zompist bboard

Nae's Incogludo, and an Isegoria post about Hnefatafl, got me thinking about what sorts of board games there would be in my conworld. Since there's very powerful magic (actually telepathic nanobots from before the collapse of the interplanetary trade infrastructure that forced the colonies back to hunter-gatherer levels of technology) and very few people have any mastery of it, I figured the games wouldn't look that much like chess -- especially since most wizards are Hathe, for reasons too complicated to get into here, and the Hathe don't have legions of peasants to mobilize for war.

Ghtaw is a board game popular with the Hathic islanders, and spread by traders to some parts of Harue. It presumably derives from Hathic raids on the Kett people of Harue. It is unknown which civilization the game originates with; the name is a Ngmwragh rendering of Insular Kett hattáu 'war, raid', but the pieces are named in Ngmwragh, a Hathic language, and marked with Ngmwragh script.

The starting position is given here. There are two sides, wizardside and kingside, which I'll call white and black: the pieces face their owner. White goes first.


There are five kinds of piece.

The wizard, or snyiw, is the piece that White must protect: if it is captured, White loses.
The king, or tsek (the only Kett loan in the piece names), is the piece that Black must protect. Both wizard and king move like chess kings.


The general, or rheu, moves like a bishop, but can also move one space forward.


The knight, or ghooz (literally 'spear'), has a unique pattern of movement: it can move forward one square
straight or diagonally, or it can move one square diagonally and one square forward, jumping anything in its path. In other words, it combines the iron general and knight of dai shogi.


The pawn, or de (literally 'small unit'), moves and captures like a chess pawn, except it cannot move forward two squares at once in its first move. White can summon pawns to any unoccupied square in the second rank.


Knights and pawns must promote, and generals may, when they reach the last rank of the board. The general promotes to the big general, nǁay rheu, who moves like a queen.


The knight promotes to the big knight, nǁay ghooz, which can move as a knight in both directions.


The pawn promotes to the big unit, tak, which moves like the vertical mover in shogi -- any number of spaces vertically or one space to either side -- but can also capture (but not move!) diagonally in either direction. Promotion is symbolized by rotating the piece 90 degrees to the right.


I haven't playtested this yet (any volunteers?), but I can see some possible problems:
1. White has an endless supply of pieces, so only needs to play defense and chip away at Black. I've tried to balance them, but I'm not sure if I have. Might need a shogi-style drop rule, or a limit on White's summons, or more powerful pieces (bishops? rooks?) instead of Black's back two pawns. If it goes to the endgame, White will probably win anyway.
2. White's summons make it almost impossible for Black to promote. This could be solved by allowing pawns to capture forwards, or by having a rule against summoning in a pawn's face.
3. There's very little mobility. May make promotion too important. On the other hand, the board is slightly smaller than in chess or shogi.

Look for a friend and play it repeatedly. In my experience with chess variants, rules may seem to be even perfect on paper, but gameplay may reveal that it's not playable. The chessvariants website has many great ones, but it has tons of unplayable crap.

Hmmm.
• White starts outnumbered and will want to summon pawns ASAP. They can safely summon two before having any problems from black.
• White will also want to hang onto their officers, before having passed pawns! Exchanging a general for a general, a knight for a knight, or even a knight for a general, will not be good ideas erly on.
• Black will want to have an attack going ASAP, so as not to allow white to get a pawn rush going.

For black, starting with 1. … f5, 2. … Gg5 would be a good idea, threatening to exchange white's general. As well as mate in three if white does nothing more than derp around summoning four pawns altogether: 3. … b5, 4. … Ga5, 5. … Gxd2 X! Hence white will have to play quite carefully at first.

White cannot possibly get a pawn in to block this attack. Also, after 1. … f5, black threatens a promotion as well: 2. … Gf6, 3. … Ga1Q +, so white must reply with a summon: 2. *b2. (If white started with 1. *b2, black instead attacks in mirror image: 1. … b5, etc.) If black plays 2. … Gf6 anyway, 3. Kc1 puts then up a good defence.

