Played with wooden or stone pieces carved (by crafters) to resemble the military units they represent.
Lots of unit types are possible: archers, heavy footmen, pike men, skirmishers with spears, half-giant clubbers, half-giant slingers, dwarven hardened axemen, razorback scimitar calvary and so forth. A limited number of templars could be deployed, each attached to a unit and stiffening its resolve.
It's a strategy game, but all the strategy is in the setup. Each side privately deploys its army (left wing, center, right wing, reserves), then a screen is removed and the disposition is revealed. Maybe in a variant, each commander could switch around a couple of units before battle is joined.
Individual battles would be sort of rock-paper-scissors resolved. Pike men would skewer half-giant clubbers, half-giant clubbers smash razorback scimitar calvary which rolls over heavy footmen etc. The foremost pair of units face off on each front (left, center, right) each turn, and reserves get thrown into a wing that becomes depleted of units. When a wing collapses, the army is defeated and the King's Stone is lost. The victor may then either chose to keep the piece or demand a ransom decided by the players before the game was set out.
Anyhow, clearly more development is needed to make a complete game. Any cool ideas?
I think that is actually a pretty solid description. I could easily see a few Tor playing it. Granted, it is probably far too complex to be worth trying to code into the game, but you could easily RP it out in vague generalities. There is a great log out there of two people playing Izdar (sp?) that describes how one might RP out the game.
Thread revived due to an expression of interest for Arm 2.0.
One of the things that would make this game more interesting is that each player may have many pieces but could only deploy a set number of them. Sort of like building a deck in Magic: The Gathering.
Setup concept:
> play board
You set up a crown-blazoned agafari board and arrange a small screen across the middle.
> key board
On a lumpy dragon-carved table:
1.board - A crown-blazoned agafari game board.
> stealthily put lord board left 4
You stealthily place your granite-carved Basani waterlord figurine on a crown-blazoned agafari board.
-----------------
. . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 W = waterlord
W . . . . . . . . 4 5 6
. . . . . . . . . 7 8 9
left center right
> stealthily put spear board left 9
You stealthily place your granite-carved spearman figurine on a crown-blazoned agafari board.
-----------------
. . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 W = waterlord P = spear unit
W . . . . . . . . 4 5 6
. . P . . . . . . 7 8 9
left center right
>
You notice: the squint-eyed cendi places an engraved chitin giant figurine on the right side of a crown-blazoned agafari board.
Cool!
So, I haven't playtested this out very far. But here's a simple set of rules we might start from. I'm not sure if I followed my own rules perfectly in the example, and my eyes are getting crossed looking at it. :) If we can go through a couple design cycles on the rules, I'll try to write a game simulator so we can do some real testing.
- Each player has three "armies" (left, center, right). He sets up as many pieces as he owns--each army on a 3x3 grid, up to 9 pieces per army--in any order.
- Play starts in the middle rows. Each column is independent. Match opposing pieces along the front lines, keeping in mind that some pieces have a reach of two squares.
- If two pieces are equally matched, leave both in place. Remove defeated pieces from the board; give each defeated piece to the player whose piece defeated it.
- When a row has been played, move up pieces from the next row to fill in the holes.
- An army is defeated when it is reduced to a single unit (which is removed from the board and given to the victor). The game ends when a player has one more intact army than his opponent.
- If all three rows are played with no victory, the players reset the board with the pieces they still have and repeat the game.
- Unit matches:
Footmen: spear > sword > axe > spear > ...
Cavalry attack at one or two spaces and defeat all but spears.
Archers attack at two spaces and defeat all but cavalry.
Archers lose to all units at one space.
If a unit has a templar attached, it can withstand units that would have defeated it and defeat units that would have equaled it. (If each unit has a templar, treat as though neither had one.)
And now, an example game.
Legend:
p = spear unit (P = with templar)
w = sword unit (W = with templar)
x = axe unit (X = with templar)
c = cavalry (C = with templar)
a = archers (A = with templar)Start of a game:
p w x w x p x p w
a c a c a c player Amos
P W X
=================
w w x P C P x x w
p p p player Malik
a a c c a c
Going left to right:
a vs w: archers defeat swordsmen. Amos gets the [w] piece.
P vs w: templar+spearmen defeat swordsmen. Amos gets the [w] piece.
c vs x: cavalry defeat axemen. Amos gets the [x] piece.
a vs P: archers can't defeat templar+spearmen. Archers will have to move up in the next round.
W vs C: equal templars; cavalry beat swordsmen. Malik gets [t]emplar and [w] pieces.
c vs. P: cavalry can't beat templar+spearmen. Cavalry will move up.
a vs. x: archers defeat axemen. Amos gets [x] piece.
X vs x: templar+axes defeats axes; Amos gets another [x].
c vs w: cavalry defeat swords; Amos gets [w].
End of the first round, middle two rows:
a c a c a c player Amos
P _ X
=================
_ _ _ P C P _ _ _
p p p player Malik
Second round: second row fills in first; back row fills in second.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
p w x w x p x p w player Amos
a P c a _ c a X c
=================
_ p _ P C P p _ _
a a c p a c player Malik
_ _ _ _ c _ _ _ _
Left to right:
a vs a = draw
P vs p = P Amos gets [p]
c unchallenged
a vs P = P Malik gets [a]
x vs C = C Malik gets [x]
c vs P = draw
a vs p = p Malik gets [a]
X vs c = draw
c unchallenged
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
p w x w x p x p w
a P c _ _ c _ X c player Amos
=================
_ _ _ P C P p _ _
a a c p _ a c _ player Malik
_ _ _ _ c _ _ _ _
Move up for last round:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
p w x _ _ p _ p w
a P c w x c x X c player Amos
=================
a a _ P C P p c _
_ _ _ c p _ a _ _ player Malik
_ _ _ _ c _ _ _ _
a vs a = draw
P vs a = P
c unchallenged
w vs P = P
x vs C = C
c vs P = P
x vs p = x
X vs c = draw
c unchallenged
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
p w x _ _ p _ p w
a P c _ _ _ x X c player Amos
=================
a _ _ P C P _ c _
_ _ _ c p _ a _ _ player Malik
_ _ _ _ c _ _ _ _
First round is a draw, because both players have lost one army. They will reset the board with the pieces they retain and the new ones they've acquired, and play again.
Anybody willing to take a look through this and point out problems?
Salt Merchant, is this something like what you had in mind?