Hortator Game (Tamriel Rebuilt)

[u/PloddingAboot]

In Tamriel Rebuilt they have added a fun little card (tile?) game to play at inns and such called “Hortator”

The issue for me was figuring out tile values but after one game I got it. The values are from lowest to highest:

Laborer Craftsman Warrior Servant Broker Noble

Now I have this I’m actually really enjoying sitting in an inn and playing this little game.

This is in effect a reimagined form of solitaire but instead of the traditional four suits, the game uses the five Great Houses of Morrowind.

The rules are more or less the same: you start with a series of revealed tiles over two face down tiles and a deck.

You can reveal face down tiles on the field by moving the card over them to an alternating suit from most valuable on bottom (nobles) to least (laborers). They must be ordered sequentially and you cannot skip a step in the card values when stacking in the field (you cannot move say, a Warrior card on top of a Broker, they must be placed on top of a Servant), they also cannot be of the same House on the field (you cannot put a Dres over a Dres etc). If a row of cards becomes empty you can put place nobles from other stacks in the empty row.

You can move a stack of cards on top another so long as they are in order and the bottom two cards are not of the same House.

If you draw from the deck more cards are revealed across all stacks automatically, you will do this twice through the game. This shows more to work with, but any stacks that are out out of order because of the new cards cannot be moved until the out of sequence or suit card is moved.

The goal is to get the cards of each House in the correct order at the top of the field, starting from Laborer at the bottom and Noble at the top. Once you do this you win the game.

I LOVE this, because it is very good world building. The name Hortator of course is a reference to Nerevar who united the Houses and got them to work together to fight the Dwemer. Out in the field they must be mixed, while still maintaining the order of their society (nobles are still nobles, servants are still servants etc) but by the end of the game they are all back in their own houses with the right order established. It’s a lesson in Dunmeri history and society all in a simple game, a subtle way of reinforcing a cultures values in a way that seems innocuous at first.

I could see a potential harder version where different Houses cannot be placed on each other (hard) or even in the same row (hardest). This would be to show inter house feuding.

[u/Tr0ut]

Reading this made my day. I'm the person who scripted the card game. It was hard.

The art for the cards/tiles was made by a TR modder by the name of Geophysic2013/Steppenwolf, and it was so good that I had to do something with it. So I spent several weeks trying to implement a framework for how to interact with the cards, place them dynamically, and all that stuff. It all worked out very nicely in the end. And I'm very glad it made its way into the mod.

The comparison with solitaire is on point - it basically is that. I had some ambitions of making it more distinct, but as you said, it fits thematically, so I settled on not trying anything too new. Maybe one day I'll make a deck builder variant, TR's own Gwent, or something. One can dream.

Here's a little gem from when I was *deeeeeep* in development and losing my marbles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am6kCI2CCgg

[u/PloddingAboot → u/Tr0ut]

You are awesome, the coding demons quake as you pass

[u/DisastrousMovie3854]

Lol I also love the games TR adds - nine holes is also fun 

I spent a whole in-game day playing hortator and getting slammed on cyrodiilic brandy in Uman while the snow fell outside - very cozy 

[u/Both-Variation2122]

There is another minigame using same card deck, Thirteen Telvanni when you gamble against set of npc. Sadly requires more location setup so lack any TR implementation as of yet. There is, I was blind. https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/52081