White's options at the 3rd turn, after 2. … Gg5:
• 3. Ga5 would be suicide, and 3. Gc1, 3. Ge3, 3. Gf4 will do nothing against the threat of exchange, but worth mentioning for completeness.
• 3. Nf4 is also not an option: Black plays 3. … Gg4 +, 4. … e5, and the knight will be forfeit.
• 3. Ne3. Black can again reply 3. … Gg4 +, but white could summon a pawn to intervene. Black does not want white to summon pawns. I'd probably take the exchange, if I were black: 3. … Gxe3, 4. Gxe3, which should leave white at a net disadvantage: two pawns summoned, one knight lost. I'm not sure though.
• 3. Gd3 will get 3. … Nc5 as a reply. Black has developed a second officer, and white's general must dodge again. Not good either.
• 3. Gb4. will similarly get a reply 3. … c5 (or … a5), and white will again have to waste time shuffling the general around instead of summoning pawns.
• 3. Gc3, threatening 4. Gxg7Q Ke7 (the king would have to mobilize, lest 5. Qxf7 X/+). Black will pretty much have to reply 3. … e5, or 3. … Ne5. The latter essentially leaves the knight pinned, so the former is preferrable. But black can then develop the 2nd general in the same fashion. E.g. 3. Gc3 e5, 4. *d2 b5, 5. *g2 Ga5. Here white cannot play 6. Ga2 or 6. Ga4, since 6. … Gxd2 X continues to loom over white's head! For the same reasons as before, 6. Nb4 doesn't help. So generals will be exchanged, and after this black's free general can bust thru white's ranks promote, and
• 3. Ge1. This will guard both the vulnerable d2, and the knight at d2. Also a pawn could be summoned at d2, in case black plays 3. … b5, 4. … Ga5 anyway. Black would probably rather play 3. … Ne5. This will threaten 4. … Gg4, 5. … Ng3 (again, here 6. Nxg3 Gxg3 would be black's advantage; also black threatens both 6. … Nxe2 and 6. … Nxe1), so white will need to summon 4. *g2.

OK, so white is not going to be fucked immediately, but it's going to take perfect maneuvering for the first 4 turns. Probably also for a while afterwards. Playing white in this game is not going to be fun for not-quite-novices.

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Conclusions: I'd suggest relocating the knights to start from b2 and f2, or c1 and e1. This way white has a defence 1. *e2, 2. e3 against early-attacking generals.

Tropylium wrote:• 3. Ne3. Black can again reply 3. … Gg4 +, but white could summon a pawn to intervene. Black does not want white to summon pawns. I'd probably take the exchange, if I were black: 3. … Gxe3, 4. Gxe3, which should leave white at a net disadvantage: two pawns summoned, one knight lost. I'm not sure though.

Over at this branch, just to be sure: Black cannot continue with 4. …b5 (and 5. … Ga5 etc), since there's again the threat of 5. Gxa7Q. Instead I'd play 4. … d5, threatening promotion: 5. … Ge5, 6. … Gxb2, 7. … Ga1Q +; and if white started with anything else than 1. *f2, also 5. … Gg3, 6. … Gf2/g2 (irrelevant), 7. … Gg1Q +. White cannot counterattack with 5. Gd4, since 5. … e5 then forces the general to retreat.

5. Nc3 should work as defence against the former threat of promotion though. Black exchanging both generals for knights would be a poor strategy, since knights cannot very efficiently trot in to checkmate white (too little sideways mobility), especially with white having their general still in the play (and possibly threatening promoting it).

While not identical, Ghtaw does seem similar to a chess variant called Monster Chess, where white starts out with just a king and four pawns against all of the normal sixteen pieces black side. The way this game handles the weakened white force is by allowing it to make two moves every turn against one move per turn for black.

I don't know what effect such a rule would have on Ghtaw but I thought I'd point it out either way