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CatspawDTP — Astral game rules (color)
Published: 2012-09-19 19:10:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 10157; Favourites: 210; Downloads: 1011
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The rules in full color for Sun and Moon—The Astral Game. The PDF file is set up for US letter size (8.5 inches by 11 inches), and is four pages long. It also can be printed from Adobe Acrobat or Reader as a “booklet” on a single sheet of tabloid paper (11 inches by 17 inches), then folded in half.(I apologize for the bizarre category, but Deviantart steadfastly ignores the existence of any game other than digital games.)
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Comments: 367
Yeah, I see now what you mean about moving forward then back. It should probably state at some point specifically that you can't do that.
Although the Earth can indeed get around pieces, and the pegasus can jump pieces, they are both still limited and can be blocked. Assuming that the piece is going to be sacrificed anyways, so it has no regards for its own survival. Basically they're going for a piece trade, and let's say you don't want to make that trade:
-A Pegasus is threatening your piece. If you place any piece on either side of the piece he's trying to get, you stop his attack in its tracks.
-An Earthy is threatening your piece. You only need 2 pieces to block off both routes, so you basically only need for there to be 1 piece already there for you to be able to swing in another piece and protect your VIP. Now, he might still take one of the pieces you're defending with, but it might be a piece you're more willing to get rid of in a trade.
-A Unicorn by my proposal is threatening the piece. Either the piece being threatened, or another piece can move up to be adjacent to the Unicorn along that arc, halting that attack.
-A Teleporting Unicorn however, cannot be stopped unless it is captured before the attack. So in a sense, it is actually better at getting around pieces than the Pegasus and Earth pony, and I feel like that's just wrong. Not to mention that it removes the Earth Soldier's unique ability of being able to end their turn on a different arc.
Not to mention from the narrative side, the Pegasus has Wingpower, and the Earth Pony has Legpower, while the unicorn has their magic. The other 2 races are much more physical and it makes since that they have ways to get around pieces. Meanwhile the unicorn is the squishy wizard that makes up for it with its spells. I might've mentioned already at some point how it's kind of like 3 tiers of maneuverability. The Pegasus has the greatest since it can fly straight over pieces and even continue on for its full movement, which is also the longest range. The Earth Pony changes arcs during its movement, but it still has a relatively short range, and it can't even move 2 spaces on the same arc; not to mention that an Earth pony that moves around a piece can still be vulnerable to that piece. And finally the Unicorn is limited to just 2 spaces on the same arc, which can be blocked fairly easily since they're the only soldier that doesn't threaten adjacent stars, which makes since as they're the weakest physically.
Also, in terms of narrative range, the unicorn piece still has to move up to its target to attack, so even though it has the farthest threat possibility, it still has to run up to the enemy in order to attack them, so they could easily still be using a very short range spell. It's just that they can still attack slightly farther than they can reach. Basically they're making up for their lack of strength and/or maneuverability with their attack range.
Also, while there are similarities to the Teleport Unicorn and the Knight (Other than the horse part) there are key differences, mostly with context. For one, the Knight is the only piece in chess that can jump, and you only get 2 of them. Also, their ability is fairly limited compared to the other pieces. In a best case scenario, a knight can go to 8 spaces, a bishop can go 13, and a rook can go 14. Not to mention that each of the pieces has their own role and abilities. It's not like there's a Knight and a Checkers piece. The only one that takes parts from other pieces is the Queen, and you only get 1 of those anyways. Also, if you look at it, a knight can only move to spaces that the other pieces can't get to, so the knight, bishop, and rook all have completely different movement methods. The teleporting unicorn takes a fair amount from the Earth Pony's Unique movement of changing arcs, and the Pegasus's minimum of 2 stars along an arc.
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The Earth Pony like ability of ending on a separate arc is only necessarily an issue if we take the Unicon's current movement and range, and just replace the snipe ability with the teleport one. While this is a possibility, I don't think the moveset is set in stone with this ability. I would have no problem if it were prevented from turning corners, and were limited to for instance,one or two spaces along an arc. Perhaps, even the avoid obstacles part could be removed, so that it would just land on a piece if it were one or two spaces away along an arc (this seems like it might be limiting it too much though, and would take away any uniqueness about the piece) I had an inkling I just posted to the rules page about a unicorn rather than capturing, it might flip a piece such as from Sun to Moon, that might bring back something unique to the piece if that were the case.
