Sp13_Group2

“Go” is a strategic board game that originated in China some thousand years ago and has since spread and become known throughout the world. In its most traditional form it’s played by two people who take turns placing stones on a 19×19 board in attempt to incircle/capture units of the enemy. Once a stoned’s been placed, it can not be moved.

The traditional rules of “Go” are explained here.

The traditional stones can be thought of as “soldiers” – uniform and static.

We would like to improve on the original game by introducing a variety of other units some of which will be able to move around the board and have special abilities. In the end, our variant of the game (working title “!GO” (pronounced “bango”)) will come closer to resembling a PC strategy game, more dynamic and, we believe, a lot more fun to play.

Additional units

Since the Go board is intended to represent a battle field and the soldier is a very weak unit taken alone, there should not be great differences between the units.

	Ambassador Any unit touching an ambassador (blue piece) cannot capture or be captured. Also, a drop near an ambassador cannot capture. In the left example, both players cannot play at [1], since that would mean a capture in the surroundings of an ambassador.
	Bomb When a player drops a bomb (red piece) he decides between two states: immediate explosion: the bomb once it is dropped destroys all neighbors (and itself) indirect explosion: the bomb only explodes when it is captured, destroying all neighbors (and itself) The destroyed pieces do not count as prisoners in both states.
	Monk Any piece dropped within a distance of two cells of a Monk (green piece), cannot be used to capture other pieces.
	Wall A wall (brown piece) is an uncapturable neutral piece. This means that the maximum liberty (points of retreat) of the neighbor cells are reduced by 1. In the example, cells [1] are in Atari (1 liberty left, nearly captured). The white piece cannot escape from the black siege.
	Tao The Tao is a 4×4 zone that enhances the soldier’s mind and courage. All soldiers within the Tao’s influence, can move one cell. In the example, the black stone can move all directions. However, if it moves east it will exit the Tao’s influence and therefore cannot move anymore (except if a new Tao is dropped nearby).
	Mercenary The mercenary (gray piece) can move to an adjacent empty cell. Any player can move a mercenary (however, the Ko rule applies i.e. the player cannot recreate the board as it was at some point in the past). In the example, if it moves south, it captures the black piece; if it moves north, it captures the white piece. A player can capture its own pieces using a mercenary. A mercenary can be captured.