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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
You might check out my latest journal posting, where I talk about things like that!
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Well, a possible solution would be to remove the range limit on the pegasi while retaining jump capture, change the unicorns to have an attack of "move, then take any piece within 2 spaces on an arc", and changing the earth pony move/attack to "move 3 spaces, jumping over any piece along the way. Movement may consist of only turns, and capture must be made on the 3rd star". Pegasi could capture the other two at range, unicorns and earth ponies can beat pegasi via moving out of an arc blind spot, earth ponies can beat unicorns since they can hide behind two arc blind spots, negating the move capture, and unicorns beat earth ponies by, strangely enough, only moving in arcs until the capture.
The twilight line would need to be re-integrated, to limit the pegasi move speed. It would also mean that any piece on the twilight line would be immune to pegasi, since they can't hop over the line. As explanation for earth ponies hopping past things, we can say that earth ponies are used to coming up with creative solutions to problems that are trivial for unicorns and pegasi, and are therefore good at bypassing problems entirely.
I'm worried about the earth pony capture being too limited, so a playtest would be appreciated.
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I’ve got a couple of competing solutions that I like, and I’m revising the post to present them. Once it goes live, take a look!
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Looking at the board, everything seems to work out. Now comes playtesting, I suppose. When will you update the pdf to reflect the change in rules?
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As soon as I can finalize the rules. I’ve updated with a competing proposal that I like as well as mine, and I’d like folks to vote on which they prefer.
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I'll vote TopGull's. I'm a fan of the jump capture by the pegasus.
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Yes, I was very pleased that he found a way to preserve it—and it was right under my nose, too.
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just played a round with my sister.... attack range is to large there is no way to cross the twilight line without losing your piece
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There is a great deal of discussion going on over this and other potential difficulties. Likely there will be revisions soon. Stay tuned.
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Yeah, the rules are currently under revision and suggesting how to change them has become quite the popular activity.
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I was bored so I tried writing up game rules for the old Zillion engine. I had to pick some labels.
[link]
It's kinda 70 % done. Still hasn't quite figured out the trick needed to do those earth pony turns.
The Zillions AI is quite good, it beats me effortlessly. I need weeks of trainings to do what it does by just looking at the rules.
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I forgot to publish the Zillions version, here it is. [link]
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There also is a first-cut VASSAL version created by —although that’s intended for flesh-and-blood players and doesn’t incorporate an AI opponent.
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This definitely needs some revisions, given that the game has pretty much been solved. I think it's the ultra-weak definition [link]
[link] This placement of unicorns and princess will threaten the entire twilight line and Earth from the get-go. The placement of all other pieces doesn't serve as an obstacle, you just sacrifice them onto the twilight line as necessary to remove intruders and leave your unicorns' line of fire open. Unicorns are too powerful and can't be countered. Consider this, a unicorn in an unthreatened position. If it doesn't move, then the only way for it to be threatened is if the enemy moves. Because the unicorn will only be threatened by one piece, it can always capture and return to unthreatened status. Unicorns have unbreakable stability and can never be taken, except by a princess coming from a heavenly body, but your princess can threaten those the same way and thus, you can lock the whole board. If princesses can only capture going from Earth to the outer edge of the twilight line (which should probably be called the sky), then there is a counter to unicorn superiority which doesn't rely on, nor is blocked by, the princesses being unicorn+. Additionally, this prevents you from covering the entire twilight line so you can at least rush it and force an opponent to counterattack with a non-unicorn. Methinks earth ponies should be able to move onto the Earth and arc through it, pegasi can move through the sky, and the princess gets the sky+twilight line+Earth (without arcing through it).
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It's actually the weak version of solved, I'm pretty sure. We both proved it (independently, apparently, since you've got a different arrangement of pieces than me) through constructing a strategy that either player may use to prevent losing, which means that a game ending in either player losing must have involved suboptimal play. We may not have constructed the best strategy to use against all players (that would be strongly solved) but we each constructed one of the optimal strategies to use against an optimal opponent. This is one of those rare special cases where you can weakly solve a game without having to construct a full sequence of optimal moves, because you can prove that there are only very limited changes optimal moves can make to the board.
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A possible alternate schema . . .
Unicorn: Move to adjacent star, may then capture opposing soldier on star adjacent to its ending position. Perhaps add rule that it cannot capture on the twilight line unless it too is on the twilight line.
Earth pony: Move up to two stars in any direction, including turning a corner; may capture in conventional manner.
Pegasus: Move up to three stars, but only along an arc without turning corners, may capture in conventional manner. The question then is whether retaining “flyover” rule would affect its relative power.