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I think that the loyality control for the unicorns might be better suited for a varient game like the element piece and the bughouse games he's already mentioned adding to an extended handbook. As you mentioned, it wouldn't really work for the teleporting rules, but it might make an interesting varient where unicorns are given their sniping abilities back, or perhaps another form of attack, however whenever they take a piece instead of being captured, you flip it right there. It might be illegal to convert unicorns, (Which probably shouldn't happen anyways.
Also, so basically you've gone through and tweaked the unicorn rules such that now the final result is that it is able to move 1 or 2 spaces along an arc and capture the first piece is comes across by landing on it. It's simple, and simple isn't necessarily bad, in fact it's usually easy to balance. WIth this, Earth can attack unicorns by going around a corner, and Unicorns can attack Earths by going along an arc. However, this makes it impossible for pegasi and unicorns to attack each other without back-up. If you look at it, you see that with these rules, unicorns have the exact same capture range of the pegasus, the first 2 spaces along an arc.
Also, if its movement were limited to 1 space, then it would have a footprint of only 6, and I think we've pretty much settled on maintaining a total of 12 movement and 12 attacking spaces.
However, all I'm suggesting is to alter this slightly by making the unicorn take the piece on the space ahead of where it lands. Unicorns and Earths still attack each other in the same way, but now Pegasi and Unicorns work with each other. Unicorns can take a pegasus by getting on the third space away from the pegasus, which blocks its movement while being safe from attack. Then the Unicorn can move up two spaces and take the Pegasus. Meanwhile, Pegasi can stay out of the range of the Unicorn, then immediatle run in and stand next to it, where it is safe from attack. Then it can safely jump the unicorn.
Not to mention that Unicorns attacking the space ahead means that all soldiers have a unique form of capture and different threat and movement areas from the other soldiers. Plus there's the symmetry of capture thing that Catspaw seems to like. (Unicorns capture a space ahead of where they move, Earth capture on the space they move, and Pegasi capture behind where they move)
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Of course, reading what I wrote, such a rule could not possibly work with a teleport capture anyway, so it's a moot point on that front. I think it might be wise if the teleport capture were to be implemented to either limit the unicorn to moving one star unless capturing, or be allowed to capture only on arcs, one or two stars away. As right now I agree that it might be too powerful as the rules currently stand to implement it.
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Added to the list of current proposals!
I rather like this one, to tell the truth.
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If you go with this rule, perhaps you should restrict the unicorn capture to arcs, otherwise,it could basically be a more powerful Earth Pony. Then again, the two star only capture might limit it enough. I mentioned before, a possibility of moving only one space at a time unless capturing. That might limit it enough without removing the corner capture.
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I think TopGull was on to something when he realized that a good balancing factor was to make sure every piece had the same “footprint” on the board. My idea was to extend that concept from the capture—which is what he concentrated on in his analysis—to the move, trying to make sure every piece could land on twelve stars, whether moving or capturing.
The other element he realized was necessary was to make sure at least the captures overlapped but were different. The “doughnut” of the unicorn is about the only other possibility that keeps the “footprint” to a manageable size of twelve without getting overly baroque.
That may belabor the obvious, since you’re one of the half-dozen or so folks who’ve been most active in helping to develop the game to a finished form, but I wanted to make clear my thinking and how it’s informed by the contributions people have been making. TopGull certainly brought elements together, but he also borrowed from several people’s ideas, including yours if I recall correctly.
I hope and believe that the “doughnut” is sufficiently delimited to balance the unicorn. Certainly testing is needed to verify or refute it, of course.
Hmm. I’ve just realized what, in this scenario, the earth pony’s unique ability is: a one-star move. That may sound trivial, but it gives the earth pony a certain tactical flexibility unavailable to the others by allowing a player to fine-tune its position without overshooting.
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That is a very good point about the one star move, I hadn't realized that at first. I also understand what you're saying about the footprint, however, some pieces given the same footprint might be more powerful than others, due to specifics in how it moves and/or captures. With the sniping unicorn, it can never be to a players advantage to get within range of a unicorn piece. It cannot be lured into a trap, and it can't be blocked or guarded against. This is especially a problem when the unicorn in question is a princess.
