your top tile, and then back around in reverse turn order, each playing your second tile, and then so on back and forward until all tiles are placed. In the two-player game, you'll just go back and forward. First player, second player, first player, second player, and so on. You must completely fill the inner yellow ring first, then completely fill the middle red ring, and then, if there's still tiles left, the blue ring. The board will be completely filled in a four, five, or six-player game, with the blue ring left empty and filled with face-down tiles in a two or three-player game. The only tile type which has a placement restriction is muddy ground. This tile is directional. It matters whether you place it one way up or the other because the muddy half of this ground is going to be impassable to units during the game. Two muddy grounds may not be placed adjacent, and in the two-player game may also not go adjacent to either player's home base. Once the map is laid, place the teacher. The teacher will always patrol middle ring of the board. If the gray faction is in play, then the teacher starts on a space adjacent to gray's own base. If gray is not in play, then the teacher starts adjacent to first player's home. Each player takes starting forces according to their player board and player count and sets them all up in home base. Players also mark their home bases with a control token. Other components are the shuffle deck of secret plan cards, the unique tokens, each of these corresponds to a card within this secret plans deck, the minor factions, and the six and eight-sided dice. You're now ready to play. Playground Empires is played in rounds. Each round players recruit their classmates to their cause >> and will run around the yard racing and fighting for as much territory as they can get. A new type of mob politics. >> I'll take you through an overview of the round sequence first. The current last player who holds the hall monitor checklist takes the players through the sequence of the round. There are three phases: recruitment, action, and prestige. In recruitment, simultaneously all players clean up any effects which only lasted for a round, spend their popularity to recruit new units or develop secret plans, and then deploy those units to their home base or elsewhere if allowed. Second is the action phase. Here, each player takes one complete turn in turn order clockwise, resolving each step shown here in sequence before play passes to the next player. This is where you'll fight for control. First by using ranged units who have climbed to higher ground to bombard adjacent enemies with dodgeballs, then to move, either expanding into new territories to claim them, or to muscle into their opponent's territories, where in the third step they'll try to win them, resolving battles in all territories which are now contested. Third is prestige, an administrative step, which sees players gain popularity for all the territories they control, and score victory points based on the board state. Playground Empires is a race to 15 victory points, with the game ending at the end of the prestige phase in which one or more players has reached or exceeded 15 points. At that point in time, the player with the highest score will win. All the different ways of earning points are listed here, which includes knocking out an enemy from the high ground by bombardment, knocking out an enemy leader by bombardment or battle, taking over a territory previously owned by an enemy, taking control of the central Kidopolis, or at the end of the round by controlling the most territories, the most trees, the most play equipment, or Kidopolis. This means that both attacking and sitting back and holding can be their own ways to victory. Certain actions are worth another victory point again when taken against your rival. For all of the battling, never forget that this is a schoolyard and there is a teacher on duty who will make a patrol. No one wants to be caught fighting in front of the teacher, and so at any given time neither the teacher's territory nor any territory adjacent can be the site of any attack. Finally, remember that the current last player will have the hall monitor checklist and will track the progress of the round. The hall monitor is also responsible for settling rules disputes. And if you ever come across an edge case scenario that you can't quite work out the rule, it is the hall monitor's right to decide the outcome. The first phase of each round is recruitment. >> Here, factions use the popularity that they built up in previous rounds to recruit more classmates to their cause. Who doesn't want to follow the popular kids right? >> To begin this phase, the hall monitor announces the start of the recruitment phase. First, clean up, which means to discard any effects or cards left over from the previous round which show this sweep icon. That includes all of these unique tokens which are associated with specific cards. Next, simultaneously players decide how they're going to spend the popularity that they've carried over from the previous round or from setup. This can be spent in three ways in any combination. You can recruit a new thrower at a cost of three popularity or a new slugger at a cost of two popularity or draw a new secret plan card from the deck to your hand at a cost of four. Units will continue to allow you to wage the battle on the board. And the images here show you how many of each unit type you're allowed to recruit each round. Secret plans are cards that have special one-off secret abilities on them. You can reveal and play these cards at the time shown on the card in order to resolve its effect and discard it. Each player is limited to holding at most five secret plans. You cannot draw above. However, you can discard secret plans during this phase to gain two popularity. Either to make space for more or to give you back some popularity for another purchase. Once all players have finished spending popularity, all players now deploy their newly recruited units onto their home base territories or elsewhere if a special effect allows. Finally, unspent popularity is lost. Schoolyard popularity is fleeting. You cannot carry this over from round to round. Once recruitment is done, it's time for action. >> Time for players to charge out and claim their territory in the school yard. >> First, the hall monitor announces the start of action phase. Then, each player takes one turn in clockwise order from the first resolving each