Thoughts?
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Putting limits on the movement does sound like a good idea. with no restrictions, an earth pony can move up to 10 stars (starting on the innermost circle on the Twi line, then going along that circle, turning a corner just before the other side of the Twi line and going along that to the border)
Under Unicorn, what exacty does "adjacent" mean in this sense? One star along the same arc of the moved piece? if so, then what you proposed here sounds great.
For earth pony, maybe increase it to 3 stars? i understand that in a celestial battle, a pony restricted to the ground can't move that well, but turning a corner to move only once in that direction doesn't sound very nice to me. lol
Or! (these are just ideas that pop into my head, btw lol)
maybe it can be up to 3 stars along one arc, but if you turn a corner, that earth pony must end. BUT, you keep the MAX at 3, leaving 5 possibilites to move:
Because the max stays at 3, you can't move 3 straight then turn a corner.
OH! another idea that popped into my head: similar to the unusual capturing of Pawns in chess, perhaps one kind of pony (maybe earth can only capture by turning a corner? that might limit its ability, though...
For pegasus, how about taking the Checkers route and have them capture only by jumping over them? You could increase the range to say, 4 or 5, but have it end turn when it jumps over a piece, captures it, and lands on the star behind it. Well, I'm a little skeptical about that one, but you know...
anyway, i'm not as experienced with these kinds of games, but i figured i could be of some help. and any of our ideas would only be verified in practice anyway, sooo yeah. what do you think?
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I hadn’t had any time to count stars for a maximum earth-pony move. Ten stars—that’s good to know.
Yes, “adjacent” means “the next star over” on any arc from the star on which the unicorn ends its move.
I’d like to keep the movement rules as simple as possible. One thing I’ve realized, as a result of all this commenting, is that the classical and medieval games I’m trying to evoke have in common one interesting attribute: they all minimize exceptions and special cases.
If I mess around with the earth pony too much, it starts looking like a weaker or stronger version of the pegasus—which was the problem I had in the very early stages of designing the game.
The new proposal I’ve advanced makes them faster than unicorns, due to their strength and resilience, but not as fast as pegasus soldiers, which fly. On the other hand, they can turn better than pegasus soldiers speeding through the sky.
On the other hand, the idea of using a checkers-style capture for the unicorn is a very interesting one! It would make each soldier’s capture method unique, and it would preserve the pegasus soldier’s “flyover” ability after a fashion.
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Hm, I understand... heh, and to think I was drawing ideas from TCGs like Yugioh and Magic
anyway, I saw your jour journal about your changes, so I'll keep an eye out for an update on the rules, play-test it, then see if there's anything screwy with it 
Oh, if you're going to incorporate the checkers style capture for the pegasi, how will that affect the number of spaces they can move? and will it, like suggested, end their turn immediatly if they capture? (I'm asking now because to be honest, I am a little eager to try it out 
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Hey, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter where an idea comes from, as long as it works and fits the game’s intended feel!
Yes, as far as practical, please do play-test any ideas or suggestions you see, either mine or those of other commenters. If you or anyone else can report back “this one over here is a great idea, but that one there doesn’t work” (and why), that would be massively helpful.
The more heads working on it the better, so if you can get useful feedback from your contacts on Ponychan, go for it.
For the checkers-style pegasus capture, I wasn’t thinking of altering their movement range from the three-star limit I proposed. I just thought it would be an interestingly different way of preserving their “flyover” ability, differentiating their capture method from the other two, and maintaining a reasonable balance of power among the pieces. (Otherwise being able to “fly over” might make them too powerful, since they also are the fastest piece under that proposal.)
Try it out both ways and see how it works, if you can!
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As a fan of chess and other strategy games, I think this looks like a lot of fun. And while play testing will be necessary to polish it, I can't wait to start playing. As for the movement mechanics, I like the concept that there's no "maximum" amount of spaces that a piece can move except for the restriction of having to stop at the Twilight Line. It gives the game a more fluid feel, as pieces are not forced to halt after a designated number of moves, and I believe the current “unicorn capturing” problem can be settled without adjusting the rule allowing unlimited movement along an arc.
Now if I may give my two cents worth concerning the mechanics of "capturing." I think you're on the right track having the unicorn be the only soldier able to capture a piece without landing on it. Even if you modify it so that the unicorn can only capture from a star adjacent to it at the end of it's turn, that in-and-of itself would give players a lot of potential for composing both offensive and defensive strategies as defenders could not rely solely on LOS from other soldiers to protect their pieces. Concerning the ‘unicorn blockade problem’, a simple shift of the rules so that unicorns cannot capture a piece on the Twilight Line unless they too are on the Line may be enough to solve this problem. However, as I said these are my thoughts at a first glance, and additional thought and play testing will be the only way to tell whether or not this would work.
