solution for the "War Shoal" problem...?

[jackson_tegu]

hello there, everyone.
i think i have a possible solution for what has, in academic circles, been referred to as the "War Shoal" problem.

though this is a forum for rpg development, i thought i would post it here to garner some feedback and additional solutions (perhaps more complete than my own), because the application of "thinking in systems" is very similar.

"War Shoal" is a two person (i believe) vaguely war-simulating board game that is under development by two friends of mine whom are brothers of one another (and two others); as far as i understand, it is grid- and turn- based, not unlike checkers, but individual pieces and grid spaces would have different abilities. i imagine it would look similar to checkers (or draughts) but be more colourful. the layout and mechanical design specifics are unknown to me, and so i treat them as variable.

the Question, then, has to do specifically with an ability that some of the pieces would have, a "stealth" ability that would allow them to move forward legally without the opponent's knowledge. the best solution would enable this to be played on the main board, not to have a secondary board with "battleship"-like rules and situations which would have to be refereed by the "stealth" using player themselves...

possible solutions that i have considered include...

1) in the event that there is a center line on the board which designates one player's "territory" from the other´s, then as soon as the stealth-enabled pawn moves across that line five additional pawns are placed into open spaces on the opponent's side, dummy pawns which are marked as false on their unseeable base and would simply disappear when interacted with. (how would the stealth pawn get to the center line in the first place? perhaps it would begin play there?)

of course... this doesn't allow your opponent to believe that there's no stealth pieces on their side. it creates an entirely different effect. back to the drawing board...

2) have all squares of the board be occupied by two-sided pieces, one side facing each player. i will use the term "occupied" to indicate a square which has a pawn which is not simply terrain. hypothetically this would allow a square to appear "unoccupied" to an opponent while quite clearly containing a stealth pawn to the s. pawn´s controller, but what happens when the opponent attempts to "move into" the square that she believes is unoccupied? for that matter, how does one go about moving one's stealth pawns around in such a situation? swapping pawns? so, could player a move player b's stealth pawn while successfully moving their own stealth pawn? what if each square could contain more than one pawn (terrain or otherwise?) would that clarify things, or needlessly complicate?

in truth, what i have is "Questions that have been raised by the War Shoal Problem", rather than solutions thereto.
i have also (having, again, no real understanding as to how the game is to be laid out) not ENTIRELY ruled out the possibility of using external boards (or perhaps the word i´m looking for is extraneous), and that might be a fun, very different game altogether. perhaps i´ll go design it. (pfffff. more like "make three pages of notes then get distracted, as usual")

anyway, please assist. these very nice friends of mine have gotten discouraged and stopped working on their game. i thought the ripe minds in the forge community might be able to do well by them.
thanks in advance,
jackson

[Eero Tuovinen]

What I'd use for a checkers-like board would simply be a piece of paper with the coordinates of the stealth piece. Simple enough. The player who knows where the piece is can then tell the other player if and when the piece interacts in some manner. This doesn't of course eliminate double blinds where there needs to be interaction between stealth pieces of opposite sides. In other words, the piece of paper method (as well as the separate boards and such) only work for when no such interaction is necessary.

Also, check out Kriegspiel; I imagine that if there are elegant solutions to the double blind situation, they'd have appeared in some form in that community.

[Callan S.]

Hi Jackson, welcome to the forge!

1) in the event that there is a center line on the board which designates one player's "territory" from the other´s, then as soon as the stealth-enabled pawn moves across that line five additional pawns are placed into open spaces on the opponent's side, dummy pawns which are marked as false on their unseeable base and would simply disappear when interacted with. (how would the stealth pawn get to the center line in the first place? perhaps it would begin play there?)

of course... this doesn't allow your opponent to believe that there's no stealth pieces on their side. it creates an entirely different effect. back to the drawing board...

Not really. Every single pawn there could be a dummy pawn (ie, you really didn't have any stealth units). You always have these pawns around in each game purely as psychological attack. The other player will never know if you had a stealth unit or not until every pawn is checked. Solved?

[jackson_tegu]

thanks folks, these avenues are will be interesting to explore.

Eero, and as the stealth pawn moves, record that as well in writing (d5 or whatever)? i think they're looking for something that can happen on the main board, though, they're shying away from additional boards. and since kreigspeil uses a moderator, its double-bind situations are unhelpful in this situation. perhaps the two stealth units could co exist on one square? thank you for your thoughts though, and the link led me on a merry wikipedia ring for the last half hour... ah, the things in this world that i don´t know...

Callan, thanks for the welcome! I'll admit i´ve been a skulker, but I'll put more rpg relevent thoughts up soon; start participating. your idea is a simple and excellent step that i was unable to see without your assistance. i still think the flood moment has a different effect than the moment of discovering that there in fact WAS a pawn where you believed there wasn't one, but it is certainly a viable idea anyway. an important step forward.

being that it's called "War Shoal", one might rightly assume that it's about different species of aquatic life having it out with one another reasonlessly, right along the tideline. i believe that there will be some tide-moving mechanic, markers of some kind sweeping across the board, (from, say, the left of the board to the right, as opposed to from one player's orientation toward the others) and i was thinking last night that this could also perhaps be used to disguise the movements of a pawn, masquerading as a tide counter.

extrapolations, ideas, sealife?
thanks again,
jackson

[contracycle]

You could also totaslly abstract stealth off the board.  Then, any in game action that succesfully refers to stealth is used as the rational to put a new counter no the board, anywhere.  Or, in limited bands or zones.

Frex, at the start of the game I indicate that I devote resources to three submarines.  Three times in the coming game I will be able to declare a surprise submarine attack.  However, I can only deploy a submarine that is as many rows away from my edge of the board as there are turns of the game already played.  This means that striking at the rear still takes turn time.

This could be a two-edged sword, in that the ambiguity of the subs position can be collapsed the other way.  In defending against subs I deploy some sort of cruiser say, and if I succeed at some "sub detection" task, I then nominate one of my cruisers as the detector, and the owner of the sub MUST deploy at least 1 hitherto hidden sub within 1 square of my cruiser.  This way an enemy sub gets forcibly dragged into a trap from its nebulous state of non-being.

[jackson_tegu]

omg that is really spectactular. i have like the biggest smile on my face right now. i have to rush off, but, without irony, that is a totally great idea which creates all sorts of other tangental ideas...
thank you contracycle!

[johnwedd]

i do the same thing, go in a frenzy of write for about three hours then a shiny object tosses me off.