Game Rules

Game Rules

This document is meant to provide human-readable descriptions for the various games

King of the Hill (Alpha)

This game, developed by Jessica Ruprecht, is meant to be a 2-player asset defense game with board layout and piece movement inspired by orbital mechanics

Game Setup:

• Each team begins with 1 asset (green or blue X), 10 non-mission pieces (green or blue numbers 0-9), and a mission marker (green or blue arrow).
• The pieces start in the outermost ring and blue and green assets must be 180 degrees opposite from one another. Non-mission pieces are initially confined to the outermost ring in placed in adjacent squares centered on the asset in the following quantity of non-mission pieces in each square: 1 | 3 | 2 + asset | 3 | 1
• The mission maker (arrow) is placed outside of the outermost ring such that it points to the square that contains the asset.
  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: The mission marker is placed in the penultimate ring instead of the outermost ring so that there is one ring available to move retrograde relative to the marker during drift
• PROPOSED AMENDMENT: game should be played in simultaneous turn phases where each team plans their actions without knowledge of the opponent's concurrent actions. The actions are then rolled out simultaneously with "resolution rulles" in place to account for plans that are no longer possible due to the opponents actions. To simplify, the turns are broken into "phases", one phase for piece movement (i.e. moving to new orbital locations), another phase for engagements (i.e. attacks and defensive actions), and finally a drift phase where all piece move on the board counter clockwise. This paradigm is modeled after the online game of Risk.

Scoring:

• Points are earned when the asset piece is on mission. To be on mission in any given turn, the asset must be in the square indicated by the mission marker.
• The mission marker advances one square counter clockwise on each turn.
• The asset earns one point for each turn in which it remains in the square indicated by the mission marker.
  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: The mission marker has a higher point value and sectors adjacent to the mission marker award lower, non-zero points. Perhaps 3-to-1 ratio? In this way there is still interesting gameplay when moving you asset token off the mission marker to avoid attacks
• The asset may abandon the mission (by moving into an inner ring or another square), but no points are earned for turns in which the asset is off-mission.
• While the asset is off-mission the mission marker must still be advanced one square on each turn.
• The game ends when one team’s asset piece runs out of fuel points or is destroyed. Any remaining fuel points possessed by the other team’s asset (i.e. fuel “in the tank”) can be converted to score points in the last turn of the game.
• A player earns 10 points for destroying the opposing player’s asset
  • NOTE: not implementing this at the moment since the fuel-to-points conversion performs a very similar function (i.e. by destroying the other player's seeker earlier in the game, you get a bonus for the fuel you have left). Not sure that they are equivalent, though, in terms of how they might effect strategy

Movement Rules:

• Each piece starts the game with 100 fuel points
• On each turn, every piece drifts one square counter-clockwise, which costs one fuel point. This move must be taken at the end of the player’s turn.
• In addition to moving one square counter-clockwise, the piece may make one additional move (either radially or forwards or backwards within the radius). All such moves must be made before the final counter-clockwise drift.
• Changing position radially costs 10 fuel points (in either direction). When moving outwards in radius the piece must move into the right-most square accessible from their current radial position
• Pieces can also move an extra square forward or remain in their same square (at the same radial distance) for a total cost of 2 fuel points per turn (1 point to move the extra square + 1 point for counter-clockwise drift)
  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: The fuel cost of azimuthal movment seems much too small given orbital dynamics. If anything, the movement fuel costs should be flipped with radial motion being low-cost (e.g. 1 fuel point) and azimuthal motion should be high-cost (e.g. 10 fuel points) since things like "staying in place" are not really possible in real orbital mechanics. I think this will be more realistic as well as more interesting of a game; e.g. the mission piece moving out of radius at low cost to avoid an attack then puts it out of sync with it's target "hill". Alternatively, we could have azimuthal motion fuel cost be a function of the current radius, but that might be a unnecessary level of realism.

