Re: [spoon-discuss] Political Robot Grid Tafl

["Baron von Skippy" <bvs@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>How about combining Political Tafl with Grid Robots?
>
>The grid would be 2-dimensional and large - something from 30 to
>aleph-null squares on each axis - with debris in predetermined places. 
>Each player has a Hnefi, and can create pawns as described below.  

-Remind me again (he said, as though he had ever known), what's aleph-null? Is that infinity, the empty set, the set of all real numbers, the set of all fake numbers, a fake set of matching silverware, seventeen, or what?-
>
>If a chunk of debris is flanked by two pieces belonging to the same
>player or allied players, it is converted to energy or directly to
>points, shared equally between those player(s).  An exception is when
>the capturing piece is a Hnefi: in this situation nothing happens
>unless the other piece involved belongs to a different but allied
>player, in which case the debris becomes a pawn under the control of
>the Hnefi's player.  
>
>Enemy pieces can also be captured, and converted to energy or pawns
>(pawns should provide more energy than debris, and Hnefi still more). 
>If a Hnefi is captured, its owner's pawns become debris, and e is out
>of the game (but can start again).  The Hnefi now doesn't need to
>escape, but you have to risk moving it about if you want to build more
>pawns.
>
>Moves are submitted in advance - perhaps in the first checking period
>of the nweek, with up to one move per nday of the other 2 checking
>periods (this gives us some time at the start of each nweek to validate
>the board state and plan our moves).  A move would give start and end
>coordinates - if the player has a piece at the starting position on the
>nday in question, it moves until it reaches the endpoint or encounters
>an obstacle.  If we want to make things more complicated, players could
>have more direct control over their Hnefis (which are their avatars)
>than pawns (which are more like programmable drones).
>
>The players will tend to clear the rubbish from the grid (which is
>perhaps highly desirable).  We could finish the game when the grid is
>clear, add more to keep the game going, or use an infinite board.  The
>debris placement algorithm ought to make it impossible to move
>infinitely far because there will always be an obstacle in the way.  We
>could have an infinite grid, but have other restrictions on movement,
>e.g. forbid pieces to move further than +-n from the origin in the nth
>nweek of the game.

-How about we stick with a finite grid, so we can actually display this on a page? 30x30 sounds good to me. No bigger than 50x50, I think, and even that is stretching things some. Unless perhaps we were to make it more interesting - massive board and each player gets 2 or 3 Hnefis (to speed up the beginning and make the game harder to end)?-
>
>I think alliances are more workable if players are grouped into teams. 
>Any player can start/join a team, subject to the restriction of no more
>than 3 players per team.  This prevents too many players ganging up to
>oppress someone, and also prevents everyone from combining peaceably to
>mine debris, either of which would be bad for gameplay.

-Well, I see the value of limiting teams - otherwise, best bet for people would be for everyone but one person to team up, then beat the loner to bits, then eject another player and repeat, Survivor-style. No fun for the losers, but the winner does very well. Unless several players, forseeing defeat, split off and band together... this could be pretty interesting any way it goes, I think.-
>
[[BvS]]
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