(I'm unsure about blocking, can a piece adjacent to a unicorn be circumvented to hit the spot behind it, if another arc to it is unblocked? ex. Unicorn on S3C, enemy soldiers on S4B and S4A. Can S4A be attacked though S4B blocks one path leading to it?)
The idea of a teleport capture eliminates most problems, but might make it overpowered compared to earth ponies, whose unique turn could then be achieved by the unicorn (either only when capturing, or any movement, I'm not sure how you intend to make it(I'd choose the former)). I hadn't taken into account the advantage of the Earth Pony's one star move, which is more useful than I'd given it credit.
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You might catch up with the follow-up journal posting again; I’ve updated with a competing proposal for the unicorn from Blaze-Drag that looks interesting and might address at least some of your concerns.
Hmm. It took me a minute to parse your example, but yes, the hypothetical unicorn on S3C could attack S4A by taking the other path to circumvent S4B, just as an earth pony could do. To tell the truth, that makes me a bit more inclined to support Blaze-Drag’s unicorn concept.
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Now that I think on it however, it might start to bear too much resemblance to an Earth Pony now. Perhaps turning corners capturing should be disallowed. And/or perhaps reduce the Unicorn's movement range to 1 unless capturing, where it would jump to the occupied second space away (bypassing anything in between).
The current Unicorn's chief problem is that it can capture any piece in its range without ever fearing reprisal. Invaluable for defense, practically useless for offence. This change seems like it would balance it out more. Though it cannot be blocked from taking any piece, it can be guarded against, so that it would be taken the next turn. I think this would be a very good and beneficial change to the game.
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I think that the unicorn is starting to be okay in recent rule revisions, but yeah, it's biggest advantage right now is that you can't guard a piece against it. Like how a Rook could threaten a knight, but if there's a bishop guarding the knight, you wouldn't take it. Meanwhile a Unicorn can threaten and capture a piece without worrying about how many pieces are guarding it no matter what. Either it needs to move when it attacks, or it's threat area should be reduced.
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So many changes @.@ cool. Thanks for telling me :]
Aaanyway, the new move system is awesome.
Well... 3 new questions :v
1, does princess gets anything being a earth pony? guess not :/
2, can pegasi capture 2 unit at a time? as in flying over the first and second unit then lands on the third star. is it allowed?
3, can earth ponies move 2 stars without turning a corner? kinda confused there :v
And again, awesome game
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As far as I understand, it works like this:
1. Princesses can still capture like earth ponies by landing on the same star as the opposing soldier. It's not the biggest benefit, I guess, but it might still have its uses when you don't want to move the extra step the pegasus power would provide.
2. Pegasi can only jump over a single piece, not two. Thus, they can only ever capture a single piece.
3. As per the current rules, earth ponies must always turn a corner when moving two stars.
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o~ so now the princess gets to choose whether to use the unicorn or the earth pony way to capture a piece. Now that makes sense! :v Thanks.
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1. In the current rules the princess acts as any of the soldiers, but with one star less move. A suggestion’s been floated to tweak the rules, making the princess something of a hybrid partaking partially of each soldier’s abilities. For the details, check out my latest journal post.
2. No. Per the section “Movement of Playing Pieces” at the top of page two in the rules:
“A pegasus pony may move two or three stars along an arc. It may not ‘turn a corner’ or move one star. It may ‘fly over’ the first playing piece (friendly or opposing) it encounters on its path and end its move on an unoccupied star. It may not ‘fly over’ more than one playing piece in a turn.” (Emphasis added.)
3. No. Per the section “Movement of Playing Pieces” at the top of page two in the rules:
“An earth pony may move to the next star along an arc, or may move two stars, ‘turning a corner’ to follow another arc as it does. If it moves two stars, the first star must be unoccupied.” (Emphasis added; figure 3 illustrates this requirement to “turn a corner”.)
Thanks very much for the compliment!
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Now everything's crystal clear. THANKS!
