Build Your Arboretum

🌲 ⚔️ Death Match (The Elder Tree): Build Your Arboretum ⚔️ 🌲

Command your flock of parrots to bring you tree seeds to be planted in your garden.

Each round, auction for the right to get the earliest moves by sending the largest flocks of parrots, then plan ahead to take various tree seeds on offer. You can either plant your tree seeds in the garden, forming a beautiful arboretum, or you can use them to advertise your arboretum. You need to balance both planting and advertising if you want to succeed building the prettiest arboretum.

This game is heavily inspired from the 2015 board game Arboretum by Dan Cassar. However, there are various elements built on top of it, so it's important to read the rules.

RULES

🀄 You start with 6 parrots. You use parrots to bid to get the earliest moves in each round. Parrots are permanent; once you get them, you never lose them.

🀄 The game uses 64 tree cards. There are 8 tree suits, labeled simply P-W. Each tree appears on 8 cards, numbered 1-8.

🀄 You have a 6×6 arboretum. This arboretum starts out empty. Each player has their own arboretum. Tree cards will be planted in your arboretum.

🀄 You also have an advertising board. Your board starts out empty. Each player has their own board. Your board has space for 7 tree cards.

🀄 There is a common offering area. This is where most of the action will take place. Each round, there will be some tree cards added into the offering area. There is also a refuse pile where cards removed from the offering area go to.

The following shows how the update will look like.

The top half have personal areas: one player takes the left side and is tinted red, the other takes the right side and is tinted blue. The 6×6 grids are the arboretums; below them are the advertising boards.

Below all that is the common area, with the offering area on the left and refuse pile on the right. The five possible actions are given on bottom-right. The turn order track is given along the bottom. These are explained later in the rules.

The player with the DM Advantage chooses the starting player for the first round. The starting player will have a disadvantage in bidding for the first round, described below.

The game is divided into 11 rounds. Each round is divided into two phases: bidding and playing. There are also some automatic things at the start and end of the round.

📌 0. Start of round

At the start of a round, some tree cards are added to the offering area. The number of tree cards depends on the round number:

• Rounds 1-5: There are 5 tree cards
• Rounds 6-8: There are 6 tree cards
• Rounds 9-11: There are 7 tree cards

📌 1. Bidding

You will divide your parrots into any number of groups, each with at least one parrot. Groups must be non-increasing in size; later groups cannot have more parrots than earlier groups. You may also decide to skip some parrots, not putting them in any group.

⚠️ For the first round only, the starting player may only use 5 parrots out of their 6. Their opponent may use all 6 parrots. (In all other rounds, all players may use all their parrots.)

In addition, you will also plan your actions. For each group, choose either "garden" or "bulletin". You may choose either choice for each group independently; you can have all the same, alternating choices, or whatever you wish.

Intuitively, a choice of "garden" means you are planning to plant, while a choice of "bulletin" means you are planning to advertise. More formal rules are in the next phase.

Your moves here are made simultaneously and in secret. Once both players are finished, they are revealed.

📌 2. Playing

Players take turns, according to their parrot groups they made. The largest parrot group goes first. In case there are equal-sized parrot groups, players alternate starting from the starting player.

The board only has space for 9 turns in a round. Any group past the 9th will not take a turn this round.

On your turn, you must perform an action according to your plan. Depending on whether you planned "garden" or "bulletin", you have access to different actions.

• Plant and take actions can be taken as long as the offering area is not empty.
• Dig, hire, and start actions can only be taken once each round. Once either player takes a dig action, neither player can do so for the rest of the round; the same applies for hire and start.

Instead of taking your turn, you may decide to skip the rest of the round. That is, you forfeit all the remaining turns in your round. If you cannot perform your action as planned, you have to skip the rest of the round.

⚠️ It is impossible to skip only one turn and come back to play at a later turn in the same round. Once you skip a turn, you skip all your remaining turns in the round.

🔸 If you planned "garden":

• Plant: Take one tree card in the offering area and place it in your arboretum. The rules for planting are given below.
• Dig: Only if the "dig" special action has not been taken this turn. Take one tree card in the refuse pile and place it in your arboretum. This follows the same rules for planting.
• Start: Only if the "start" special action has not been taken this turn. Become the starting player for the next round.

Planting rules:

• The first tree card you place may be anywhere in your arboretum.
• After that, you may only place your tree card orthogonally adjacent (sharing a side) with an existing tree card in your arboretum.
• If your arboretum is completely full, you can no longer take the plant or dig actions.

