Game: Gyges

Thread: Print board

Talisinbear — 2008-09-19T03:18:19+00:00

I see this print & play board pic

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/121075

anyone know where to access the file?

thanks

Thread: Re: Online Play Question

GeoMan — 2008-03-03T22:19:51+00:00

You place your piece directly in its final destination.

Thread: Online Play Question

spearjr — 2008-03-03T21:40:19+00:00

When playing online (at http://www.gyges.com/), how do you get the computer to let you bounce off piece? Whenever I try to land on another piece, it wants to replace that piece, not give me more movement.

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Urtur — 2008-02-21T12:02:27+00:00

Playing the game (Jactalea edition).

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cnidius — 2008-02-21T10:48:08+00:00

box of new edition (2007), board and pieces

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timtim7 — 2007-04-23T09:09:51+00:00

JACTALEA edition ( leather )

Thread: The Gyges Stategy Guide, written by an idiot

ronlee — 2006-10-17T21:41:29+00:00

An attempt to codify some of my thoughts on Gyges strategy. For all examples below, you are playing South.

Caveat: I'm a neophyte. My entire experience is playing at www.gyges.com against the AI, who I can now beat 80% of the time at the beginner level, and not at all at any higher levels. But as no English-language literature could be found for Gyges, I thought I'd share my small, minor thoughts and maybe start some discussion.

Like most abstract games, the endgame is easiest to comprehend, while the opening is the most mysterious. So let's work backwards.

ENDGAME

Your penultimate move will hopefully be the move that allows access to the goal on your final move--a move that creates at least one path that cannot be blocked by your opponent. We can do this by creating a single path that your opponent cannot touch in one move:

[c]
1..... 1..... (Example 1)
...... ...2..
...... ......
..32.. ---> ..32..
..1.2. ..1...
...... ......
[/c]

Or by creating multiple paths to victory such that your opponent cannot completely block all routes in a single move:

[c]
.2.... .2.... (Example 2)
..33.3 ..33.3
.....1 ..1..1
.21.2. ---> .21.2.
.2..31 .2..31
.1.... ......
[/c]

MOBILITY

In Example 1, it North is locked out of any meaningful plays after South moves. It may be that North had early on abandoned his 1-ring piece as unmovable, which led to problems later on when the 1-ring was the only piece available to move. So it seems important to keep all of your back pieces available for play as much as possible. If the board is developing such that pieces are lining up on the left side, you shouldn't completely abandon a piece on the far right side unless you have very good reason to do so.

PARITY

In Example 2, South goes from a situation where only 1 piece can be moved to a situation where 3 can be utilized. This increase in mobility is due to the fact that, once South has moved all the pieces of the back row, the pieces on the 2nd row can be put in play. My theory is that, in general, it is to your advantage to be ahead in the race to move pieces off the back row. Being the 1st one to clear your back row gives you that 'power-up' before your opponent, allowing you a chance to KO your opponent before she/he can counterattack.

12/2006 EDIT: The above paragraph may be very, very wrong! I got myself in trouble by moving all my back pieces off the back row quickly in one game. My opponent then managed to get a 1-ring piece into a lonely corner of my back row! It would have taken me 3 moves to just get the 1-ring piece to the next nearest piece! He finished me off well before that. Not sure how he did it--it seems dangerous to keep a lot of pieces on your back row, doesn't it? But that's what he did--kept everything on his side, and then stuck it to me at the end.

MIDGAME

ONE-WAY/TWO-WAY ROADS

In the example below, North has a nice pathway to go down, while South cannot follow the same path up:

[c]
..1... (Example 3)
..2...
...3..
......
..2...
.1....
[/c]

The reason that this is a one-way road is that the "adjacent" pieces are different from each other. If you have a path where "adjacent" pieces are the same, you have a 2-way road:

[c]
...... (Example 4)
..2...
...2..
......
...2..
..2...
[/c]

You want to create 1-way roads headed to your goal, block or repave wrong-way roads, and be extremely wary of 2-way roads.

DIAGONAL VS. STRAIGHT CONNECTIONS

Two "paths" are shown below. Both are one-way roads for South, but of the two, Example 6 is, I think, the preferred path.

[c]
...... (Example 5)
......
..3...
......
..2...
......
[/c]

[c]
...... (Example 6)
......
..3...
...2..
......
......
[/c]

The problem with Example 5 is that North can easily block the path by placing a piece directly between the two pieces. Moreover, if North places a 1-ring or 3-ring piece there, the one-way street suddenly reverses direction!

In contrast, North must place 2 pieces down to block the paths in Example 6, and by placing those extra pieces to block, North may open up new avenues for South.

OPENING

The opening game is a great mystery to me. I have no sense of what the initial ring placement strategies are. Currently, I am playing with

[c]
...... ...... (Example 7)
...... ......
...... --> ......
...... ......
...... ...3..
312123 31212.
[/c]

Seems to open up a lot of possible future moves, both in terms of bumping and replacing.

As for the first moves, other than the mobility issues discussed above, I have little sense of what to do.

PATTERNS

In this section, I'll list some patterns that seem to pop up reasonably frequently.

