Anybody here good at the game of Fox and Geese? Total beginner wonders how a game is ever anything but a draw. Seems too easy for either side to force the draw.
I think one of the Winning Ways (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0120911027/102-9551075-3836957?vi=glance) books had a section on it. Not sure now - it's been a while since I read them.
How do you draw a game, anyway? It's monotonic wrt the geese, innit?
Tis. Here are my thoughts, potentially very confused.
Since the geese must corner the fox to win, they cannot win if there are fewer than (my best guess) six of them. Since the geese cannot move backwards, if the fox ever gets behind the line of geese and decides to stay there he cannot be cornered. Since the fox must eat all the geese to win, he cannot win if two or three geese are on the far end of the board, because they are stuck in such a way that they cannot be eaten. So I am guessing that any game with fewer than six geese AND two geese in the end row, or any game with the fox past all the geese AND two geese in the end row, seems like a draw.
Ah - I'm talking about another variant, in which the geese try to force the fox to the top edge of the board and trap it there, and the fox tries to break free and hit the bottom edge. No capturing involved.
If there is a boat involved, then I see it as a puzzle, not a game, and not needing any physical playing pieces. The goal is for everyone to come out alive.
Hey yeah, I remember that one! I was thinking of a different thing though, an old game with a hunting theme. One player plays "the fox", one playing piece; the other plays "the geese", a large number of playing pieces (variants seem to range between twelve and sixteen). The fox wants to eat all the geese, by jumping as in checkers, and the geese want to corner the fox.
That sounds kind of like the version I have. Only in the rule set I have, the geese and the fox can both go forwards & backwards.
I unfortunately have not played the game and cannot quite remember if I've seen it played at an SCA event or not. However, I picked up a box of Cloister Games on my UK trip (2000) and it has Fox & Geese. It says:
"Fox and Geese belongs to the group of games known collectively as Tafl in which there are battles fought out by two forces of unequal power. Tafl games appear to have originated in Northern Europe. Mention is made of one as far back as AD 1300 in the Icelandic 'Grettis Saga'.
The rules say: It is a 2 player game, one is the fox and the other player is the geese. In this variant there are 13 geese to 1 fox. The fox can be placed on any vacant point. Both "fox and geese can move along a line, backwards or forwards, to the next contiguous point. The fox may jump over a goose to an empty point, capturing the goose and removing it from the board." Two or more geese can be captured by the fox in 1 turn -- as long as the fox is able to jump to an empty point after each goose captured. "The geese cannot jump over or capture the fox." The geese must work together to mob the fox and trap it in a corner, preventing the fox from being able to move. The geese win if they trap the fox. The fox wins if it captures enough geese to result in making it impossible for the geese to trap the fox.
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How do you draw a game, anyway? It's monotonic wrt the geese, innit?
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Since the geese must corner the fox to win, they cannot win if there are fewer than (my best guess) six of them. Since the geese cannot move backwards, if the fox ever gets behind the line of geese and decides to stay there he cannot be cornered. Since the fox must eat all the geese to win, he cannot win if two or three geese are on the far end of the board, because they are stuck in such a way that they cannot be eaten. So I am guessing that any game with fewer than six geese AND two geese in the end row, or any game with the fox past all the geese AND two geese in the end row, seems like a draw.
Thanks for the book pointer!
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Fox and Geese - both go forward & backward
I unfortunately have not played the game and cannot quite remember if I've seen it played at an SCA event or not. However, I picked up a box of Cloister Games on my UK trip (2000) and it has Fox & Geese. It says:
"Fox and Geese belongs to the group of games known collectively as Tafl in which there are battles fought out by two forces of unequal power. Tafl games appear to have originated in Northern Europe. Mention is made of one as far back as AD 1300 in the Icelandic 'Grettis Saga'.
The rules say: It is a 2 player game, one is the fox and the other player is the geese. In this variant there are 13 geese to 1 fox. The fox can be placed on any vacant point. Both "fox and geese can move along a line, backwards or forwards, to the next contiguous point. The fox may jump over a goose to an empty point, capturing the goose and removing it from the board." Two or more geese can be captured by the fox in 1 turn -- as long as the fox is able to jump to an empty point after each goose captured. "The geese cannot jump over or capture the fox." The geese must work together to mob the fox and trap it in a corner, preventing the fox from being able to move. The geese win if they trap the fox. The fox wins if it captures enough geese to result in making it impossible for the geese to trap the fox.
Does that help?
-- Shadopanther