Cordoba — Rules Manual

Cordoba (Reinhold Wittig, 1990)
A tactics game for 2 players.
Translated from the original German rules by Víctor M. González, April 2nd, 2013.

Once upon a time - one city in which Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in harmony. Islam was the state religion, but there was freedom of religion.
This really sounds like a fairy tale. But it actually happened, incredible as it may seem today. In the 10th century, before the ill-fated crusades, Cordoba was the most cultured western city. Its art and crafts, literature, medicine and pharmacy have influenced the development of Europe during centuries. Maybe your next holiday trip takes you to Andalusia, where the source for this game can be found, and you find even more evidence of that incredible time.
Our game is about equality and religious balance. Whenever an imbalance develops, you must try to redress it. The player who succeeds in doing this, wins the game and gets a post in the Cordoba caliphate.
Setting-Up: the two players sit side by side and put the board in front of them. Each player receives the pieces of a color and places them on the start fields that are marked for each piece by either a number or a letter. The starting player is agreed upon.
Game goal: The winner is the player who first succeeds in moving four of his stones to the destination row (that on the board far side).
Game play: during a turn, a piece is moved in a straight line two squares sideways or forwards (the forwards move can be orthogonal or diagonal). In doing this, other stones can be jumped over.
The destination field must be empty or else occupied by a same-colored piece. In the latter case, the newcomer is placed to the left or right of the resident piece. During his next turn, the player responsible for this situation must move away one piece from the doubly occupied field.
Compensation: if, in a doubly occupied space, two same symbols are adjacent, the corresponding religion is in a special situation of power. To maintain the equilibrium, all the stones (of any player) that show that very symbol and are orthogonally or diagonally connected to the doubly occupied space must be moved backwards.
The player responsible for the doubly occupied field must move backwards all stones affected by this situation. The affected stones that lie on one of the first four rows must be moved back to their starting positions. If those stones lie on one of the last

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four rows, they must be moved three fields backwards, in a straight line, orthogonally or diagonally, and always to an empty space. If the destination fields are occupied, the pieces are moved only two fields backwards. When a player manages to have four of his stones in the last row, his opponent has an additional turn to attempt achieving the same goal. If he succeeds, the game ends in a draw; otherwise, the first player is declared the winner.

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