Zarpint Jeremy Cook on 31 Dec 2003 03:53:29 -0000


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Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] Tafl anyone?



My comments:

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, Daniel Lepage wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 30, 2003, at 12:29 PM, Craig wrote:
>
> > I propose a rule, to be called "Political Tafl":
>
> > The game is played on a board 13 spaces on a side, which is initially
> > empty.
>
> What about the other side? Is it assumed to be square?

Well, 'a' can mean 'one' or 'all' in English, and here it's clear it
means all, but the number of sides needs to be specified (Hexfl, anyone?)

> > The gameboard has two dimensions, so every position may be represented
> > by an
> > ordered pair of numbers.

And this does specify it.

> >
> > [[This rule is deliberately written to make a multidimensional
> > extension of
> > Tafl possible; so far, however, the gameboard is two-dimensional.]]
> >
> > Each player has a Tafl Score, which is a quantity of Tafl Points
> > (possibly
> > negative), which begins at 0. A player's Tafl Score may only be
> > changed as
> > defined in this rule. Tafl Score is a quantity independent from the
> > "Score"
> > and "Points" referred to elsewhere in the ruleset.
>
> That's an interesting way of defining 'score' - you phrase it as a
> "quantity of Tafl Points", so that my 'score' object isn't a number,
> but more like a purse full of points.
>
> I don't know if that's good or bad.

'quantity' can be used as a synonym for 'number' in English.
"quantity: 1c) An exact amount or number." -- dictionary.com

>
> > Players may place and move Tafl Pieces on the board in accordance with
> > the
> > rules of this subgame. To "place" a Tafl Piece means to create a Tafl
> > Piece
> > in a certain position on the board. Tafl Pieces do not exist when they
> > are
> > not on the board.
>
> Just out of curiosity, why forbid that? At the moment it's impossible
> to create Pieces off the board or to move them there regardless of
> whether you state it or not; but someday we may want Tafl Pieces to
> exist in some other content (say, if you have a bag of captured pieces,
> or something).
>
> > B. Alliances
> > For the purposes of this rule, a Player is either a Player as defined
> > in the
> > rest of the Nomic, or the Admin.
>
> For clarity's sake, it might be better to put this at the beginning of
> the rule.
>
> > Every Player has a set of Allies, who are other Players.
> >
> > Anyone who is not an Ally to a given player is considered an Opponent
> > of
> > that player.
>
> It doesn't come up in this or in PGo, but under both, each player is
> technically an Opponent of emself - Allies are 'other players', and
> anyone who isn't an Ally is an Opponent.
>
> This doesn't affect PGo since PGo never mentions Opponents except when
> it defines what they are; nonetheless, it bugs me.
>
> > Alliances are not necessarily transitive. Player A can be allied with
> > player
> > B, and player B with player C, while player A remains an opponent of
> > player
> > C.
> >
> > C. Moving
> > A Move consists of doing one of the following:
> >
> > 1. Placing a Tafl Piece on the board. A player who does this has eir
> > Tafl
> > Score decreased by three. If the player has no Hnefi currently on the
> > board,
> > then eir piece is a Hnefi. Otherwise, it is a Pawn. Tafl Pieces may
> > not be
> > placed adjacent to other Tafl Pieces, nor may any of their coordinates
> > be 1
> > or 13.

You actually don't state the numbering of the coordinates. I take it they
start at one?

> >
> > 2. Moving an existing Tafl Piece belonging to that player. Tafl Pieces
> > move

It doesn't specify who the Pieces belong to here. I think we want any
piece I create to belong to me. "All your piece are belong to us!"


> > in a single dimension during each move, and are considered to pass
> > through
> > all of the spaces between their original space and their destination,
> > inclusive. There are two limits on the distance a Tafl Piece may move.
> > It
> > may not move off of the edge of the board, and it may not pass through
> > a
> > space containing another Tafl Piece.
>
> Any piece can move like this? It seems that the rapid placement and
> rescue of Hnefis is then the best way to go...
>
> > To form an Alliance, both players must publically consent to do so.
> > (The
> > first player consenting does not count as a move; the second player
> > consents
> > by actually forming the Alliance, which counts as a move.) The two
> > players
> > then add each other to their list of Allies.
>
> 'add each other to their list of Allies'? You mean, they become allies.
>
> > Anyone in an Alliance with another player can break the Alliance at any
> > time. In that case, the two players remove each other from their list
> > of
> > Allies.
> >
> > A player may move at most once per Checking Period, and may not place a
> > Stone if one of eir Allies has made the most recent move.

