![]() | This article only references primary sources.(November 2021) |
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Designers | Reiner Knizia |
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Publishers | Abacus – German Rio Grande Games – English Wargames Club - Chinese |
Players | 2–4 |
Setup time | Approx 5 min. |
Playing time | Approx 45 min. |
Chance | Tile drawing |
Age range | 10+ |
Skills | Tile laying |
Samurai is a German-style board game invented by Reiner Knizia, distributed by Hans im Glück in Germany and Fantasy Flight[1] in the United States. It won the Deutscher Spiele Preis 4th place award in 1999. A shareware computer version was published by Klear Games in 2003, and an iOS version was published by Conlan Rios Games in 2010.
The game board is split into the four major Japanese islands of Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, and on every island are a number of cities and villages. Each player has 20 tokens that represent various levels of influence against a certain force—rice fields, Buddhas, and high helmets. Each of the forces are represented on the board with an acrylic glass figurine.
At the beginning of the game, players place the figurines one-by-one onto a city or village, with the capital city of Edo containing one of each figurine. Cities may contain two figures, but only if they are different. Villages may contain only one figurine. After all of the figurines are placed each player takes five tokens from their supply.
Players then take turns in placing their force tokens on the spaces surrounding a city or village. A player must play at least one token on their turn. These tokens may be played only once per turn:
Any number of the following tokens may be played on each turn. These tokens also have a small character printed on the bottom of the token.
At the end of a turn the player takes random tokens from their supply to replenish their hand back to five.
Once a figurine is completely surrounded by tokens the player with the highest total of surrounding influence immediately takes the figurine. The figure is placed to the side in the event of a tie.
The game is over when all figurines of one type have been claimed by players or any four figurines have been set aside due to a tie. The winner is determined as follows:
(E.g. p1 has 5 helmets, 3 buddhas, and 1 rice field. P2 has 2 helmets, 3 buddhas, and 2 rice fields. p1 has the majority in helmets (his 5 vs p2's 2). Both players are tied in buddhas (3 vs 3) while p2 has the majority in rice (his 2 vs p1's 1). P1's other figures would be 4 (3 buddhas + 1 rice field) while p2's other figures would be 5 (2 helmets + 3 buddhas). P2 wins even though p1 has more total figures.
Samurai has been ported over to multiple electronic platforms including PC and iOS.