BTW, strategy question,
How do you capture a unicorn using an earth pony without eclipsing the princess. it seems impossible to do so :/
other than that, 
You sure have an idea or 2 to brew up a awesome game. You sir deserve a muffin. [insert muffin picture]
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I’m not sure exactly what you mean by your question. An earth pony can threaten a unicorn by moving one star away from it, and should be able to threaten a princess in the same manner. There are discussion under way about how best to tweak the princess for game balance.
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I think I understand the question, When using the princess as an Earth Pony, i.e. moving with that move set, it seems impossible to capture a threatening unicorn (or maybe that it is impossible to move into position to threaten it without putting oneself in eclipse, both of which seem false to me) without being threatened by that unicorn.
Unless the hybrid rule has become official, currently the princess may choose what race to act as for any particular turn. Meaning one would never be forced to move her like an Earth Pony. Since Earth Princess can only move 1 star at a time, it could not get past a unicorn's range, however, the Pegasus princess could, with her two star move. Then she could capture it on the next turn using Earth Pony capture, or pegasus flyover, if available.
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It’s looking more and more like I simply should update the rules, even if they aren’t completely finalized, using Blaze-Drag’s suggestions for the unicorn and princess.
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Well, i noticed that earth ponies can't capture unicorns without entering into unicorns' capturing range and capture the unicorn th next turn. is there something i missed @.@
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From 3 stars away, Earth ponies can move to one star away, then capture next turn. Princesses can move two as a pegasus, creating the same effect.
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Under the current rules, an earth pony threatens a unicorn by standing on a star next to it. The unicorn can’t capture the earth pony because its capture zone is exactly two stars away, and the earth pony is one star away.
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Perfect! thanks! :V
my brain was somewhat... confused back there...
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No worries! What with all the changes and development, that’s not surprising. There may be more changes in the offing, but I’m hoping everything is close to solution.
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Informative speech: successful.
Playtesting: delayed.
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Oh, thank you for updating me! I’ve been biting my fingernails hoping it didn’t flop horribly on you.
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Okay, I see the rules have been revised again (you might want to use version numbers by now, if just to ensure that we are all discussing the same rule set). But just as a heads up: the rule summary wasn't updated to reflect the changes made to the princesses.
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Doh! You’re right; I’ll have to update the summary rules to reflect that change to the princess (and the pegasus, drat it). Rather than a version number, though, I may simply date the rulebook for convenience.
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Another thought, what if the princess could not move on the firmament? What if she were restricted to the celestial bodies, and the twilight line (including circle F)? This might make sense story wise, if the princesses were to fly around observing the battle, without much direct intervention. They would still be vulnerable to soldiers' attacks though. Perhaps this would even allow you to unbind a princess' movement, allowing her to move as far as she wants on the twilight line, or jumping to celestial bodies, when not blocked by an obstacle. (though if you were to do this, you would have to make it so a princess could not put another princess in eclipse)
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An alternative suggested by Ganondox is to limit the princess to her side of the firmament, which I think would make as much sense storytelling-wise—and you’re right, that’s an important consideration. I’m not convinced that area restriction is the answer, but it may be worth testing.
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As a way to limit the princess, what if she could only act as the soldier class that was last moved by the player? I.e. if I move an earth pony my first turn, then move my princess my second turn, the princess could only move as an earth pony during that turn. If my third turn I moved a pegasus, then fourth my princess, the fourth turn, the princess would have to move as a pegasus. This could be a potential solution for having the princess being all but impossible to banish.
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That’s an interesting notion, but it would require the players to keep track of what they last moved. While memory and planning certainly are valuable abilities for playing games like this, I think trying to remember what one last moved might be asking a bit much of players, especially casual ones.
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I don't know why this hasn't been mentioned before as far as I can tell, but can't we nerf the princess just by not letting her cross the Twilight line?
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Generally I’d prefer to limit the princess’s movement rather than limit any piece’s area of reach, but it’s worth testing.
You’re right, though—it’s surprising nobody thought of it already!
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It think it would it would be better for the princesses regions to be limited than their pattern. That way 1. The princesses have all the moves of all the races, but are still restricted. 2. The twilight lines and regions of the firmament have meaning again. 3. It's original to this game.
The alternative would be allowing princesses to capture the opposing satellite.
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I’ll throw the ideas up on the main posting for consideration. At this point I’m getting pretty frustrated.
