Welcome to Cicera!

Hey there! I want to introduce you to a cool fishing card game called Cicera. It’s a game designed for 4 players, who will split into two teams of 2. Your teammate will sit right across from you, so you can keep an eye on each other’s moves.

The name of the game is to reach 51 points first by the end of a hand. And how do you earn these points? Well, you can capture cards and achieve certain objectives during the round. Sounds exciting, right? Let’s dive into the details!

Getting Set Up

Alright, first things first: we need to choose a dealer. It doesn’t matter who starts, someone just needs to be randomly picked. After that, the dealer role will be passed to the right for each round.

The deck of cards is shuffled, and the player to the dealer’s left gets to cut the deck. Then, the dealer is ready to deal each player a hand of 12 cards. Take it slow, one card at a time. And don’t forget, the dealer also deals four cards face up onto the table. This is where the real action starts!

Card Rankings

Cicera suits don’t affect how the game plays, they only impact the scoring. Ranking is just a way to compare cards to see which ones match. There are different ranks for each card, starting with Ace (which has a value of 1) and going up to King. The Jack, Queen, and King are called face cards and don’t have a specific value. To capture a card, you can either add up your cards to equal the rank of the target card or match the rank of the target card with a single card.

How to Play

In Cicera, each player takes turns playing cards from their hand to capture cards on the table. The player to the right of the dealer goes first, and then play proceeds in a counterclockwise direction.

So, here’s how the game works. When it’s your turn, you’ll take a card from your hand and play it. Now, there are two possibilities. First, if no cards are captured, the card stays faceup on the table for later. Or, you might capture cards. Pretty straightforward so far, right?

Now, let’s talk about capturing. You don’t have to capture cards if you don’t want to. In fact, sometimes it’s a smarter move not to capture them. But if you do decide to capture, there are a couple of rules to follow.

If you play a card with a number between 1 and 10, you can capture cards with the same number or a combination of cards that add up to the value of your card. For example, if you play a 5, you can capture a single card with a 5 or two or more cards that add up to 5.

Now, face cards are a bit different. You can only capture face cards by matching them with other face cards. So, if you play a King, you can only capture another King. Simple, right?

Oh, and one more thing. If there are multiple options for capturing cards, you can only make one capture. But hey, you get to choose which one you want to capture.

If you capture any cards, you’ll take those cards and keep them face-down in a pile nearby for scoring later. Once everyone has played out all their cards, it’s time to start scoring. The person who captured the last card will collect all the remaining face-up cards for scoring.

SCORING

Now that all the cards have been played and the face-up cards have been claimed, it’s time to start scoring. Each team will keep a running total of their scores over multiple rounds. Teams will combine their piles of cards for scoring.

You earn points by completing certain tasks at the end of each round or achieving objectives during the game.

The team that captures the most cards scores 2 points. If there’s a tie between teams, no points are awarded.

When we play our card game, capturing the most spades earns us a point. But it’s not just about collecting spades. There are certain spades that carry more weight. If we manage to capture the 2 of spades, that’s another point for us. And if we’re lucky enough to collect the Ace, 2, and 3 of spades, we hit the jackpot! How? Well, we get points equal to the highest spade in a straight sequence. So let’s say we have the Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 of spades. That’s seven points right there. One for having the most spades, one for grabbing that elusive 2 of spades, and five points for nailing that consecutive sequence up to the 5 of spades. Impressive, huh?

But wait, there’s more! The team that holds the 10 of diamonds gets a point, too. And if we happen to snatch the Jack of hearts, that’s an extra point in our favor as well. So it’s not just about spades, diamonds and hearts also hold their own little rewards.

Oh, and don’t forget about scoring points for our slick moves during the game. Whenever we complete certain objectives, we can reveal one of the cards in our pile for all to see. It’s like a trophy, a little celebration of our strategic prowess.

When you play a card that captures all the faceup cards on the table, you get one point. You also get one point if you capture the card just played by the player to your left. Another way to score one point is by capturing cards of the same suit. For example, if you played the 9 of spades and captured the 4 and 5 of spades. Additionally, you earn one point for capturing a set of three or more cards from the table.

If a capture fulfills multiple objectives simultaneously, you score points for all completed objectives. However, if you are the last to capture a card and receive the remaining cards, you do not score any points.

END OF GAME

The game is won by the team that reaches 51 points at the end of a round first. If both teams reach 51 points at the end of a round, the team with more points wins. If both teams have the same amount of points, another round is played until one team has a higher total.