You nowhere define a Stone.

>
> One could argue that this should refer to PGo Allies and Moves as well,
> so that an ally in PGo who was an enemy in PTafl could lock you down by
> moving in PGo a lot.


Or that the games should be completely separate: If A is allied with B and C
in Go, at any time they could decide to prevent A from moving in Tafl ever.
Although then A would break the alliance, so the net effect is to make
alliances trickier. Which is interesting politically--this is a good idea,
actually. We could abstract this by defining a Game System, where allies in
game A affect game B if A and B are in the same System.



>
> > D. Capturing
> > Two positions on the board are considered adjacent to each other if
> > one, and
> > only one, of their dimensions differ by one. In other words,
> > "adjacent" is
> > taken to mean "horizontally or vertically adjacent", and diagonal
> > adjacence
> > does not count.
> >
> > When the following rules refer to Tafl Pieces being adjacent, it means
> > the
> > same thing as the positions of those stones being adjacent.

stone again.

> >
> > If a Tafl Piece has two Pawns which are adjacent to it and whose
> > positions
> > differ from it in the same dimension, it is captured.
>
> Even if those Pawns are owned by the same player?

Here is where we'd want to use (and first fix) the Opponent definition.
Also, you didn't capitalize "captured" here--I think we're case sensitive.
Though that can just be rectified.

>
> > In the event of a Tafl Piece being Captured, the players having Pieces
> > whose
> > presence was part of the Piece's capture are considered the Capturers.
> > The
> > Capturers each receive one Tafl Point per Tafl Piece of theirs
> > involved in
> > the capture. Each player whose Tafl Pieces are being Captured loses
> > two Tafl
> > Points for each Piece that e loses. When a Tafl Piece is captured, it
> > ceases
> > to exist.
> >
> > You may not play a Piece in a position where it would be immediately
> > Captured.
>
> By 'play', do you mean 'place', or just 'put'? I.e., can I move an
> existing piece to where it would be immediately captured?
>



> > Multiple Tafl pieces may be Captured in one turn, and these Captures
> > occur
> > simultaneously.
>
> So ABABABAB would simultaneously capture all but the outer two pieces?

That's an impossible position--some pieces should have been captured
before the last move. But moving into AB_BA removes all 3 middle ones,
which I think is good.

>
> > E. Ko
> > Two states of the board are considered "equivalent" if the only
> > difference
> > between them is that, at any number of given positions, a Piece
> > belonging to
> > one player is replaced by a Piece belonging to another, and those two
> > players are allied in either state. Only the positions of pieces on the
> > board are considered when checking for equivalence; differences in the
> > state
> > of alliances or in who made the most recent move are not considered.
> >
> > A player may not make a move if that move would change the board
> > position so
> > that it is equivalent to a previous board position.
> >
> > [[Tafl does not traditionally have a Ko rule, but it is being
> > incorporated
> > into Political Tafl because the game does not automatically end when a
> > Hnefi
> > escapes.]]
>
> Ko works in Go because the number of stones is in general rising. This
> is not true of Tafl, and I don't think anyone wants to be responsible
> for comparing each move to all previous board states.

Chess has a similar "repeated position" rule. Actually, in chess it's a draw,
but here there is no way of ending the game (if people keep playing) until it
grinds to a halt from any move being a ko violation--which will take at least
2^169 moves.
I actually think a Ko rule is needed here, or someone could
move A, then eir opponent B, then A^-1, then B^-1, ad nauseum.
Some other way of ending the game would be nice--e.g., permit each player to
only place one Hnefi, and once eir Hnefi escapes, e retires from the game.
>
> > F. Escaping
> > If a player makes a move such that a Hnefi of eirs has as any of its
> > coordinates either 1 or 13, that Hnefi is considered to have Escaped.
> >
> > When a Hnefi escapes, it ceases to exist and the player who controlled
> > it
> > gains ten Tafl Points.
> >
> > [[The size of this bonus may need to be tinkered with a bit.]]
> >
> > G. Ending the Game.
> > The game ends during a Checkpoint when the most recent move was to
> > Pass, and
> > nobody has made any other move for more than an nweek.
>
> Uh... you might want to specify *the game of Political Tafl*; I'd
> rather not have B Nomic end when this game does.
>
> > [[If this ever happens, it indicates that the current game has become
> > boring. If this occurs, one possibility is to add a dimension or simply
> > clear the board.]]

