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The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

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Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#11

Post by formalsystem »

cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

I believe Viking chess is the first recorded example of an asymmetrical game.

In more modern times, many RTS games are asymmetrical: think SC2, Dota etc..

If you're thinking about board games, in particular, there's games like Terra Mystica or most miniature games that are designed with a vast number of factions that have differing goals.

Asymmetrical games are in fact hugely popular because they let people roleplay strategies that they may think are more fun

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#12

Post by formalsystem »

mrec wrote: post #8
DrHuman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually wrote a toy app recently following the Fetlar rules as a React exercise: https://htafl.herokuapp.com/ Not sure how it renders across machines but it looks ok on my Mac.

Yeah, I did the same (VanillaJS) a couple of years back, and started thinking about implementing a computer opponent, but it's really not clear what the evaluation function should be.

You need only codify the victory and loss conditions to build an AI using standard Reinforcement learning algorithms. Feel free to message me if you want more detail on how this would work. We should be able to hammer something out in less than a day.

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#13

Post by harlanlewis »

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #7
cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Steve Jackson Games first title was _Ogre_, a tactics game that pit an entire army against a single super unit. Mr. Jack is another reasonably popular modern one. The asymmetric tag on Board Game Geek is probably a good place to start. https://boardgamegeek.com/tag/asymmetric/page/1

Love board game geek. A little buried on that page is a link to ranked list of asymmetric games: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/82677/asymmetric-games

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#14

Post by hollerith »

cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Starcraft (provided the players aren't both playing the same species).

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#15

Post by tialaramex »

cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Many modern games are asymmetrical to some extent, although this does make "balancing" the game (often an important QA element of good games) more difficult.

Most modern territory control games will be somewhat asymmetrical because the territory isn't just abstract squares, hexes or whatever. For example in "London" players control London boroughs, and so this influences the play slightly. That would be at the very mildest end of the spectrum.

On the other end you have things like Star Wars Imperial Assault, where one person is playing the Empire while all other players control Rebels, their objectives are obviously very different (Imperial players generally seek to incapacitate the players or stall them until overwhelming forces become available, Rebels usually want to act quickly and use the element of surprise).

You also have some very non-crunchy games like Zendo. In Zendo one person is a "master" who has chosen some secret rule for what gives configurations of game pieces the "Buddha nature", everybody else makes new configurations and uses a process of asking questions or making guesses to try to figure out what the rule is. Some simple play mechanics keep this structured, but it's not really a competitive game at all.

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#16

Post by LyndsySimon »

cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Tic-tac-toe comes to mind...

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#17

Post by a1369209993 »

cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Strictly speaking most modern (two-player) games are two-player asymmetrical, since one player has a first-mover advantage. Not what you meant of course, but worth considering; it's somewhat hard to make a game that's strictly symmetric.

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#18

Post by DrHuman »

mrec wrote: post #8
DrHuman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually wrote a toy app recently following the Fetlar rules as a React exercise: https://htafl.herokuapp.com/ Not sure how it renders across machines but it looks ok on my Mac.

Yeah, I did the same (VanillaJS) a couple of years back, and started thinking about implementing a computer opponent, but it's really not clear what the evaluation function should be.

Agreed. The only thing I could think to do would be look for pieces to capture in any given turn, but that would never get it to an end game condition. It's beyond my current capabilities to make a proper computer opponent, but it would be a good exercise.

Re: The Board Game at the Heart of Viking Culture

#19

Post by PhasmaFelis »

hollerith wrote: post #14
cjslep wrote: post #4

How many modern games are two-player asymmetrical? I only know of Android: Netrunner. I hope we can continue learning more concrete rules for the ancient version of this game. It would be nice to have its history understood like chess'.

Starcraft (provided the players aren't both playing the same species).

Although even then both players pretty much have similar tools, similar resources, and similar goals. ("Gather minerals and gas, build a base and an army, destroy the other player's base and army.") I can't offhand think of any videogames that are radically asymmetric (e.g. one guy is playing an RTS, the other is playing a shooter), though I'm sure there's something.
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