The Designer Website: Byzantium is a card game for 1, 2, 3, or 4 players. It can thus play as a form of solitaire, or as a competitive game, depending upon how many wish to be involved. Players take turns in placing cards on the table forming an elaborate hierarchy that must obey a few strict rules. The aim is to place all of your cards, while preventing your opponents from doing so. Use two suits from a deck of playing cards, one red, one black. Place an Ace in the centre of the table, and place the other Ace crossed over it. Shuffle the other 24 cards. Connecting Cards: The main gameplay consists of connecting cards to form hierarchies. To connect a card in your hand to one in the tableau, the following conditions must be met: 1. It must not overlap any of the cards in the tableau. 2. It must not touch any card other than the one it is connecting to. 3. Its short side must be placed flush against a side of the card in the tableau. 4. The touching sides must touch in their centres. 5. The two cards must be of the same colour. 6. It must be at most three cards distant from the Aces. (It must connect to the Aces, or connect to a card that connects to the Aces, or connect to a card that connects to a card that connects to the Aces.) 7. A single hierarchy (a tree of cards connected to the the Aces) cannot contain both ascending sequences of cards and descending sequences of cards.