We could automatically add a dimension if this happens-we only need to change
one sentence.

>
> Political Go, IIRC, has a bit here about how people get points for
> having Go points... is it your intent to make Tafl completely
> independent from the main B Nomic Scores? In that case, you can do this
> as a society.

I don't really like the idea of having a million societies with different games
each. It could just be another Attribute that non-Tafl players could ignore.

>
> > H. Displaying the Game
> > When a player makes a Move, e does so by posting a message to a Public
> > Forum
> > describing the move and displaying the state of the game in an
> > agreed-upon
> > format. Such a message may look like the contents of the following
> > comment.
>
> Y'know, it's debatable what happens when you say that. Since Comment
> Text can have no influence on the implementation of the rule, the rule
> should behave in exactly the same way if you remove all the comments...
> so one could interpret this to implicitly define the rest of the rule
> to be a comment.

I actually think rules are not allowed to look inside comments and act on them,
but this is just using the comment as a text. "The message may look like
page X from Kernighan & Ritchie" would be fine as well (with respect to that
issue), even though K&R does not yet have the force of Rule in B Nomic.
And the rule says "may look like", which doesn't have any force anyway.

>
> > [[
> > I move my pawn from (5,13) to (10,13)
> >
> >     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13
> >   .---------------------------------------.
> > 13| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  t  .  .  . |13
> > 12| .  .  .  .  T  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |12
> > 11| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |11
> > 10| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |10
> >  9| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s  .  .  .  .  . |9
> >  8| .  .  f  .  .  .  .  .  .  f  .  .  . |8
> >  7| .  .  .  .  .  t  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |7
> >  6| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |6
> >  5| .  .  .  .  .  .  s  f  .  .  .  .  . |5
> >  4| .  F  .  .  .  s  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |4
> >  3| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  f  .  . |3
> >  2| .  .  .  .  S  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |2
> >  1| .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |1
> >   '---------------------------------------'
> >     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13
> >
> > [T] Teucer               0 points   Allies: Someone Else
> > [F] Rob the Voting Fish  0 points   Allies: none
> > [S] Someone Else         0 points   Allies: Teucer
> > ]]
> >
> > A visual representation of the board is strictly optional; the
> > following
> > comment is a perfectly valid expression of the same move as above.
> >
> > [[
> > I move my pawn from (5,13) to (10,13).
> >
> > Teucer               0 points   Allies: Someone Else
> > Hnefi: (5,12) Pawns: (10,13) (6,7)
> >
> > Rob the Voting Fish  0 points   Allies: none
> > Hnefi: (2,4) Pawns: (3,8) (10,8) (8,5) (11,3)
> >
> > Someone Else         0 points   Allies: Teucer
> > Hnefi: (5,2) Pawns: (8,9) (7,5) (6,4)
> > ]]


Eris! Do we really want these kind of posts? I can't tell anything from the
numbers unless I draw the grid myself, personally.
And we don't have a Ministry whose job it is to display this otherwise.

Do we want this to be a r1633 Environment?

> >
> > If a Move as posted is illegal, then it is not considered to occur. If
> > the
> > state of the game displayed in the message does not accurately reflect
> > the
> > result of making that Move - for example, because the board does not
> > reflect
> > another Move made just before that - then the described Move takes
> > precedence.
> > }}
>
>
> --
> Wonko
> Award Wonko a Win.
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-- 
Zarpint            "All thy toiling only breeds new dreams, new dreams;
Jeremy Cook         there is no truth saving in thine own heart."
mcfoufou@xxxxxxxxx       --W.B. Yeats, The Song of the Happy Shepherd
grep -r kibo /     "Movements are the problem, not the answer to problems."
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