Tara, Seat of Kings is set in ancient Ireland, a land of intense competition as each rival petty king tries to unite the island, with himself as the Ard Ri or High King of Ireland. Each player strives to become High King by winning kingship in two of the four ancient regions of the country, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster.
Tara, Seat of Kings involves strategy, tactics, the application of limited resources and sometimes a little luck.
Through the play of cards representing their supporters and the use of 'cumals' (a 'cumal' is worth three cows), players attempt to promote their followers from Farmers to Herdsmen, through Warriors to Chieftain and finally to the ruling King in the region.
Tara Seat of Kings is a 'raiding strategy' game, rather than a traditional 'conquest strategy' game.
This is a particularly attractive game with high quality and wooden playing pieces.
How to Play
Tara is played in rounds of three cards. A round is completed when each player has used three cards.
At the beginning of the game the Starting Player deals each player six cards. Each player chooses three of these cards to use in round one, and puts aside the remaining three cards - the second set of three cards are used in round two.
When playing a card, one of four actions may be chosen:
A Place pieces into a region;
B Play a Stone of Destiny card to swap 2 pieces in a region;
C Discard the card and pay 4 cumals to declare an amnesty that releases all captives from a region;
D Discard the card to gain 2 cumals.
If pieces are placed or swapped, an Activation Cost may be paid to promote from two of your pieces to the space immediately above them. The object is to gain a King in the region by promoting to the King space.
By placing or promoting pieces, opposing pieces can be captured and the play'ers own pieces can be released.
After each player has played the three cards in hand, there is an End of Round sequence. Each region may have a traitor. The player who owns the traitor swaps one of their pieces for an opponent's piece and may then pay to promote from the traitor's space. Once all traitors have been actioned, players collect income, dependent on the number of pieces they have on the board and their rank. Then remove pieces from any region containing a new King; the player with the new King establishes a garrison in the region, captives are removed and exchange or ransom of prisoners may occur.
Finally the Starting Player chooses a new Starting Player for the next round. A new round then begins, using the three cards set aside by each player if they remain, or by dealing another six cards to each player and splitting them into two sets of three as at the start of the game.
The game continues until one player has a King in two different regions.
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