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Quantimex. Principles of Quantum Mechanics applied to Ultima on an hexagonal board. (Cells: 91) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Aug 21, 2010 10:35 PM UTC:

Excellent concept. Deterministic 'randomness'. Love it, and have been looking at it in another context. I wonder if it might be noticeably different gameplay if the assignment of the landing hex was made randomly, rather than by the opponent. I would suspect players might be more adventurous if they knew that their moves would not always get the worst outcomes, as I find it reminiscent of some old Napoleonic wargames I played with somewhat similar random results for extended marches. Visually, it first instantly reminded me of LL Smith's HiveQueen. Classy set of rules.

I'm trying to imagine how this plays. You always did enjoy an indirect approach to things, Graeme. This game ought to get interesting as the armies close. Has it been playtested? It looks like it would be a lot of close-in capturing, as pieces maneuver close to their opponents, but likely need a turn to go in for the kill. I'll have to look at the pieces again, but it seems to me the coordinator might be more useful than the long leaper. If this favors the defense, you might try a progressive form of movement. First player moves one piece. Thereafter, the moving player may move up to one more piece per turn than the other player just did. You might want to cap this at some reasonable value, or maybe not. This would even allow for passing a turn.

Lol, let me stop here. I have to say I've enjoyed your game quite a bit so far. It looks like it uses long-range movement and short-range combat. And it does raise some interesting questions about what is random, determinate, or effectively random. Good ideas - another post.

💡📝Graeme Neatham wrote on Sun, Aug 22, 2010 02:04 AM UTC:

Thanks for the comments, Joe. I was thinking of adding a note on using random assignment of the final destination hex as a variant, but in the end decided that the Quantum concept was already radical enough in itself.

Play testing has been minimal. I used Zillions running a non-quantum version to test and refine the transfer of Ultima to a hex board, but have not yet been able to get a working Quantum version. I have just finished constructing a non-enforcing pre-set and would be happy to push a few pieces around at a leisurely pace.

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 05:23 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

Is enthronement supposed to work with your Regents or opponent's Regents or both? According to the note about castling, it seem to be for your own. But a variant might be to use with both (note that capturing opponent's regent on your first turn will put you in check).

About using randomness, an idea I have is for each player to hold a few cards that cannot be seen by their opponent. If you make a long move, then your opponent selects and plays one of the cards in their hand to determine which destination, and then discards that card and pick up another card from the draw pile. (If no valid card is held, they can reveal all their cards, discard them, pick up a new hand of cards, and select one as in the standard game, or if you prefer, roll a dice.) And then maybe combine this with the backgammon doubling cube rule.

💡📝Graeme Neatham wrote on Tue, Dec 13, 2011 10:40 AM UTC:

Enthronement
The intention is that this is allowed only with respect to your own Regents.

Randomness
The use of cards or dice to determine the final landing square is certainly worth exploring.

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