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[PTTG??]

Forum games aside, we know little about Armokian Tacticus. I wanted to share my thoughts on the game and see what the forumites think.

First the basic ideals of the game:

-Based on a mixed of real-world games, particularly Chess and Go, so that it  can be familiar and simple.
-Has multiple opportunities for dwarves to decorate and craft fine pieces, but does not require fine craftsmanship to make.
-Has elements of the overall gameworld integrated, and may include callbacks to the history of DF.
-Potentially, can have mutable elements that allow for randomization.

Working with those, this is what I've come up with:

-Pieces: Each one has a speed, attack, and defense, and some ability.
 Pick: 2,1,1; crosses borders
 Spear: 1,1,1; fast and 2 for one.
 Bow: 2,1,1; attacks distant units and takes damage last.
 Sword: 2,2,2; decent unit all-around for countering others.
 Shield: 3,1,3; very strong defender, other units cannot move past.
 Hammer: 3,3,3; most powerful combattant, don't know special ability.
 Septer:2,3,2; loss loses the game? May not include as too chess-like.

Board:
                WALL     RIVER
North    _____|______|_____
Centr    _____|______|_____
South           |          |       

Units can only cross or fire across the wall or river allong the center row.

Each section is composed of five by five grid of lines; units stand at the vertices.

Moving:
During his or her turn, a player may make 5 moves. A unit's move value stands for the number of moves it takes to move one space, or attack a piece. After attacking, that unit must make no more moves. Moves may be split amongst units.

A Bow, for instance, may move one space and fire, may move two spaces, or may stand and attack once.
A player could instead choose to move a Spear five spaces, may move it three spaces and attack, or attack with a Bow, then move the Spear one space and attack.

When a unit attacks annother, they deal their attack value to each other; once a turn is complete, all damage that had been dealt disapears.

Note that three Spears that are all adjacent to a Hammer can take it, as they can each attack for one move each.

This is all beta. I'd like to get more Go like elements in there (currently only multi-piece caputures and Vertex Placement are in, I'd like something like flanking or perhaps having pieces arrive over the game) Also, Picks could be removed or given some ability like making new paths or allowing movement over the north or south rows of the River and Wall.

I do feel that a dwarf-made set for this would look great, with the cris-crossing grids on the surface and stone-carved Spears and Swords and Bows of opposing colors facing off from across the river.

[Sowelu]

Hmmm.  I don't know if dwarves ought to have any kind of numerical stuff in their games.  I mean I know it's simple, but making it less number-based would be an improvement in my mind.

[woose1]

I think I could make this in Python.
(Or maybe not)

[PTTG??]

Hmmm.  I don't know if dwarves ought to have any kind of numerical stuff in their games.  I mean I know it's simple, but making it less number-based would be an improvement in my mind.

Well, it's not so much numerical as "high, middle, and low". I see what you mean, though, and it would be great to figure out a way to have fewer numbers floating around. Ideally, it would have no numbers other than those implicit in the board or constants.

But really, there's only two places using numbers, and both are only short-term. First is when you declare moves, and then you are moving two or three units and that's it. Combat is also really simple, as you just add twos or threes... most of the time, the combat is going to be Spears v Spears, and they both get killed right away- I think.

What we really need is a good way to put units on the board and figure out who starts with what. Ideally, there would be a way to have unequal sides be balanced (one side gets three champions, the other get 30 Spears or something.)

Also, should there be Nobles or will they fight until one side is destroyed?

That would be Awesome woose1, especially if we could change the rules... Have you talked to Tahin?

EDIT: I've been thinking- I'm going to completely mix this up... maybe attacks happen at the end of turn, and all adjacent units attack... hmm...

Also, I want to make diagonal lines too.

[Lemnx]

It looks like a good start with the basic outline of the board and the game mechanics. Diversification of unit roles and other various tactical elements are still required, though.

Sadly I have no ideas.

[Sowelu]

If you want to make this a game for DF characters to play, there's a few important considerations.

- You want the move space to be small.  Each turn should have a very limited number of moves.  Chess has a moderate amount.  Go has a huge space, which is one contributing factor to computers sucking at it.  Othello has a TINY move space, and the some of the worst computers regularly beat some of the rest humans.  (I won an Othello AI tournament a while back...)  This ties in with limited lookahead.  In Othello, computers look way ahead because they -can-, but humans can't very easily because it's just so confusing!  In Go, humans can look very far ahead because they get the big picture, but computers aren't good at it.  Aim for a middle ground.

- You want recognizable patterns.  Othello has some, but not many; it's easy to make a heuristic that says "I want corners and edges" and you can kind of say "I want few pieces in early game", but there's not much else.  Chess or Checkers you can look at a board state and get a much more sane idea of what's going on.  Go, heck, it's hard for many humans!

If you ever want the AI to have a chance at beating a fairly good human, you need limited board state, and that partially restricts the whole 'moving 5 pieces in a turn' thing!  It's a cool idea, just be aware that chess normally has around 40? potential moves from any state, but ten spearmen give you...geez...I don't even want to know.  I'm going to guess something around a thousand, but that might be a power of ten too low.  A vaguely human-readable board (ie NOT OTHELLO) is nice for a lot of reasons, and it can help your AI act more alive.  Lack of a sane board leads to stupid things like "Hey, the computer only looks four moves ahead, and all I have to do is park a shield guy HERE and walk him back and forth, and I'm guaranteed a win because the computer never notices until it's too late".