of these remaining steps in order before play passes to the next player. Do be aware that through this section, I'm simply explaining the basic rules of the game. I'm going to ignore all faction abilities to avoid any confusion. First is bombardment. You may bombard from each high ground territory, that is a territory showing this blue ladder icon, in which you already have one or more ranged units, that is throwers or leaders, at the start of your turn. Each of those ranged units may bombard once up to a maximum of two per territory. So, I could bombard once with my leader from the slide and twice with two out of the three throwers from the monkey bars. Resolve each individual bombard one at a time with the roll of an eight-sided die. In each case, target an adjacent territory containing enemy units excluding one patrolled by the teacher. So, here these three territories are off-limits. And also excluding any tree territory, which provides cover from bombardment. Here, even if this teacher weren't in the area, these two territories are safe under the trees, but the open field is vulnerable. So, choose the bombarder, choose the target territory, and roll the die. And compare the result with the bombardment table on the attacker's player board. On a result of miss, nothing happens. On a result of stun, the targeted player chooses one non-leader unit in that territory to stun, laying them down on their back. Leaders cannot be stunned. And if there were no non-leader units, then nothing happens. On a roll of knockout, the targeted player removes one non-stunned unit from the territory. And the player who rolled the knockout gains one point. Leaders can't be stunned, but they can be knocked out and are likewise removed from the board. And doing this grants you an extra point for a total of two. If the leader is from your rival faction, that increases the reward further to a total of three. Knocked out leaders aren't re-recruited for a popularity cost like the other unit types. You'll get them back for free in the prestige phase at the end of each round. It may happen that the last unit in a territory is stunned or knocked out. And if this happens, there is no further effect for now. That territory is still considered to be controlled by the faction that was previously there, but now that it's undefended, it's going to make for easy pickings in the next phase movement. The next phase of your turn is movement. Every one of your non-stunned units may move. A thrower or slugger may move up to one space. A leader may move up to two. And do note, I'm tapping my units on their sides to indicate that I've moved them and to distinguish them from the stunned units who are lying on their backs. You cannot enter or cross the muddy half of a muddy ground tile. So, this slugger could not enter this tile, but would be allowed to enter here. A unit who enters a territory with opposing units must stop, even if they have excess movement available. And this rule applies even if all of the other units are stunned. It does not, however, apply to territories which are controlled but undefended. You are allowed to move away from a territory leaving it undefended. This does not impact your control. If a unit begins its move on open field, then it may move through any number of open field tiles before taking one further movement to a non-open field tile. The presence of the teacher does not impact unopposed movement, but it does prevent you from making a move which would cause a battle in a teacher patrolled territory. Once you're done with movement, stand up all of your units in their new locations. Remembering to leave stunned units on their backs. Now, take control of any territories where you are the only one with active units present. That means here at the jungle gym where this thrower is unopposed, yellow would take control. And here in the muddy ground where both of pink's units are stunned, the stunned units would be returned to the pink player's supply and again, yellow would take control. Capturing a territory which was previously controlled by another player gains you one point. In this case, there's no extra bonus if that enemy was your rival. You also do not gain this point for claiming a previously unclaimed territory. You do, however, instead claim two victory points as well as drawing one secret plan to hand if you just claimed Kidopolis, including if it was not previously claimed. Just be warned that the second one of those Kidopolis points is temporary. If you were to lose Kidopolis, the player who claimed it would gain two points and a card, and the player who lost it would lose one point. After taking all the moves you wish to take, now resolve a battle in each contested territory. >> Fight! Fight! Fight! >> Resolve each battle in full, one at a time in the order of the attackers' choosing, until there are no longer any contested territories. Choose the territory and check to see whether it has any defensive benefits. This jungle gym, for example, means the attacker has negative one on all die roll results. Battle is resolved in battle rounds and each round has three steps: ranged, melee, and retreat. First is ranged. Each ranged unit on each side rolls one eight-sided die. If there's an impact on those dice, adjust them accordingly. Each player consults the ranged combat table for the dice they themselves rolled. And all results are applied simultaneously. For a miss, nothing happens. For a stun, the other player chooses a non-leader to stun. And for a knockout, the target player chooses a non-stunned unit to remove. Unlike a bombardment knockout, there is no automatic one-point bonus, but there is still one point for knocking out an opponent's leader or two for the rival's leader. After the one round of ranged rolls, you'll go to the melee rolls. Rolling a six-sided die for each melee unit. Again, consult the table on your own player board and apply the results. If at any point during this sequence, only one player has non-stunned units left in the territory, then they are the winners. Return stunned units on the loser's side to the supply. Reassign control and claim the one point that this always grants. If at this point both sides still have active units, then first the attacker, then the defender, has the chance to retreat. A unit which retreats may move along with one stunned unit into an adjacent controlled territory. Different retreating units may go to different territories, and any who are still active can get involved in