🔸 If you planned "bulletin":

• Take: Take one tree card in the offering area and place it in your advertising board. If you have more than 7 tree cards in your advertising board, you have to discard one into the offering area; this cannot be the one you have just taken.
• Hire: Only if the "hire" special action has not been taken this turn. Discard tree cards from your advertising board adding up to at least X+1, where X is the current number of parrots you have. (For example, at the start of the game, you have 6 parrots, so for your first hire action, you need to discard cards adding up to 7 or more. The tree suits don't matter.) This gives you an extra parrot that lasts for the rest of the game. The discarded cards go into the offering area.
• Start: Only if the "start" special action has not been taken this turn. Become the starting player for the next round.

📌 3. End of round

At the end of the round, all tree cards currently in the refuse pile are removed from the game. All tree cards in the offering area go into the refuse pile.

The starting player of the next round is the player that took the "start" action. If neither player did, the starting player remains the same.

👑 The game ends after all 11 rounds have been played.

You score points as described below:

• If you have more parrots than the opponent, you score 2 points times the difference.
• You score 1 point if you are the starting player after all 11 rounds have passed.
• Your arboretum and advertising board score points as described below.

For each tree suit (P-W), first check the advertising boards of both players. The player that has a larger sum has the right to score the tree suit; the opponent cannot score that tree suit. If both players have the same sum, both players have the right to score.

⚠️ If you have the 8 of a suit, but the opponent has the 1 of that suit, your 8 is canceled; it does not count towards your sum.

If you have the right to score a tree suit, find a path in your arboretum satisfying the following properties:

• It has at least two tree cards, and moves only between orthogonally adjacent tree cards.
• It starts and ends with a card of the tree suit.
• The numbers along the path are strictly increasing. (There cannot be equal numbers.)

If you can't find such a path, you score 0 points for the suit. Otherwise:

• You score 1 point for each tree card in the path.
• If your path is at least 4 cards long and all tree cards in it have the same suit, you instead score 2 points for each tree card in the path.
• If your path starts with the 1 of the suit, you score 1 additional point.
• If your path ends with the 8 of the suit, you score 2 additional points.

Note that the bonus for starting with 1 or ending with 8 is never doubled.

👑 The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player with the DM Advantage wins.

EXAMPLES

It is Round 11, the last round of the game. Red is the starting player. After bidding, the resulting turn order is as follows:

This is how the turn order was decided:

• Red bid 3-2-2-1-1. He planned Bulletin-Garden-Garden-Garden-Garden.
• Blue bid 3-3-2-1-1. She planned Bulletin-Garden-Bulletin-Bulletin-Garden.
• The largest group size is 3. Players alternate turns, starting from the starting player Red. Therefore the turn order is Red-Blue-Blue. (Red only has one size-3 group while Blue has two. After alternating once, Red doesn't have any more groups, so Blue takes the rest of the turns.)
• The next group size is 2. Players alternate turns again, starting from Red again. Therefore after that, the turn order is Red-Blue-Red.
• The next group size is 1. Players alternate turns again, starting from Red again. Therefore after that, the turn order is Red-Blue-Red-Blue.
• However, Blue's 5th action ends up being turn 10 in the round. That means it will not be played.
• The final turn order is Red-Blue-Blue-Red-Blue-Red-Red-Blue-Red.

1️⃣ Red's 1st turn is a bulletin action. He can do the take, hire, or start actions. He decides to hire. He has 9 parrots, so the next hire action requires discarding cards with a total of 10 or more. He decides to discard Q7 and T4 into the offering area. Note that it is allowed to discard more than the required total; in fact, in this case, he cannot discard a total of 10, so he is forced to discard more.

2️⃣ Blue's 1st turn is also a bulletin action. As hire is a special action that has been taken, she can no longer hire. She decides to take. T4 is now in the offering area (it was discarded by Red just earlier), so she decides to take it. As she has a full ad board, she has to discard a card; she choose to discard S2 into the offering area.

3️⃣ Blue's 2nd turn is a garden action. She can plant, dig, or start. She decides to dig to get the V1 from the refuse pile, placing it on D1.

4️⃣ Red's 2nd turn is also a garden action. As dig is a special action that has been taken, he can no longer dig. He decides to plant the Q7 he discarded earlier on D5.

5️⃣ Blue's 3rd turn is a bulletin action. She takes P5 and discards W5 into the offering area.

6️⃣ Red's 3rd turn is a garden action. He decides to take the start action. This doesn't change anything, but it guarantees he keeps the starting player, which is worth 1 point in the final scoring.