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Yes, please do let me know what you discover with actual play! It may be possible to ameliorate the problems people are pointing out with smaller fixes than limiting move distances, but I’ll want more feedback on the ideas I’ve thrown out. That would be great, because I agree that the fluidity of movement the current rules bring is a desirable thing.
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I don't believe you actually need to limit distances at all except maybe for the earth pony, all you need to do is implement different capturing patterns that are not inferior to the unicorns so that the unicorn maybe attacked.
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There’s a pile of comments for me to go through, so I don’t remember if I already responded to one of yours! In case I haven’t:
I’ve decided on a revised movement schema and will be rewriting the rulebook today. You may want to check out my latest journal posting for the details.
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Seems good. I hate to put pressure on you, but I'm doing an informative speech on Tuesday on how to play this game, and it would be great if you could iron out the kinks in at least one "official" rule set before then. If I'm telling all the non-bronies in my class about this, I'd rather not have my strategy analysis section admitting, or omitting, the unicorn master race strategy, and I also don't want to tell them rules that get completely axed. As long as there is something workable that you officially endorse, even if it ends up being a variant and not the primary version of the game, I can get by without endangering my credibility or making your game look bad.
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I posted the revised rules in color late yesterday afternoon (Sunday 30 September Pacific time) and in grayscale this morning. I hope that will give you enough time to study them before presenting to your class Tuesday!
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We’ll see what the pressure-cooker produces. I’ll do what I can to have a revised rulebook posted by Sunday evening or Monday morning Pacific time. If your time zone makes that awkward, let me know and I’ll try to accommodate you.
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Oh dear. I’ll do what I can!
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Question: if an earth pony turns a corner, it can go as far as the line goes, or does it have a limited numer of stars to move?
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Under the current rules, it may go as far as it possibly can. There’s some discussion about tweaking the movement rules, so stay tuned.
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A lot of people have been commenting on movement of the pieces, and so I decided I'd put in my 2 cents (since i stayed up almost last night due to not being able to stop thinking about this game and strategies for it). Personally I think the movement of the pieces is fine, it's just the unicorn capture rule that needs tweaking. I like the idea of them moving and then capturing a piece adjacent to them, although that will certainly make banishment confirmations more difficult.
Also a lot of people seem to be asking for/looking for a standardized coordinate system so you can play over mail/what not. One idea i came up with happened when i noticed that of the 12 angled circles making up the rosette, each circle touches each other circle at most twice, one of those intersections being on earth. So if you numbered or lettered the circles 1-12 or A-L, with A being the 12 o'clock possition, except for the cases of earth or on the outer twilight line, you can describe coordinates as the meeting of 2 circles. For example, the sun is at C-K (or K-C, that's the beauty of it, since there's only one point outside of earth these two circles touch the order doesn't matter). If you're referring to a point on the outer twilight line it can be the letter of the circle followed by a 0, like G-0. Since all circles are existent on earth, this coordinate system wouldn't work for that point, but you could just simply call it "earth" or "origin" (if you're going all mathematical)
Anyway, this game is a beautiful work (although perhaps still a work in progress) and I can't wait to wrap my brain around strategies for it.
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Several people are coming up with coordinate systems, most of them fairly similar since the game board itself is suggestive. I think I probably will adopt one similar to the suggestion made.
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The main problem I see with this game is there is no "Knights", none of the pieces have different capture patterns.
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Well, I didn’t want to duplicate existing games exactly, so that isn’t necessarily a problem. If by a “knight” you mean “jumping over other pieces”, the pegasus does that. If you mean “turning a corner”, the earth pony does that.
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It's not about trying to imitate chess, it's about tactics. The problem is all the pieces have the same capture patterns, so it's impossible to have a piece attack another piece without putting itself in to danger. Combined with unicorns not having to move to attack it makes them invincible except in forks, which aren't going to happen as the princess is also a unicorn. The earth pony can turn corners, but it can only capture normally, so it's ability to turn corners doesn't change anything. The key thing about the knight is not even the queen can move like the knight.
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I’ve posted proposed revisions to the movement rules, which may address some concerns and render others moot. One of the proposals would make every soldier-type’s capture method different, as you suggest. Another would restrict movement ranges, and capture range for unicorns. Since there are only three soldier types, and one of the conceptual underpinnings to the game is that a princess is an amalgam of all three pony tribes, I’m not sure there’s a way to address the last point, though.