THE BOX

Let's call any rectangular (sides ≥ 2) or almost-rectanglar cluster of rings a "box":

[c]
...... (Example 8)
.232..
.232..
......
......
......
[/c]

If there are no 1-ring pieces in the box, it will be impossible to travel through it. If there are 2-ring pieces at the corners, travel around is difficult without some help from pieces outside the box.

THE 3-LEAF CLOVER

Let's call any piece (other than a 1-ring piece) surrounded on 3 sides (but with a 4th open side) a "3-leaf clover".

[c]
...... (Example 9)
..1...
..32..
..2...
.3....
......
[/c]

If you're trying to move through the center of a 3-leaf clover through the empty side (in the example above, South moving the 3-ring piece through the 3-ring piece), you will find you can't procede any further since the remaining 3 sides are blocked. The only way you can utilize the center of the clover is if one of the leaves is a 1-ring piece--then you can go in through that 1-ring leaf and exit out the empty side. North can use the 1-piece in the example above to win.

This applies just as well to a "2-leaf" clover on the side of the board:

[c]
...... (Example 10)
1.....
3.....
2.....
......
......
[/c]

--------------------------------------------

This is a work in progress--I'll update as I become smarter! In the meantime, please feel free to add your own thoughts.

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Moof — 2006-07-19T11:33:21+00:00

Play Gyges online

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fredric_barrett — 2006-03-18T17:22:57+00:00

Gyges on the "Print-N-Play" set.

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GeoMan — 2006-01-26T14:38:52+00:00

Contents

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GeoMan — 2006-01-26T14:37:14+00:00

Box

Thread: Deep Abstract; Short Playtime

texasjdl — 2005-12-24T12:46:45+00:00

(Note: I will use "his" to denote player ownership below. This is just so that it is easier to read, I find typing and reading "his/her" everywhere cumbersome.)

I was introduced to Gyges 8 months ago on a visit to Stephen Tavaner's home in London. I'm sure neither of us gets as much abstract playtime as we'd like, and he was excited to show me this game.

Fast forward 8 months, and I own two—soon to be three—copies of this game. This is a really excellent game.

Gameplay:

The game has one objective: move a piece into the goal on your opponent's side of the board. The main part of the board is a 6x6 square of positions that the pieces may occupy, and at either end of the board is a goal. This goal may be reached from any of the spaces in the row closest to it.

At the start of the game, each player receives 6 pieces: 2 3-move pieces, 2 2-move pieces, and 2 1-move pieces. The number of moves each piece can move is symbolized on the pices by "rings"; for each ring that the piece has, it can move one space. These 6 pieces are placed in the row closest to the player, in whatever configuration the player chooses.

Pieces may only move orthogonally on the board, and a player may only move a piece that is on the closest occupied row (I will call this the player's "active row"). It is important to realize that the pieces are communal, so that each player has the possibility of using any piece on the board during his turn.

Thus, the 3-move piece can move to any one of these (x) locations:

[c]
x
x o x
x o x o x
x o x 3 x o x
x o x o x
x o x
x
[/c]
A 2-move piece can move to these (x) locations:
[c]
x
x o x
x o 2 o x
x o x
x
[/c]
A 1-move piece may move to these locations:
[c]
x
x 1 x
x
[/c]
A piece may not move through another piece during its turn, but on its final move, it may land on another piece. This is where the game's strategy really kicks in.

Upon landing on another piece, a player has two alternatives: The piece the player moved may "bounce" off the piece it just landed on; or the piece the player moved may replace the piece that it landed on.

A "bounce" allows a piece to move the number of spaces that the piece it landed on would have been able to move. For example, if a piece lands on a 3-move piece and chooses to bounce, it may move as if it were a 3-move piece. Bounces may be chained, so that the piece a player is moving may bounce from piece to piece across the board. This is ultimately how a player will need to move a piece to reach his opponent's goal. While bouncing, a player may only cross each transition between spaces once.

If the player chooses to replace the piece, the player places the piece he just moved in that space on the board, and picks up the piece that had occupied the space. That piece may now be placed anywhere on the board, as long as it is not behind his opponent's active row (or in the goal).

The first player to reach his opponent's goal is the winner. In tournament play, a player may not win on his opponent's mistake; he must earn the win through his own strategy.

Components:
The components of this game are plain, but very nice. The board is a large piece of wood with the spaces cut into it, and the pieces are also wood. Depending on which version of the game you obtain, the colors of the board and the pieces will change. I have seen three versions of the game components: red board with black pieces, brown board with white pieces, and brown board with natural pieces.

Overall:
If you like abstract games, this is a game I highly recommend. The playtime is relatively short (10-30 minutes), and the strategy is deep. There aren't a lot of choices to start from, but from there, the decision tree grows extremely quickly.

If you'd like to try out a game of Gyges before hunting down a copy, you can go to http://www.gyges.com, they have AI there that can get you started playing this wonderful game.

9/10

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CDRodeffer — 2005-11-18T15:07:48+00:00

From the 2005 U-Con Abstract Games Tournament

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MarkEJohnson — 2005-02-14T02:47:02+00:00

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MarkEJohnson — 2005-02-14T02:47:02+00:00