7️⃣ Red's 4th turn is a garden action, but he decides to skip the rest of the round. Therefore, he will also skip their fifth turn. Blue's fifth turn (that was skipped due to becoming the 10th turn in the round) will still not be played.

8️⃣ Blue's 4th turn is a bulletin action. She takes Q6 and discards U6 into the offering area.

9️⃣ Red's 5th turn is skipped as he decided to skip the rest of the round earlier.

The final state of the game is as follows:

Points from parrots and starting player:

• Both players have the same number of parrots, so neither player has any points from parrots.
• As the starting player at the end of the game, Red scores 1 point.

Points from trees:

• P: Both players tie on their advertising board with a sum of 7. Red does not have a valid path, so Red scores 0. Blue has a valid path E3-D3-C3-C4-B4-A4; this is worth 6 points for length 6, plus 1 point for starting with 1, plus 2 points for ending with 8, for a total of 9 points.
• Q: Blue has a sum of 6 while Red has a sum of 0. Blue has the right to score, but there is nothing in her arboretum. At least Blue prevents Red from scoring; he has the path E3-D3-D4-D5-C5, which would score 5 points plus 2 for ending with an 8.
• R: Both players tie with a sum of 0. Blue has nothing. Red has several possible paths: B2-C2-C3-C4 or B2-C2-C3-C4-D4-E4. The former scores 4x2+1 = 9 points: 4 points doubled because it has all the same suit, plus 1 point for starting with 1. The latter scores 6+1+2 = 9 points. Whichever one he takes, he scores 9 points.
• S: Blue has a sum of 6 while Red has a sum of 0. Blue gets the right to score, but there is nothing.
• T: Blue has the right to score. Blue scores C3-C4-C5, which is worth 3+2 = 5 points. Despite having all the same suit, this is not doubled because the path is only 3 cards long; it takes at least 4 to double.
• U: Red has a sum of 1. Blue's 8 would normally give her the right to score, but since Red holds the 1, it cancels the 8. Therefore, Blue has a sum of 0, and so Red has the right to score, although he has nothing.
• V: Blue has the right to score, taking D1-D2-D3-D4-C4-B4-B5 for 7+1+2 = 10 points.
• W: Both players have the right to score, but neither can score. Blue has a W1, but a path needs to be two cards long and there is no other W.

In total:

• Red scores 1 point (starting player) + 9 points (Suit R) = 10 points.
• Blue scores 9 points (suit P) + 5 points (suit T) + 10 points (suit V) = 24 points.

Blue wins.

ADMINISTRATION

📌 ⏰ Timing

During bidding and planning, you have 3 minutes to submit your bid and plan. If you fail to submit properly in time, you are assumed to not submit anything for the round; that is, you have no group and so will not take any turn.

Within each round, you have a total of 3 minutes to perform all your turn actions. If you run out of time, you skip all your remaining turns in the round.

Timers are generally paused when the umpire is giving a board update. You may make your submission before the umpire posts the update if you wish; it counts as official.

📌 🧠 Submissions and allowed tools

For bidding and planning, your submissions are done in your private channel. You may change your submission until the deadline.

Your bid/plan submission consists of the group sizes of your parrots, along with the plan for each group. As a reminder, your group sizes must be non-increasing.

For playing, your submissions are done in the public game room. We will take the first legal submission you make, unless you promptly fix the submission (e.g. in case of making a typo or sending a move too early).

Your action submission consists of the action you want to do, along with the necessary components:

• Plant: Card you take, and position in your arboretum.
• Take: Card you take, and possibly card you discard.
• Dig: Card you take, and position in your arboretum.
• Hire: Cards you discard.
• Start: No need to state anything else.

You may use any available tools for note-taking. However, you may not talk to other people or use any automated programs.

📌 📡 Information

Everything in this game is public information, except for your bid/plan for the current round, and the tree cards coming in future rounds.

More specifically, this game has the following pieces of information, along with how and when they are revealed to the players, if at all. If a piece of information is not in this list, it is likely public, but feel free to clarify.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the start of a round

• The tree cards on offer this round.
• The number of parrots each player has.
• The starting player.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the end of the bid/plan period

• Each player's bid and plan.

--- Therefore, the resulting turn order for the round.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the end of every action

• The action taken and its results.
• Each player's arboretum, ad board, and parrot counts.

🔻 Explicitly only known to you

• Your bid and plan for the current round.

🔻 Explicitly not known to anyone

• Tree cards on offer in future rounds.