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WOW. Just wow. This is amazing, I am in awe. I'd love to try this game out.
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Have fun, and if you discover anything worth reporting, please let me know!
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While I absolutely *love* the design and overall concept, I'm having trouble figuring out how to threaten unicorns without being instantly captured next turn, at no cost for them at all. Even disregarding the fact that they can threaten the whole Twilight line, you cannot possibly threaten unicorns without being captured next turn, at no cost for them at all because they do not change their position on the board. While threatening going both ways is not a problem in itself, it becomes game-breaking when a piece is able to fight back without having to change its position. Making the unicorns unable to capture soldiers on the Twilight line seems like the most necessary step towards balance, but playtesting will be needed to know whether or not it is enough. I don't believe unicorns should be completely rethought, though: provided this is balanced out in some ways, having pieces that can capture without moving could be add a very unique and defining flavor to this game.
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A possible alternate schema . . .
Unicorn: Move to adjacent star, may then capture opposing soldier on star adjacent to its ending position. Perhaps add rule that it cannot capture on the twilight line unless it too is on the twilight line.
Earth pony: Move up to two stars in any direction, including turning a corner; may capture in conventional manner.
Pegasus: Move up to three stars, but only along an arc without turning corners, may capture in conventional manner. The question then is whether retaining “flyover” rule would affect its relative power.
Thoughts?
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Also, I'm not sure I like that one could "accidentally Banish" a Princess. That move should be illegal and just not work.
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If players are sufficiently inattentive it could happen. I suspect that would be mostly younger players, but anyone who’s playing distracted or by nature unobservant could end up with an unpleasant surprise.
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Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find how far each piece may move.
It seems to me that unicorns may be severely overpowered. Comparing to chess, where threatening area is a big part of the game, being able to threaten within your movement RADIUS is incredibly powerful. If pieces may move far in the standard case, it only becomes stronger.
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Currently there is no limit; there’s a statement in the rules about it: “Otherwise a piece may move as far as it legally can. In practice, the farthest a piece possibly can move along an arc is six stars, because it will reach the twilight line and must stop. A piece is not required to move as far as it can; the player is free to stop anywhere short of the limit.”
There’s some discussion about problems with and solutions for some difficulties people are pointing out, so stay tuned.
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Ah, I see. That is actually a pretty interesting mechanic. I really have to try the game in practice. If you're doing a revised version, you could carefully consider if you really want to remove that feature. Unless there are actual, evident problems that can't be resolved unless you cut it, I'd try to find solutions elsewhere first.
Given that, it's kind of hard to actually have proper opinions on the game before I've tried it. I still wish to comment further on the unicorn pieces though. The problem with the unicorn pieces aren't so much that they are too powerful from a competitive balance perspective, since both players get an equal amount. The problem is if their power ends up invalidating too many tactics or if they become the only pieces that "really matter".
Also, if you're doing a revised version... could the unicorn and pegasus pieces have wings and horn on them instead of those other symbols? :3
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Well, that’s what people are saying—that there are indeed serious problems with the existing movement rules, primarily relating to the unicorn’s capture and the long reach of all pieces, particularly the princess.
The symbols I used are based on those used in the program itself, specifically on the banners in “Hearth’s-Warming Eve”.
Unicorn banner
Pegasus banner
Earth-pony banner
That said, there’s nothing to prevent anyone else from producing alternative designs!
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The one thing I don't really like (This is purely my own opinion and should be take as the ravings of a madman. XD) Because of the overly dynamic rules it lacks a certain "classic feel" in order for it to match the historically nostalgic feel that games like chess can have even if you've never played them before.
I think this could easily be remedied by simply dividing the rules up between Classic|Modern rather than "Optional".
Where Classic style would be:
- A set starting layout
- Removal of the Escape word
- And deciding on a single/fixed piece/play style (Flat/Drum)
Where as Modern would be:
- Dynamic layouts
- The Escape word
- And the option to pick either type of pieces.
To me having the defined/refined "Classic" option would help give the game a more historically ancient feel.
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Relatively fast-moving classical and medieval games did exist, particularly in the East.
I used a dynamic lay-out because I simply couldn’t figure out a good fixed lay-out. Moreover, it’s a good differentiator for the game, making it seem less like a clone of real-world games.
“Escape” is necessary because it’s possible for a player to be mistaken about banishment. The idea of the penalty is to encourage players to be sure before announcing banishment.
If anything, in a world without widespread and rapid communication—such as Equestria, which according to Ms. Faust is supposed to have nineteenth-century technology at the time of the series—there would be less standardization, not more.
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Question, What is the names of all the board positions? It's needed for play by mail and other applications.
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