Well, since obviously you can't git gud at the game if you don't know how to play it.



Sigmar's Garden is a variant of Shanghai Solitaire that's played on a 6x6 hexagonal board (a total of 91 tiles).

A break down of available tiles:

• Salt (4)
  
• The four Elements (8x4)
  
• Vitae/Mors (4x2)
  
• Quicksilver (5)
  
• The six Metals (6)
  
• 2 Quintessences (If you're playing Sigmar's Garden II)

With a total of 55/57 tiles. The remaining 36/34 tiles are empty.

You can only make moves on tiles that have 3 consecutive empty spaces around them. Tiles out of bounds are treated as empty spaces. The tiles that can be matched will be highlighted:


You can match tiles according to these rules:

• Element <---> Element (of the same kind)
  
• Salt <---> Element (any kind)
  
• Salt <---> Salt
  
• Vitae <---> Mors
  
• Quicksilver <---> Metal
  
• However, the metals can only be matched in the order of their appearence in the alchemical table: Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper, Silver
  So, for example, you must match lead before you match tin, then iron, etc...
  
• Gold does not need to be matched. It can be freely taken out once it's free (and silver is matched)
  
• Quintessence can only be matched with 1 of each element (1 fire, 1 water, 1 air and 1 earth) simultaneously.

The board always begins with tiles with some degrees of symmetry (2-fold reflection to 6-fold rotational). Gold is always placed in the center.

In the order of how obvious these are:


Since you need to match the metals in order, it goes without saying that you have to plan around matching them. Therefore your first objective is almost always uncovering Lead (and Tin) first.

In the meantime, you should also look at where the quicksilvers and Vitae/Mors are. Open metals without quicksilvers to get rid of is about as dead as dead weight; meanwhile, a huge imbalance of Vitae/Mors can be really annoying and deadly.


Salt can be matched with any element, but every element can be matched with itself. So, what happens if you've used up all the salts, but you have an odd amount for some elements?

Well, you can't win anymore!

Therefore, watch out for your salt usage, you need to ensure that the number of every element is even after you've used all the Salts.


Don't be afraid to use Salt when necessary - having lots of Salt around gives you much more choices in matching the elements, but developing attack points and getting metals/Vitae/Mors matched is even more important


An obvious conclusion from the rules is that a straight line will have all of the tiles blocked except the two ends, because the tiles inbetween the ends only have 2 consecutive adjacent tiles. (i.e straight line rule. This is a very important rule for effective play.)

If the two ends consist of elements that are hard to find a match, e.g high metals and Vitae/Mors, it essentially means you have a whole line of elements with no easy access. This usually translates to a dead run.


Similarly, long areas with no empty spaces inside are also bad; there are few places you can advance, which means it's very easy to get into a situation where no matches can be made at all.

This goes to the whole game: Assuming Gold is buried in the center (which is true in 99% of the games), you don't want to develop solely on one side of the board. Because of the straight line rule, you'll easily find late-game very limited if you do so.

And with the addition of quintessence, this is even more important - quintessence needs 4 elements together to get rid of, meaning it's almost compulsary to develop lots of open points.


Very often, the placement of some metals and Vitae/Mors will only allow a specific angle of attack.

Even worse, some of them might be in the same critical line, and arranged in a sinister way. For example, one end might be blocked by gold, but another end is a quicksilver, with Tin in the middle. If you don't match the quicksilver with Lead, your run's dead.

These situations happen most often with Vitae/Mors (yes, they're a big nuisance) and sometimes with metals. With some care, these death traps are mostly avoidable.

Yes, you'll need many hours before you can get 100 wins. Probably at least the length of the main game itself.

Though, you'll get better as you play more games along. By the time you get 100 wins, you certainly won't need this guide anymore!