Engagement Rules:

• In each turn the player may initiate one attack per piece. This attack may take place after the piece’s first move, but must occur before the piece drifts counter-clockwise at the end of the player’s turn.

• All pieces can take out other pieces by collision. A collision can be initiated only after entering the square in which the targeted piece is present.

  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: remove this line from the rules, it contradicts later rules on collision attacks from adjacent sectors

• A successful collision removes both pieces from the game board.

• If the opposition has multiple pieces in the same square, the opponent can choose to utilize one of the other pieces in the square to intercept the attack.

  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: Intercept manuevers (i.e. "guard") should have a probability of success.
  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: To align with out-of-sector collision attacks, I think intercepts (i.e. guard defenses) should be able to be initiated from adjacent sectors; or both should be dis-allowed.

• Non-mission pieces each have a kinetic weapon which may be fired exactly once in addition to their collision attack. Assets have no kinetic weapons and can attack only by collision.

  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: shooting attacks cost fuel for "precision targeting" maneuver

• A kinetic weapon attack may be initiated from an adjacent square (entering the enemy square is not required as it is for a collision).

• As with the collision attack, if the opponent has multiple pieces in the square then these pieces may be used to intercept the attack.

• The probability of success of any kind of attack can be increased by 10% for an additional 10 fuel points.

  • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: remove this rule. it makes attacks nearly 100% effective, making it less interesting, and it will expand the action space

• Attack from within the same radius (NOTE: intepreted as "sector" not "radius"):

  • Initiating a collision from the same radius requires that the piece have at least 20 fuel points remaining and succeeds with 85% probability.
  • An unsuccessful collision does not remove any pieces from the board, but costs the attacker 20 fuel points. In the event of an unsuccessful collision, if the defending team had multiple pieces in the square and chose to use one to intercept, the piece that was used to intercept loses 10 fuel points.
  • A successful kinetic weapons attack from the same radius succeeds with 70% probability and removes only the enemy piece from the board.
  • An unsuccessful weapons attack removes the attacking piece’s ability to fire any future kinetic weapons and costs any intercepting piece 10 fuel points if the opponent chose to attempt to intercept the attack with a different piece.

• Attack from an adjacent radius (NOTE: intepreted as "sector" not "radius"):

  • adjacent sectors are defined as those that share an edge, not just a corner
  • Initiating a collision from an adjacent square at a different radius requires that the piece have at least 30 fuel points remaining (10 to change radial position to move into the square of the targeted piece, and 20 to perform the collision maneuver) and succeeds with 75% probability.
    • PROPOSED AMENDMENT: implement one of these:
      • remove the ability to collision attack (and guard) from adjacent sectors. It doesn't seem as realistic and makes the game more complicated. I think it is more interesting to have only collision attacks within a sector.
      • allow adjacent sector collision attacks and guard defenses, but if one of the out-of-sector pieces is not destroyed during the engagement (e.g. failed attack), then it's sector should be updated to the sector of the piece it was attempting to attack or defend. This means that the engagement phase can produce board movements
  • An unsuccessful collision does not remove any pieces from the board, but costs the attacker 30 fuel points. In the event of an unsuccessful collision, if the defending team had multiple pieces in the square and chose to use one to intercept, the piece that was used to intercept is docked 10 fuel points.
  • A successful weapons attack from an adjacent square at a different radius succeeds with 50% probability and removes only the enemy piece from the board.
  • An unsuccessful weapons attack removes the attacking piece’s ability to fire any future kinetic weapons and costs any intercepting piece 10 fuel points if the opponent chose to attempt to intercept the attack with a different piece.

Variants

• Debris Fields: Any sector in which a piece was destroyed becomes a debris field. Entering a debris field sector introduces the risk of spontaneous satellite failure for every timestep the piece is present in the debris field (perhaps evaluated during the drift phase). Perhaps debris fields should "bleed" into adjacent sectors with lower probability of spontaneous failures.