Board game: "Order"

[Incompetent]

This is a game I made some years ago (originally devised when I was about 16 I think). I'm fairly happy with it overall, but the rules aren't presented in a very friendly way, and there are some aspects that are still a mess (rule 9 especially ). Unfortunately, I never had much chance to playtest it as my friends were put off by the complexity of it, but I don't see how to simplify it much without killing the strategic depth of the game. Anyway, here it is in its current state. Maybe I'll try to polish it up if anyone thinks it's any good or wants to playtest it.

Code: Select all

Order

Requirements
This game was originally conceived using -
Pen and paper
Scrabble board (square grid), Scrabble tiles (counters of any sort, eg coins; distinctive and flat counters to indicate home squares)
Risk pieces (counters which look like they are 'pointing' in a particular direction, also some system of incidating rank)
However, it is possible to improvise (indications of what is actually necessary in brackets.)


Summary of rules


1. The object of the game is to capture home squares represented by letters. At the start one home square is owned by each player, and they are evenly distributed around the board, which is a 15x15 square grid.
2. Each player starts with four rank 1 pieces and one rank 2 piece. Rank is indicated by the type of piece used.
3. On the first round, all pieces must start on a home square belonging to their player; pieces must be given unambiguous orders that make sure that no two pieces finish on the same square; and F commands are not allowed.
4. Players do not take turns, individual pieces do. All writing is done secretly. At the start of every round players should write their orders in the following form:
® (x,y): AaBbCc.... z

R is the rank; (x,y) are the coordinates of the square (coordinates must be measured from a universal reference point); A, B and C are command types and a, b and c the corresponding magnitudes. Magnitudes can be omitted if they equal 1. z is called the priority and is equal to the sum of the magnitudes minus the bonus; the sum of the magnitudes is not to exceed three times the rank. The bonus is 0 for rank 1, 1 for rank 2-3, 2 for rank 4-7, 3 for rank 8-15 etc.
Pieces move in order of priority (smallest to largest), or in order of rank (highest to lowest) if priorities are equal. If rank and priority are both equal, and the pieces belong to the same player, then they move in the order they are written, unless the player has indicated otherwise on the sheet. If the pieces belong to different players, then the 'first' pieces for each player move simultaneously, then the second, etc as necessary.
5. The commands are as follows: D = delay; M = move forward; L and R = turn left or right; arrows = face this way (relative to reference); C = capture home square; F = (delayed) fire. C must stand alone, and F cannot be followed by other commands. Arrows have magnitude 0 but can only be used whilst in friendly home squares, C can only be used whilst in a hostile home square and always takes place last. With F the magnitude is the maximum range; the shot actually hits the first object in the firing line leading from the player.
6. After that come transformations in the form T(x,y)<arrow>. A player can make one transformation per round for every home square they own, and can target any square except another player’s home square.
7. Finally written offers of alliance and declarations of war are made.
8. Once everyone has finished these the writing phase is complete, and the orders are carried out in the order described in 3. Pieces may not move into or through occupied squares (squares containing barriers or other pieces), and may not fire past these squares, so the orders may need to be curtailed. If a piece is shot fully it is removed from play and replaced by a barrier.
9. With simultaneous action it is sometimes necessary to make virtual moves. Virtual pieces cannot cross each other’s paths, but more importantly they can virtually shoot real pieces. A piece which has been virtually shot is not killed, but is only entitled to a virtual turn for this round.
10. If a C command has clearly been given to a piece while it is in a hostile home square, and it has not been killed by the end of 8. and 9., the home square is captured. It now belongs to the captor from the next turn onwards (ie its original owner can still use its transformation in this round).
11. The transformations depend on the initial nature of the square. They can create or promote (by 1) a friendly piece, demote (to 1/2 original rank rounded up) or remove a hostile piece, or remove barriers. If more than one player transforms a square these cancel out, so nothing happens.
12. If two players have both offered to ally with each other, they become allies; however an ally’s ally need not be an ally. If a player declares war on another, they become hostile. These changes take effect from the beginning of the next round.
13. At the end of the game the winner is the player with the most home squares. If home squares are equal then players with a higher rank total prevail. If no winner can be decided the game is a tie.

Detailed Rules

Terminology
Rank: Infantry = 1, Cavalry = 2, Artillery = 3 and each face-down tile underneath adds 3
Reference: The angle at which the words on the board are the right way up. The reference angle is written as an up arrow.
Barrier: A face-down tile which obstructs movement and firing. Can only be affected by transformation.
Clear square: A square that contains neither player pieces nor barriers.
Occupied square: not a clear square; note that a home square is 'clear' unless it contains a piece.
Target square: The nearest occupied square to the firer of the squares that lie in range.