Anyway, once you have a game that is possible for an AI to play at all:

- You want interesting strategies.  One objection I have to heavy numbers-based games is that strategies get less interesting:  Seek numerical superiority and you win.  Controlling board positions is much more interesting in a game.  If you give options for interesting strategies, well, it's very hard, but there's a chance to give individual people (or individual schools of gaming) a shot at individualized strategies.


If the computer can only look a couple moves ahead, it'll be too weak against a good opponent.  If gameplay depends on exhaustive searches of the board space, it'll be too strong against a good opponent.  Good moves should be obvious to a skilled player, or at least a certain set of them.  Otherwise you wind up with Othello where the only way to win is to look twenty moves ahead and say "I found a way I can force a victory!"  Nobody likes playing against that (but they are fun to write).

[bjlong]

Hmm.

OK, here's my basic idea of some dwarven "lessons" that parents would try to teach the children: Everyone's your brother; Fortifications mean safety.

So, then. Here are some ideas.

There could be a shield-man, yes, but he'd not be able to attack. Noone would be able to attack him, and he could only move say five spaces along any one cardinal direction. I don't know. I don't like it.

There could also be people who erect walls in one turn, as long as they didn't move. They could be takeable, the walls couldn't be taken. They'd move something like five spaces in any one of the eight straight line directions. They couldn't take a piece.

There could be people who tear down walls. They'd take a turn to take away a wall piece, as long as they didn't move. A wall would have two-three pieces. They would be takeable. They could move five spaces in any one of the eight straight line directions. They couldn't take a piece.

There should be people who actually fight. They'd be takeable--the rules for them would be the same as in chess. Movement could be eight spaces in any one of the eight straight line directions.

The game would be over if your opponent couldn't move, or you've eliminated all of your opponent's pieces.

I think that the wall-builders would be good... but they seem either too overpowered, or too underpowered. We'd still have to work out board size and piece distributions.

[PTTG??]

I like the idea of lessions being part of the design, bjlong, though remember that Tacticus is an international game and is played by humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, and the intelligent monsters (though the names and some of the rules may change).

Excellent point, Sowelu. I admit I didn't think to make the rules computer-playable. Perhaps there's a "Peasant's Tacticus" that is played on a smaller board with fewer pieces, while Grand Tacticus is played on large scales. If it becomes nessisary to determine the winner, AIs could just use skill checks when against each other and players would play on a Peasant's board in what is presumably an abstracted version of the whole game.

Then we have to ask, what if the illiterate PC just comes out of the jungle after being raised by wolves. How do you prevent the player from winning the Pointyclasps World Tacticus Tournement?

One way or the other, it would still be nice to have a playable set of Grand Tacticus Rules for RL playing.


A thought on capturing:
bjong gave me the idea that perhaps their is a rank of capturability; so Hammer can capture anything since it's on top, The sword can capture anything but the shield and Hammer, The Spear can only capture other spears and...

No, then spears are too useless.

Well, I think theres potential here.

[Strife26]

Spear have gone from useful, but too slow fast but weak. Funny.

Also: DO NOT GIVE SWORDS A PLUS TWO ON THE ATTACK!!

RAGE!!!

[PTTG??]

New rules:

Spears: 1, jumps
Bows: 1, wins ties
Swords: 2, defends points
Hammer: 4, one step only
Scepter: 1, king

Pieces stand on line intersections.

Each player takes a turn putting a piece into play in their side of the board.

After all pieces are in play, the movement phase begins. Each turn, a player may move any three units, and you may move a unit more than once. A piece may not "stand" on a point held by another piece, or a point that it has occupied this turn. The exceptions to this include: The "jump" of the Spear, which can step on an occupied point if it lands afterwords; The Hammer may only move once a turn; All pieces must stop when adjacent to an enemy Sword.

Combat:
At the end of each player's turn, units that are overpowered are destroyed. A unit is overpowered when the total of all adjacent enemy units is greater than its value (1 for the spear and bow, 2 for sword and scepter, and 4 for hammer).

Or something like that. So far, that's all I've been able to get to work.

[Taritus]

Seeing this entire thread sparked my imagination.  I personally perceived Tacticus to be a card game similar to M:TG.  I always used to make up new cards with one friend of mine, and we'd have fun playing our own card games.  So, I'm just going to throw something out there, and ask, would anyone be willing to play a game, completely made up, like Tacticus, but with real set rules and the like?  It'd probably move quite slowly, but it might work well.  If I get some people who like the idea I could start working on rules and card sets.

[Okenido]

Fool!

We all know that Tacticus's rules will be randomly generated!

[PTTG??]

You could use this: http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/download

Best tool I ever used- A co-worker of mine made a 1930's set. There where Attack Zeppelin Artifact Creatures and a Dust Bowl sorcery that tapped all plains at the beginning of each turn. Good times.

Anyway, While it seems a bit incongruous to me for opposing dwarven kings to be playing TTG (Tacticus the Gathering), I'd welcome input.

Okenido: You're right, of course. This is just the Plump Helmet of Tacticus rules; a default ruleset that can be mutated however the gameworld likes, and acts as a basis to see what can randomize.

[Vengeful Donut]

You may find this interesting:
http://www.chessvariants.com/

Potentially, vanilla tacticus could be one of the standard variants (like orthodox chess) and the random ones could mix and match special pieces, rules, starting positions, and board sizes.

[betamax]

I'm a little confused...
Is this something that already exists in DF, albeit only referred to and not actually played, or is it just that now that PTTG has made the idea, people want it in DF?