subsequent battles this round. If this is what brings the battle to its end, then again, stunned units are removed and control is resolved. If neither side wins and neither side chooses to retreat, then start a new battle round with a new roll of ranged dice. Should it ever happen that both sides are eliminated from a territory at once, then the defender holds control, but only with stunned units. The attacker's units are returned to the supply. Keep resolving battles in this way one after the other until there are no more contested territories and all controls have been resolved. Be aware that there are faction abilities which can impact the battle as well as secret plans. Be aware as well that the younger grades require higher die rolls than the older grades who can naturally hit and throw harder. However, the youngsters make up for it with the ability to recruit more units when compared with the older kids and with other special abilities like swarm and nimble. Each player takes one turn in this way clockwise around the table. >> Once that's done, you move to the prestige phase, the popularity contest. >> The hall monitor announces the start of the prestige phase. Stand up all stunned units who are still on the board. Then any leaders who were knocked out and removed from the board during the last round are returned to home base. Gain the amount of popularity shown on every territory where you have control. Next, distribute these four points. Whoever currently controls Kidopolis gains one point. Whoever has the most total territories gains a point. And then count up whoever has the most total playgrounds and most total trees. There's one point each for those. In each case, ties are broken by whoever has the most popularity. If still tied, no one gets the points. At this stage, whoever has the lowest total score, which could be multiple players if tied, gains one free secret plan. This is the support of the Council of Independents, the students who otherwise refuse to take sides. And then check for the end of the game. If one or more players has scored 15 or more points at this stage, then the game is over and the highest score wins, with ties broken by whoever currently controls Kidopolis, then by highest popularity, and then by earliest in the last round's turn order. If nobody has won, then you'll prepare for another round. Roll a six- or eight-sided die in a two- to four- or a five- or six-player game, and move the teacher that many steps clockwise to a new patrol point. Now rotate the first, last, and hall monitor tokens one step clockwise. And those are the main rules for contesting and claiming playground glory. >> Now let's have a look at some other things useful to survive in the playground. >> Each player begins the game with three special faction cards. These behave more or less like secret plan cards in that you can play one from hand at any time for its special effect. These are not part of your hand, so you can hold five secret plans as well as these faction cards. You may use only one of these per game. As soon as you've played and resolved your first card, discard all three. The seven-point space on the victory point track is shown in green, and when any player is at or above a score of seven, all players now have access to any abilities which state after seven VP. You'll find these on secret plans and on player boards, and it means the game will escalate as it goes on. These effects can be deactivated again if the player who reached seven drops back below. It is possible for a player to lose their home base, and the rules for invading it and taking it over are no different to any other territory. Capturing an enemy home base is worth two points instead of the normal one, and this goes up to three points for capturing your rival's home base. The player who loses their home base loses one point. If you have no home base, then any territory you control where your leader is present acts as a temporary base. And that's for the purposes of where your other leader returns to at the end of the round and where new units are recruited next round. If your leaders are spread out, then you can treat them both as bases for recruitment. And if both of your leaders were knocked out, then you choose your highest popularity control territory to put them in at the end of the round. You are now considered an exiled faction. You draw two, look at, and keep one of these minor faction cards to place next to your player board. It provides you a special extra ability that you have until you capture back your base and hold it until the start of a prestige phase. If you're wiped completely off the board at the start of a prestige phase, then there's a minor uprising where you claim back your home. Any opposing leaders present retreat and other units roll six-sided dice. On a one, two, or three, they retreat and on a four, five, or a six, they are converted to your side. Regain control without scoring points and gain two leaders, six sluggers, and six throwers for free. The blue faction has a special type of unit, the Knights of the Picnic Table, and gets to recruit one for free every round. The Knights can move two spaces and are treated as both ranged and melee units, similar to the leaders. Also like leaders, they cannot be stunned. However, unlike leaders, if an opponent rolls a stun, it counts as a knockout rather than as a miss. There are no extra points for knocking them out. Although they share some abilities with leaders, they are not considered leaders. Finally, when playing the two-player game, you'll use a third neutral faction who begins in complete control of Kidopolis and the inner ring. The neutral can score points and can win the game. Shuffle and place the Empire of Kidopolis cards and at the start of each recruitment phase, draw one. This will tell you what actions the neutral will take this round. If the card refers to rebels, the rebels are you, the human players. The neutral takes no actions other than those listed on the card, gains two points instead of one for controlling Kidopolis, and wins all ties for the other objectives. In each recruitment phase, the neutral replenishes to the full starting contingent for any of its starting territories where it had lost units with the exception of leaders which are never regained once lost. >> Thanks for watching. We using prototype version of the game so things are not final. And if you like this video, maybe you like to watch this next one, too. Have a great day. Bye.