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

["Craig" <ragnarok@xxxxxxxxx>]

>> {{
>> The game is played on a board 13 spaces on a side, which is initially
>> empty.
>> At any given time, every position on the board is either empty, or
>> occupied
>> by a Tafl Piece, either a Pawn or a Hnefi, belonging to a certain
>> player.
>> The gameboard has two dimensions, so every position may be represented
>> by an
>> ordered pair of numbers. In every dimension, the lowest legal value is
>> 1 and
>> the highest legal value is 13.
>> }}

>Can we assume that they're numbered in order?

I was.

>>>>> 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...
>>
>> Yes, but your Hnefi cannot be used in a capture.
>>
>> In real forms of Tafl, only one player has a Hnefi at all. It starts
>> at the
>> center of the board, as do all that player's pieces. Eir opponent has
>> about
>> twice as many pieces, which start closer to the edges. I'm not 100%
>> sure how
>> to capture that spirit in a balanced form of the game.

>It doesn't matter if Hnefi cannot be used to capture. Under these
>rules, the most profitable strategy for every player is to place as
>many Hnefis as possible, and then escape them all for 10 points apiece.
>Capturing costs more to get the pawns, takes longer, is harder to
>achieve, and doesn't pay back as much.

I agree. I think that the weaponless Hnefi rule helps, but doesn't go near
far enough. Might it help to shrink the escape bonus?

>>>> 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.
>>
>> The latter is clearly preferable. I amend my proposal by inserting the
>> following text at the end of section C:
>>
>> {{
>> An alliance in Political Tafl and an alliance in Political Go have no
>> relation to one another. Two players may be allies in one game and
>> opponents
>> in another.
>> }}

>I don't think that solves the problem - the rules still refer to being
>an 'ally' of another player, without specifying whether that means a
>PGo ally, a PTafl ally, or some sort of mystical alliance governed by
>something else.

Okay, then, how would you rephrase it?

>>>>> 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.
>>
>> I make the following replacements.
>>
>> {{
>> Anyone who is not an Ally to a given player is considered an Opponent
>> of
>> that player.
>> }}
>>
>> becomes
>>
>> {{
>> Anyone who is not an Ally to a given player is considered an Opponent
>> of
>> that player, except for the player emself.
>> }}
>>
>> and
>>
>> {{
>> 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.
>> }}
>>
>> becomes
>>
>> {{
>> 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. This does not
>> occur
>> unless the two Pawns in question belong to one or more Opponents of the
>> player who owns the captured piece.
>> }}

>Just for the record, I believe Dave likes it more when we replace the
>whole text of a proposal at once - it's much easier to copy a new large
>block of text and put it in the database than to extract the old text,
>go through making a lot of point changes, and then put the new thing
>in.

That's true.

Once I'm reasonably sure I'm done, I will do the work of figuring out the
complete text.

>One could also argue that this message upped your prop's revision
>number by 10 or so.

Yeah, I suppose so.

>>>>> 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?
>>
>> Gosh, I could have sworn I wrote in a rule about how if you move it in
>> to
>> such a position, it is simply not captured. Guess not.
>>
>> I replace the text
>>
>> {{
>> You may not play a Piece in a position where it would be immediately
>> Captured.
>> }}
>>
>> with
>>
>> {{
>> A player may not place a Piece in a position where it would be
>> immediately
>> Captured. [[Note that that's illegal anyway, as it would be adjacent
>> to some
>> pieces.]] A player may move a Piece into such a position; if e does
>> so, the
>> Capture does not occur.
>> }}

>That's a paradox - if moving a piece into a position where it would be
>captured means it doesn't get captured, then there are no positions
>where it would be immediately captured. But that means that those
>places aren't made capture-proof by this section, so then they are
>places where you get captured immediately, and therefore they aren't.

I suppose so. Quit being so Epimenidean on me.

>I actually like the idea of losing your own pieces when you move them
>into somewhere. Otherwise, I can protect my piece by moving it right
>between two enemy pieces.

True. But only temporarily - if you move into B_B, we have BAB. B can move
away, leaving BA. Then e moves back if you're still there, capturing your
piece. You'd have to always be on the run.

>> in my proposed rule.
>>
>>>>> 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.
>>
>> If we make the change above, then A moving into AB_BA results in A_A_A.

>But then also, A moving into B_B results in BAB, which is bad.

>>>>> 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.
>>
>> Hrm, I like that. That also adds an incentive to not rescue your Hnefi
>> right
>> away... you stop gaining points from captures if you have retired. Any
>> suggested implementations?

>We could make so that initially, all players are trying to Escape; when
>a player escapes, eir Hnefi is gone, and e's just got a lot of pawns,
>so now e becomes the attacker, trying to prevent others' escapes.

I like this. I hereby amend my Tafl proposal yet again, by removing section
E and changing the letters of other sections accordingly. As a seperate part
of the same revision, I replace the subsection C.1 with the following text:

{{
1. Placing a Tafl Piece on the board. A player who does this has eir Tafl
Score decreased by four if that player has a Hnefi on the board and three
otherwise. If the player has not previously placed a Hnefi 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.
}}

This also makes it cost less for attackers to get new pawns; this is
consistent with the traditional rule of having more attacking pawns than
defending ones.

>>>>> 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.
>>
>> Gee, this flaw exists in PGo also. In my proposed Tafl rule, I replace
>> the
>> first paragraph of section G with
>>
>> {{
>> The subgame of Political Tafl ends during a Checkpoint when the most
>> recent
>> move was to Pass, and nobody has made any other move for more than an
>> nweek.
>> }}
>>
>> I also submit a proposal, titled "Fixing Go Endgames", as follows:
>>
>> {{
>> In the first paragraph of the section of the Political Go rule titled
>> "Ending the Game", replace the word "game" with the phrase "subgame of
>> Political Go".
>> }}
>>
>>>> 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.
>>
>> It was a conscious decision. Not everyone plays PGo; I don't expect
>> them to
>> care, just as I don't care about style. I'm assuming that those who
>> don't
>> care about Tafl would rather it not affect them by changing other
>> people's
>> scores.

>So the only incentive for playing it is the self satisfaction of
>spending a lot of time thinking about what to do?

>I'd like to see some sort of bonus for doing well in this subgame; if a
>player isn't adventurous enough to try it, then it's eir own fault if
>everyone else gets points and e doesn't.

I'm starting to agree, but I'm leaning toward adding an incentive later. I
suggest we require a positive Tafl score as part of being Upstanding, and
give a point bonus when a player's Hnefi Escapes? Just a thought.

 -- Teucer

"Paginate my subjective reality, baby!"
 -Taliesin

ragnarok@xxxxxxxxx
teucer@xxxxxxxxxx


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