1. Each player chooses a distinct letter or set of letters, where there are at least as many of those letters available as there are players. Each player then places one of their letters on the board to line up with the reference. The players should agree on the positioning of letters; the letters should lie equally spaced around the edge of a circle around the centre square with radius = no of players +1.
These letters now indicate the home square of the respective players.

2. Each player chooses a different colour and collects four rank 1 pieces and one rank 2 piece in their colour. From here on they also use pens and paper as necessary. At any time each player should have an order sheet, which is used for nothing but writing their own orders; notes can be written on non-order sheets.

3. Certain rules apply for the first round of play only:
• All pieces must start on a home square belonging to their player.
• All pieces must be given a proper command sequence, including coordinates and the rank of the piece. The command sequences must also start with an arrow to indicate initial orientation.
• F commands are not allowed.
• A player's home squares are 'occupied' until all of their pieces have been moved.
• At most one piece may remain in each of the player's home squares at the end of the round.
• After commands, but before transformations, the following pieces will be removed from play: pieces for which there is no unambiguous command sequence, and all but the first to move of pieces which finish on the same square as each other (this is only possible in a home square.)

4. In each round players do not take turns, rather the pieces take turns according to their rank and the commands they have been given. All writing is kept secret until everyone has finished recording what they want to do that round.
Firstly commands are written for each piece thus, reading from left to right:
• The rank of the piece is written in a circle.
• The coordinates of the piece’s initial location are written (x,y): such that x is the column, numbered from 1 on the left to 15 on the right, and y is the row, numbered from 1 at the bottom to 15 at the top when viewed from the reference. This means the centre square is (8,8).
• The commands are written in the order they should be carried out, forming a command sequence. A command is represented by a letter or arrow (command type) followed by a positive whole number (magnitude). The number may be omitted if the magnitude is 1.
• The priority is calculated and written on the right. Priority = sum of magnitudes minus bonus. The sum of magnitudes should not be more than 3 times the rank. The bonus is log2(rank), rounded down, eg the bonus for a rank 3 piece is 1. 

The order of action is:
• Pieces with smaller priority numbers act before pieces with larger priority numbers.
• Amongst pieces with the same priority, pieces of higher rank act before pieces of lower rank.
• Amongst pieces with the same priority and rank, pieces belonging to the same player move in the order they are referred to on the sheet, unless the player has specified a different order by '1st', '2nd', 'Last' etc after the command sequences. Note that adding '1st' etc only has any effect among pieces of the same priority and rank, eg a '2nd' priority 2 piece will move before a '1st' priority 3 piece.
• Pieces with the same priority and rank owned by different players move in the following fashion: the first pieces for each player move simultaneously, then the second pieces, etc as necessary.

5. The commands are as follows:
D: This command’s sole function is to increase the priority of the move. It does not tell the piece to do anything, eg D2M is exactly the same as MD2, and both have a total magnitude of 3.
M: Piece to move one square in the direction it is facing per unit magnitude. Movement may only take place through clear squares.
L and R: Piece to rotate 90° to the left or right respectively per unit magnitude.
Arrows (must be orthogonal): Piece to face this direction relative to the reference. These commands have no magnitude, but may only be given when the piece is a home square owned by the player who also owns the piece. 
C: Piece to capture the home square. For a C command to be legitimate, the piece must start the round in a hostile home square and be given no other commands for that round. C commands have final priority, so C commands occur after all normal commands.
F: Piece to fire in the direction it is facing to a range equal to the magnitude. If a hostile piece is the target at the time of reading, a shot is fired immediately. Otherwise, the piece will fire if at any point later in the turn a hostile piece becomes the target (even if just passing through the line of fire). Only one shot can be fired in carrying out this order.
If a command sequence contains F it must terminate immediately after. Hence F2 is a valid sequence but F2M is not. F commands will never, either accidentally or intentionally, cause a friendly piece to be hit. Once a piece is fully shot, it is immediately removed from play, and replaced by a barrier if it is not in a home square.

6. After the commands for the various pieces come transformations. Players are allowed one transformation for every home square they control. Transformations are indicated by a T, followed by the coordinates of the square being transformed, followed by an arrow indicating orientation. Any square may be transformed except home squares controlled by a different player. The effects of transformations are discussed in 11.

7. Finally any offers of alliance are recorded as “Ally with <player name>”, and declarations of war as “War with <player name>”. Any number of these may be made provided they do not contradict each other. At the start of the game all players are considered hostile to each other. There is no need to state what is already the case.

Interpretation
The procedure for interpreting orders depends on the trustworthiness and experience of the players. If players are sufficiently reliable, it is possible for one player to ask who has moves of each priority, and for them to carry them out, carrying out virtual moves first if necessary. For less reliable players it may be necessary for them to hand their order sheet to a more experienced or trustworthy player for interpretation.

