[no subject]

[Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is, I believe, the final revision of the Political Go Proposal. I 
realized that I was not handling Ko or Seki correctly, and added a section 
on clearing the board.

\begin{proposal}
\title{Political Go}
\number{362}

1. Create a Rule entitled "Political Go" with the following text:

"There exists a Contest called Political Go. The Go Consul is the 
Contestmaster. The first Go Consul is Joel.

The Go Board is empty at the start of Political Go. Players become Go 
players by making a Go move. Go players are unallied by default. Each Go 
player may make no more than one Go move per Game day, and may never place 
two Stones consecutively.

A game of Political Go ends if it is no longer legal to place a Stone, or 
if a nweek passes in which no Player places a Stone.

The Go player with the highest Go score is the winner of the Contest."

2. Create a Rule entitled "Go Board" with the following text:

'The Go Board is 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 be occupied 
by a single Stone. 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 only through 
vertices in the set, to trace a path along grid lines from one vertex in 
the set to all other vertices in the set.'

3. Create a Rule entitled "Stones, Dragons, and Liberties" with the 
following text:

"The Stone is the playing piece in Political Go. Each Stone is owned by one 
and only one Go player. 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 clear 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."

4. Create a Rule entitled "Go Moves" with the following text:

"For each move, a Go player must do one of the following: 

1. Place a Stone. 
2. Offer an alliance to an enemy. 
3. Declare war on an ally. 

If a Go player places a Stone, e may place a single Stone on any unoccupied 
vertex, with the following exceptions:

1. Stones may not be placed so as to repeat a previous Board configuration.

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 an enemy Go player 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."

5. Create a Rule entitled "Stone Capture" with the following text:

"Following each Go move, the Stones of Dragons with no liberties unfriendly 
to the moving Go player are captured.

If a captured Dragon is adjacent only to Stones owned by a single Go 
player, that Go player captures all of 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 among the owners of those Stones as 
follows:

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 the Dragon has received a Stone. This process is repeated 
until all Stones from the captured Dragon are exhausted."

6. Create a Rule entitled "Go Scoring" with the following text:

"At the end of the game, all dead Dragons are captured by the Go players 
whose unfriendly Dragons are adjacent to them. 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."

7. Create a Rule entitled "Clearing the Board" with the following text:

"Following Go scoring, a number of captured Stones equal to eir territories 
plus is created in each Go player's possession, and all of eir Stones in 
play are added to eir pool of captured Stones, thus removing all Stones 
from the Go Board."

\end{proposal}

-- 
J.