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Vinci Errata and Clarifications

Compiled by Dan Blum. All information is taken from Usenet posts or e-mails from Philippe Keyaerts, the game's designer, or Ron Magin of Eurogames, except where otherwise noted.

If you have further questions about Vinci, e-mail Eurogames (egdusa1@aol.com) and let me know the answers, so I can add them to this page.

Vinci is © and TM 1999 by Jeux Descartes.

Last updated November 12, 1999.

Errata

1. Mining produces 2 extra VPs in each province with a pickaxe. The counter and rules are correct, but the Summary of Play card is in error.
2. Medicine should not have a 1 in a yellow circle on the counter - it should instead have a +1 with a piece icon next to it, to indicate the extra piece you get each turn (numbers in yellow circles indicate VP bonuses).
3. The rules for Expansion of an Empire are contradictory - on page 3, the rules state that 1 pawn must be left in each province of an empire at the beginning of a player's turn, but on page 4, they state that provinces may be left empty. According to the designer, the second rule is correct - you may leave a province empty at the beginning of your turn, in which case you no longer own it (see below for a description of exactly how a turn works). You may NOT leave a province empty during the Reorganization phase at the END of your turn, unless you have more provinces than pieces (which can happen with Field General, for example). It is still possible to have an attack cost no pawns, in which case you must move a piece into the conquered province during Reorganization (as per the Note on page 4 of the rules).
4. Normally, the presence of a broken column icon on a Civilization counter indicates that the counter remains on the board when the owning empire goes into Decline. However, this is not true of the Heritage and Fortification counters - they are removed when an empire goes into Decline (it's not true for Rebirth, either, but that seems fairly obvious). For Heritage, the icon is there to indicate the counter's use with Declining empires, but the Active empire has to own it. For Fortification, the icon is there to indicate that the forts remain when the empire goes into Decline (but it can build no new ones).
5. There were supposed to be 3 Barbarian counters and 1 Specialization counter in the mix, but due to a misunderstanding on the original graphic designer's part there are 2 of each. To play the game exactly the way the designer intended, mark one of the Specialization counters to designate it as a Barbarian. Otherwise, if you draw both Specialization counters for the same empire, replace one of them with a new one.

Clarifications

1. It is not entirely clear (to me, anyway) exactly how turns after the first one work, given the rules as written. What happens is actually pretty simple: you remove all but 1 piece from each province of your Active empire (you are allowed to remove ALL the pieces from a province if you wish, as per item 3 under Errata), add to these any extra pieces obtained from Field General or Medicine, and make conquests, using your current provinces as bases. When you're done you can reorganize as per the rules.
2. If you remove all the pieces from ALL your provinces, you may re-enter the board immediately as if you had a new empire.
3. You may attack across coastal boundaries (black lines) without having Astronomy. You only need Astronomy to attack through Sea spaces. Provinces separated by black lines are considered "adjacent" for all purposes.
4. The +1 bonus given for attacking from a Mountain space applies when attack across coastal boundaries. It does NOT apply when attacking across Sea spaces using Astronomy.
5. If an Active empire has Heritage, and is next to the player's Declining empire, it may attack it.
6. Diplomacy may be used against a player without an Active empire on the board - this will prevent him or her from attacking you with a new Active empire on his or her turn.
7. If an empire has Specialization and a counter the effects of which cannot be doubled (all blue counters except Medicine and Diplomacy - these and all yellow and pink counters can be doubled), the empire just gets the normal effect of the other counter and the number of pawns doubled plus 1.
8. Players are not limited to 25 pieces - if more are needed, use an unused color or some other subsitute.
9. Fortification allows an empire to build one fort per turn (not one fort per province per turn). Specialized Fortification allows an empire to build two forts per turn (not in the same province, as the restriction of one fort per province still holds).
10. When Civilization counters are removed from the board, they are returned to the bag.
11. When an empire goes into Decline, remove all but 1 piece from each province it occupies and put a Declining marker in each province. Forts remain in these provinces. In addition, you remove Civilization counters without broken column icons, plus Heritage and Fortification.
12. You are allowed to enter a province with your Active empire that is adjacent to a province occupied by your Declining empire, no matter what. However, if the Active empire does not have Heritage, the Declining empire's province is immediately emptied.

House Rules

I only have one house rule so far - if two identical Civilization counters are drawn together, put them back in the bag and redraw (Declining and non- Declining Mining, Agriculture, Livestock Breeding, and Port Building are NOT considered identical for this purpose). The rationale for this is that no combination of counters should be strictly worse than any other, but two of an identical counter is strictly worse than one of that counter plus Specialization (only by one piece, but still worse).