The main potential trouble I see with capturing opposing bodies is that, in terms of board distance, they aren’t terribly far apart—just four points if going through the earth. I’m not sure how difficult it may be to set up a defense.
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Well we could see what happens. I guess there is going to be quite a few different alternate rules sets for this game floating around.
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It’s hard to avoid that with a work in progress, more’s the pity. In any event, I’ve added a date of publication to the rulebook to minimize potential difficulties.
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Ok, first configuration. The Unicorn Tribunal [link]
It covers most of its blind spots and can retaliate after a capture by earth pony. It is most vulnerable to pegasi, which can capture on the way to the center and on the way out. A variant with an earth pony bodyguard in the middle can block pegasus captures but has to move in order to cover the stars in between the unicorns. A pegasus bodyguard doesn't provide any notable advantage.
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Very cool. This is an excellent example of the sorts of strategies and tactics that could emerge in the game!
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I'm pretty sure the Princess needs to be nerfed in some way, shape, or form. Multiple people seem to be having problems actually banishing the enemy.
There is an inherent problem with the Princess pony portraying the pair of the King and the Queen at the same time. In chess, you have to protect the king as much as possible, precisely because he's so weak in terms of movement and attacking. How many times have you ever seen the queen get checkmated in chess? As in, not just getting captured or threatened, but getting into a situation where the queen can't possibly move somewhere that is safe, while also being threatened. I've seen it happen once, and the guy had a significant piece advantage over me anyways. Most every other time the Queen is just taken through tricks like forks and pins, or was given on purpose. But in this game, the Princess is essentially the Queen, but you're trying to protect it, so as opposed to being your strongest soldier, it's now a king that's really good at running away. I'm not sure what to suggest to make it easier to capture, but I think something needs to be done. I mean, I understand that the Alicorn should be the most powerful piece in the context of the show, but like the unicorns it needs to be balanced for the sake of the game. While all the other pieces now have built in weaknesses and strengths in regards to each other, the Princess has the powers of all the pieces, therefore there isn't really a weakness to take advantage of. See the King in Chess, it can only move 1 space at a time, so there's plenty of things to take advantage of, meanwhile the queen can move as far as it wants, as if it's either a rook or bishop, so you can hardly ever trap it. Another thing would be that it's almost impossible to checkmate a queen, and by extension a princess, if you are running low on pieces. Like, if you have only around 3 pieces left, I'm pretty sure it's impossible, barring significant blunders.
Like I said though, I'm not actually sure how to fix this. The alicorn should still be powerful, but it needs something to make it able to be captured more easily, to make it more vulnerable to attacks. Although your current proposals about this are interesting. I actually like the one where your alicorn loses the abilities of pieces you've completely lost, as it not only de-powers the alicorn a bit, but it also gives you various motives and goals to go for during the rest of the game. For instance you might try to go after the enemy's Pegasi from the beginning to lower the movement range of their Princess, or their unicorns to make it so that their princess can no longer snipe. Although I feel that this would also require you to implement the proposal that when you capture all their soldiers, you win, as their alicorn would no longer have any power to draw from. Unless you make it so that they can still move 1 space, but even then at that point, it should be trivial to win
The 4th proposal would probably be simpler though, by restricting the movement by 1, I'd imagine that it would become much easier to pin down the princess. I might try playing with this. I also like the idea of making the Pegasus have to move at least 2 stars, but I haven't actually tried it yet, I just like it from a conceptual standpoint.
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You compare the princess to the queen in chess, but there is one difference: the princess loses all of her offensive abilities as long as she is endangered (effectively completely removing her unicorn abilities, at the very least), while the queen does not. This does nothing to change the princess's movement abilities, sure, but it does give soldiers an edge when they try banishing her. Or at least I thought so.
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To be fair to Blaze-Drag, that rule may not have been posted at the time of writing the comment, which I suppose adds point to your suggestion of version control on the rulebook.
I’m hoping the combination of restricting the princess’s movement by a star and limiting her capture will do the trick, but it probably wants testing to be sure.
