I played it a bit, too. It’s interesting, and it does need some strategy, that’s cool.
I’ll drop a numbered layout for easy reference when talking about strategy:
In the initial position (A), the cone gets in your way. Move it ASAP to G, so it gets in your opponent’s way too. It isn’t terribly useful to capture opponent pieces.
Accordingly the wall should be moved to E or F. It’s a bit better than the cone for captures, but ideally you should still capture your opponent pawns with your own (as this allows you to push them forward too).
When possible, hit the safe spaces (H, L, P). Not just for the safety of your piece, but because you’ll have an additional roll. H and L in special are useful to capture advanced opponent pawns.
At least this ruleset it’s typically better to advance multiple pieces at the same time than just one. That’s because this ruleset includes some Zugzwang-like rule (if you can move, then you must move), that sometimes forces you into disadvantageous moves (like retracting the cone from G to A, letting your opponent put their cone there, and now you got two pieces of junk in the middle of the way.)
The game of Ur uses three pyramids to decide your roll, while this one uses a four-sided stick. This has gameplay impact because the probability of each roll is different:
Roll
odds (Ur)
odds (Shahr-i Sokhta)
1
3/8
2/8
2
3/8
2/8
3
1/8
2/8
4
1/8
2/8
So don’t rely on your opponent not rolling a 4; they will. And accordingly, if you’re “stuck” with a pawn in the square P, and there’s no nearby opponent pawn, just move it out of the board ASAP.
Nice! It’s actually introducing suggested rules with a basic minimal strategy. I’m sure that, like the Royal Game of Ur, we will see different variations of the rules for this in the future. This will serve as a base. They also mentioned about it in their paper.
I played it a bit, too. It’s interesting, and it does need some strategy, that’s cool.
I’ll drop a numbered layout for easy reference when talking about strategy:
In the initial position (A), the cone gets in your way. Move it ASAP to G, so it gets in your opponent’s way too. It isn’t terribly useful to capture opponent pieces.
Accordingly the wall should be moved to E or F. It’s a bit better than the cone for captures, but ideally you should still capture your opponent pawns with your own (as this allows you to push them forward too).
When possible, hit the safe spaces (H, L, P). Not just for the safety of your piece, but because you’ll have an additional roll. H and L in special are useful to capture advanced opponent pawns.
At least this ruleset it’s typically better to advance multiple pieces at the same time than just one. That’s because this ruleset includes some Zugzwang-like rule (if you can move, then you must move), that sometimes forces you into disadvantageous moves (like retracting the cone from G to A, letting your opponent put their cone there, and now you got two pieces of junk in the middle of the way.)
The game of Ur uses three pyramids to decide your roll, while this one uses a four-sided stick. This has gameplay impact because the probability of each roll is different:
So don’t rely on your opponent not rolling a 4; they will. And accordingly, if you’re “stuck” with a pawn in the square P, and there’s no nearby opponent pawn, just move it out of the board ASAP.
Nice! It’s actually introducing suggested rules with a basic minimal strategy. I’m sure that, like the Royal Game of Ur, we will see different variations of the rules for this in the future. This will serve as a base. They also mentioned about it in their paper.