Command sequences, transformations and statements may be ignored if:
• They lack clear information which is necessary to make sense of the order, eg a creation with no arrow;
• They are addressed to an illegitimate location or player, eg a command sequence addressed to a barrier;
• They are in excess, eg a third transformation when the player is only entitled to two. In this case command sequences etc are crossed out so tht the order sheet has the correct number of them, with orders later on the sheet being crossed out before those earlier on the sheet.

Command sequences may also be curtailed. This involves interpreting every command after a certain point as a 'D' command (except in case *):
• If a command sequence is unintelligible at any point, it is curtailed to the first such point;
• If a command is illegitimate it is carried up to the point where it becomes illegitimate, and the sequence is curtailed thereafter;
* If a command sequence is too long (>3 times rank) then it is curtailed appropriately, and its priority is corrected to correspond to the sequence's new length.


8. After everyone has finished writing the command sequences are carried out in the order defined in 4. Modifications may be necessary, and should follow the general rules of interpretation.

9. There are two ways to deal with simultaneous turns. The most comprehensive are the simultaneity rules.
a) Each simultaneous command sequence is carried out virtually, ie the pieces themselves do not move, but virtual pieces are imagined to carry out the sequence, leaving a residual piece in the initial location. Virtual pieces behave like normal pieces with the following differences:
• Virtual pieces cannot cross paths. If they are ordered to, each command sequence is curtailed to the point just before the pieces enter each other’s planned path.
• Virtual pieces count as clear for the purposes of the F command, but residual count as full pieces and can be targeted.
• The target of a virtual F command is not hit fully, only virtually shot and should be turned on its side.
• If virtual pieces pass through the firing line of an active F command for which no shot has yet been fired, and the piece which passes nearest to the firer is hostile to the firer, that piece becomes virtually killed and proceeds no further than the stage at which it was hit. The F command is deactivated.
b) Virtual pieces now vanish, and residual pieces become full pieces. The simultaneously moving pieces that have not been virtually shot actually carry out their command sequence minus any curtailments imposed on the virtual pieces. A virtually killed piece translates to the real piece being destroyed and replaced by a barrier at the same stage as virtual death.
c) Pieces that have yet to act in this round, but were virtually shot, have their command sequence carried out virtually, but not actually, when it is their normal turn to move. This can lead to a succession of virtual shootings.
These rules can in theory have complex results but in practice the results of simultaneous movement are usually simple and predictable. If the simultaneous command sequences clearly do not affect each other there is no need to use this system. By far the most common formation where interaction occurs is where two pieces of equal rank move to attack each other in a similar way. The result of this is that both pieces are virtually shot, so neither actually moves or kills the other.

10. The final commands to be considered are C commands. If a piece has been clearly and legitimately given a C command, and it has not been killed or virtually shot during the round, it captures the home square it is in. The square’s letter is replaced by the letter of the captor, and the captor’s entitlement to transformations is increased by one from the next round onwards. After capture, the captor has full ownership and does not need to occupy the home square; it can only change ownership again by recapture.

11. Transformations have their effect after command sequences. If one player is attempting an absolute majority of legitimate transformations on a particular square, then the number of transformations carried out is the number of of legitimate transformations on his order sheet minus the total number of other legitimate transformations; otherwise no transformations occur. Thus if on square (10,8) player A makes 3 transformations, player B makes 1 and player C makes 1, player 1 gets 3 - (1+1) = 1 transformation, but if player A had only made 2 then nothing would have happened, as there was no absolute majority. Alliances are irrelevant for this calculation. Note that uncontested transformations will always occur provided they are legitimate.

If a transformation is effected, the result depends on the initial nature of the square given by the coordinates:
Creation: If the square is clear, a new rank 1 piece is created on that square for the player, with the stated orientation.
Promotion: If the square contains a friendly piece its rank is increased by 1. Its ownership and orientation are not affected.
Clearing: If the square is occupied by a barrier the barrier is removed.
Demotion: If the square contains a hostile piece of rank 2 or more, its rank is reduced by half. The result is rounded up, so rank 8 is demoted to rank 4 but rank 3 is demoted to rank 2.
Destruction: If the square contains a hostile piece of rank 1, the piece is removed. Note that this method of killing pieces leaves no barriers behind.

12. Last of all, statements are considered. There are only two statements: Alliance and War. Alliance requires mutual support, War does not:
• If two players are hostile and both offer alliances to each other, they are considered friendly to each other from the beginning of the next round onwards. However an ally of an ally is not automatically friendly, nor is an ally of an enemy necessarily hostile.
• If two players are friendly and one declares war on the other, they are considered hostile to each other from the beginning of the next round onwards.
Apart from this friendly/hostile status does not change between rounds. Friendly/hostile status never changes during a round.

13. A certain round could be declared the last round provided the players consent. At the end of such a last round, the player who owns the most home squares is the winner. If two or more players each own the same number of home squares, the sum of the ranks of the pieces belonging to each of these players is considered, with a higher total beating a lower total, and equal totals indicating a tie.