spoon-discuss: Political Go suggested revision and comments

[Dan <wald7330@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the intrests of getting this going I have taken the liberty of drafting
a revision of the original Political Go proposal.

Would there be objections if we make winning a game of Political Go a
requirement for winning the game of nomic?

Here it is.  I have changed some things and kept some things the same.
The unit of play is now the Stone, for which I have proposed a definition.
Turns are not fixed length, other than no more than one a day, but will
be determined by the difficulty of acquiring Stones.  For this to work we
will need to find a better way of determining the end of the game.

I know this outside-influence on the game is not true to the rules of Go,
but I would like to give wealthy players something to waste their
points on.  The way I have determined the price of points means that most
people will be able to move once per nweek, and some of the more
successful players will be able to move twice or even three times.  A
player willing to waste a lot of points could surprise their opponents
with a sudden rush, and maybe even win.
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Create a Rule entitled "Political Go" with the following text: 

There exists a Contest called Political Go. The Go Consul is the
Contestmaster.  Political Go is played on a square grid of 19 rank lines
and 19 file lines, lettered horizontally from "a" to "s" and vertically
from "1" to "19".

Each vertex on the grid must, at all times, either be empty or have a
stone on it. Two vertices are adjacent if a grid line can be followed from
one to the other without crossing any other vertices. A set of vertices is
mutually adjacent if it is possible, by passing through only vertices in
the set, to trace a path along grid lines from one vertex in the set to
all other vertices in the set.

The Stone is the playing piece in Political Go. Two stones are friendly if
they are owned by the same Go player or by allies; otherwise, the stones
are unfriendly. A set of stones is mutually friendly if all pairs of
stones in the set are friendly. Two stones are adjacent if they occupy
adjacent vertices. A stone is adjacent to a vertex if the vertex it
occupies is adjacent to that vertex.

A dragon is defined as any set of mutually friendly stones occupying
mutually adjacent vertices in which no stone in the set is adjacent to a
mutually friendly stone not in the set. A dragon is adjacent to all of the
vertices adjacent to the vertices occupied by its stones. A dragon has a
number of liberties equal to the number of unoccupied vertices to which it
is adjacent, with no vertex being counted more than once. A dragon is
considered dead if has only one liberty; otherwise, the dragon is live. A
dragon is friendly to a Go player if it contains only friendly stones.  
Each vertex from which no path may be traced to a dragon unfriendly to a
Go player is counted as one territory for that Go player. A dragon has an
eye if its liberties are territory for a Go player to whom it is friendly,
and, barring a change of alliances, it would be impossible for that
territory to be lost. Any dragon with two distinct eyes, barring a change
of alliances, may never become dead.

Each Go Player may take one of the following actions, known as Go Moves,
once per day:

     1. Place a stone. 
     2. Offer an alliance. 
     3. Declare war on an ally. 

To place a stone, the Go Player must own at least one Reserve Stone.  E
must specify the location for that Stone on the Go Board, and that Stone
becomes In Play at that location, subject to the following restrictions:

1. Stones may not be placed on vertices on which the Go player had a stone
during eir previous turn.

2. Stones may not be placed on vertices on which the placement of a stone
would cause the formation of a friendly dragon with no liberties, unless
it would also cause the formation of an enemy dragon with no liberties.

If a Go player offers an alliance, e must name a Go player whose stones
are not friendly to whom e is making the offer. If that Go player accepts
the offer, the two Go players become allied.

If a Go player declares war on an ally, the two Go players cease to be
allies, and eir former ally's stones are no longer friendly.

Following the Go Move the stones of enemy dragons with no liberties become
Captured and lose their location attribute.

If a captured dragon is adjacent only to stones owned by a single Go
player, that player gains ownership the stones in the captured dragon. If
a captured dragon is adjacent to stones owned by more than one Go player,
the captured stones are divided thusly by the Go players whose stones are
adjacent to the captured dragon:

The Go player with the most stones adjacent to the captured dragon
receives the first stone, the next most the next stone, and so on, with
ties broken randomly, until all captured stones are exhausted or every Go
player capturing from that dragon has received a stone. The process is
repeated until all stones from the captured dragon are exhausted.

[[Need a better method for determining the end of the game]]

If an nweek passes in which no player makes a move, the game is over.

At the end of the game, all live dragons which could not gain two distinct
eyes if play were to continue without a change of alliances are considered
dead. All dead dragons are captured by the Go players whose unfriendly
dragons are adjacent to them. Live unfriendly dragons adjacent to the
liberties of dead dragons are considered to be adjacent to the dead
dragons for the purpose of dividing the captured stones. After the removal
of dead stones, each Go player's territory is counted. A Go player's Go
score is the sum of eir territories and captured stones. The Go player
with the highest Go score is the winner of the Contest.


-----
Poulenc

Original proposal by Joel Uckelman.