The Rules of Topple
The first move
The first move for all players is to place a piece with a pawn on top of it on any grid space on the map, afterwards the normal move options become available.
The two main move options
Each player can only do one of these two things on their turn:
- Place down a piece within a two tile distance from any of their pawns on the board.
- Move a pawn a one tile distance onto a valid tile.
You may NOT place pieces on top of you or the enemies pawns, you may only place pieces on empty tiles or pieces.
Creating a stack
When you place a piece onto an empty tile you have just created a stack. You can continue to place pieces on the same tile to make the stack higher which has different effects. Pieces are agnostic, meaning you can use other players' stacks for your own purposes or donate pieces to players.
Moving pawns
When attempting to move a pawn you must make sure that the pawn is moving to a tile with one or more pieces on it. You are also allowed to move to a stack with a height difference of one from your current stack. (e.g. if your pawn is on a two high stack then moving onto a one high stack or a three high stack is a valid move, however moving to a four high stack is invalid).
Gaining new pawns
The player starts the game with one pawn on the board and seven pawns in reserve (eight in total). In order to create a new pawn you must place a piece onto a stack of two, making it a three stack, after which you place a pawn on the board from your reserve.
Topple
When placing another piece on a stack that is three or more pieces high, it creates a topple. The steps to topple are as follows:
- Take all but one piece off of the stack
- Pick one of eight directions around the stack
- Place a piece on all the tiles in your chosen direction until you run out of pieces or go off the map.
Any pawns in the way of the topple will be crushed including your own pawns.
Taking opponents pawns
If you move a pawn adjacent to a stack with an enemies pawn on it, and your stack is only a piece higher than the stack the enemy pawn is on, you move downwards onto the opponents stack and take the enemies pawn. This happens in between turns and can happen multiple times if there is more than pawn to take in your pawns path.
The inverse is also true, you may deliberately force an enemies pawn to take you by moving to a stack adjacent to an enemies pawn which is one piece lower in height.
Creating a lock
A lock occurs when there is more than one possible option for taking a pawn. During this state, pawns which were otherwise able to take are instead dormant and can only take again once the lock is removed. A lock is removed by simplifying the position so as to only allow for one possible path for taking any pieces.
Some examples include:
- A pawn locked in position because the pawn that it can take can also take a pawn itself. The reason there is a lock is because it is impossible for both of those takes to occur.
- A pawn can become locked because more than one pawn can take it at the same time. To unlock a player must move their pawn away from the position to simplify it down to only one possible path.
Reset
When there are at least three stacks that are exactly three pieces high ordered in a straight or diagonal line all the pieces are removed from the board and any pawns atop the stacks are also removed. This move is called a reset. A reset can also occur if there are more than three stacks of three in a line (e.g. four stacks of three, or five stacks of three).