How to Play Empire Solitaire

Empire Solitaire Rules

| Players: 1 | Type: Solitaire | Supplies: 1 Deck |

Objective

The objective of Empire is to capture all cards on the board until only one card remains.

Setup

Empire only uses 18 cards. Deal three rows of five face-up cards each to form a five-by-three tableau grid. Deal three cards face down to form the stock. Remove the remaining cards from the game; they will not be used.

Game Play

Every card in the tableau is available for play to capture a card. To use a card to capture another card, the two cards must either share the same rank or share the same suit. To capture a card, take any available card and place it on top of a card that is either one space vertically, horizontally, or diagonally next to it, and then remove the bottom card from the game. For example, you could move the queen of hearts onto the 4 of hearts below it, since they share the same suit, and then discard the 4 of hearts from the game.

If there is space between the card you want to use to capture and the card you want to capture, either vertically or horizontally, you may skip any number of empty tableau spaces to capture a card, but not diagonally. Following the previous example, since the queen of spades and the queen of hearts share the same rank, the queen of spades could be moved two spaces down onto the queen of hearts, skipping the empty space between them. The queen of hearts would then be discarded.

At any point during the game after the first card has been captured, you may reveal the top card of the stock and play it onto any empty tableau space. All three cards from the stock must be played onto an empty tableau space before the game is completed. When there are no more moves, the game is over.

To Win