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That is true, I don't believe I had seen that rule when I wrote that, however the movement abilities are still in a way the most important part. After all, when you're attacking a piece, one usually backs it up to make simply capturing it pointless anyways (the main exception being knights, but the reason is that the king and queen can't get to them in the first place) So the main difference is still that the King is really slow, while the Queen is really fast, but the king is what you're focusing on more, so that's why the Queen tends to die first. However, if you played chess without a king and just used the Queen to fill both roles, then it'd probably be a long game, as you'd be not only doing more to protect her, but she'd be able to handle herself pretty well too in sticky situations. For instance, you can capture a King with most 2 or 3 piece combinations without too much trouble, meanwhile a queen would be very difficult to pin down with pretty much any 3 or 4 piece combo, even assuming no captures, the game would simply never end. You would need to have an overwhelming force in order to actually win, which means that if the game ever gets into the late end-game where both players are down to just a few pieces left, then you might as well declare stalemate.
Now, limiting the princess' movement by a degree helps, and making her not be able to attack when placed in check helps too, but I just worry that it might not be enough to make capturing easy enough to actually end the game without requiring one of the players to be at a significant piece disadvantage.
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It’ll need testing. I’m hoping the combination will do the trick—make catching the princess easier without making it too easy—but we’ll see.
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However, with the queen being combined with the king to make the princess it makes it so the queen can't be made vulnerable by checking the king and forcing a move to uncheck the king.
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That certainly is true, and removes a dynamic that’s present in chess. What I hope is that enough other dynamics, ideally ones unique to this game, have been added to make up the difference.
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I’ve had essentially the same conversation here, pretty much to a T, about the king-queen problem. Conceptually I’m much happier with limiting the movement (of both pegasus and princess) without changing the capture, in part because it strikes me as cleaner and simpler and in part because the latter doesn’t interfere with the “drop” rule.
If you get a chance to test those changes, please do! I’d like to get more data.
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Okay. I played a very long game against my brother. We both agreed that the new ruleset is intriguing and challenging. However, we do have two concerns: Earth Ponies move very slowly in the center of the battlefield, and it is very hard to actually banish a princess. In the endgame he had 3 unicorns left, and I had no soldiers, but it was still nearly impossible for him to hunt me down. In the end, I just forfeited because I was getting tired of dodging enemies, and there was no way I could get a win anyway.
For both problems we thought of a solution. How about allowing an earth pony to move -but not capture- 2 stars in the same arc? That way, you can still threaten them with pegasi and unicorns, and restore a bit of their mobility and speed at the same time. It can get really frustrating if you cannot move more than 1 star if you don't want to turn a corner.
For the second problem: The princess can escape very easily because she harnesses the power of all three races. The rule that you cannot capture with a princess if you are eclipsed helps a lot, but she is still far too elusive.
A solution would be to impede her movement abilities, but that would result in a loss of the "alicorn feel". An alternative would be that a princess may only act like any race if you have at least one of that race in the battlefield. For example: if you lose the last of your unicorns, your princess can only move and capture like a pegasus or an earth pony would.
In addition, you could rule that if you have no soldiers left, you are automatically banished. After all, a princess cannot win on her own.
Thanks for taking time to read my review, I hope you can use this information to perfect your game.
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It’s interesting that you say earth ponies move slowly near the board’s center, since there is the same number of stars on every sphere (ring around the board)—twelve. In theory there shouldn’t be any difference. Can you explain how this phenomenon works? If it’s genuine, it needs to be addressed in some fashion, but I confess I’m not sure how.
Changing the earth-pony move, but not capture, could be interesting, but I’d like some testing data to be accumulated on it. If I did that I’d want to allow the unicorn to be able to move in the same fashion.
What makes it an intriguing change is that it would allow the earth pony (and, by extension, the unicorn) a “movement zone” of eighteen rather than twelve stars—the same as a pegasus, but shorter-ranged. That’s why I’m inclined to support it if testing validates it.
I’d have to think about a princess losing an ability with loss of a soldier-type; it doesn’t strike me as positively—but again I’d want to see how well it worked.
Loss of a game with the loss of all material is a bit more of a possibility. Apparently that was a rule in chess up until roughly the end of the Middle Ages, when it gradually faded away as players began to regard it as an inelegant victory. As with all proposals, testing to validate is good.
I’ll add your proposals to the main body of the post for feedback from other commenters!
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