to the death!

July 2, 2004 5:23 PM

battle for the sudan - some friday flash fun for your playing pleasure. this is a fun game, but it takes a little practice to figure out the strategy. i recommend playing the computer until you can always beat it before playing other people. also, try out the suggested starting positions before trying to make your own.
posted by christy (9 comments total)

I really haven't got a clue what is going on.
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:38 PM on July 2, 2004

well, their instructions are a bit tricky to understand, so i'll try and explain:

you have 16 pieces. some of them are numbered. if one numbered piece attacks another, the higher one wins and the lower numbered piece is removed from the board. if they are equal, whoever attacked wins.

you also have some special pieces / abilities. the spy can't kill anyone except the enemy #9 (most powerful) piece, and only if he attacks that piece. bombs look like pieces to the enemy, but if attacked, they explode and kill the attacker (the bomb is also destroyed). #2s can defuse bombs though.

all pieces move one square at a time except #1s, which can move like a rook in chess (any # of squares in a straight line).

you don't know which piece is which on your enemies side, so you have to try and deduce it from battles won and lost. the goal is the protect your flag and capture the enemy's flag.

you choose how to lay out your pieces and flag at the beginning of the game. the suggested layouts are pretty good.

hope that helped.
posted by christy at 5:51 PM on July 2, 2004

It's like mini-Stratego
posted by falconred at 5:55 PM on July 2, 2004

It's almost exactly stratego, no? Very slight variation.
posted by malphigian at 6:17 PM on July 2, 2004

Yeah. Stratego.

I love that game.

* wanders upstairs to pull out Stratego *
posted by xmutex at 6:45 PM on July 2, 2004

Cool!
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:47 PM on July 2, 2004

i sucked : <
posted by amberglow at 7:45 PM on July 2, 2004

The version with the UN peacekeepers and the janjaweed is so much more fun.
posted by dhartung at 11:24 PM on July 2, 2004

IRL, you'd have to play this game with three people, one acting like a referee. It's kind of like Kriegspiel that way - except with Kriegspiel, you don't even know your opponent's moves, much less their pieces. I so want to play that game, but I don't hang in a geeky enough crowd.

dhartung: It's not so much fun if you're playing the UN's side. "Hey, where are all my pieces? How come they keep leaving the board?"
posted by skoosh at 10:35 AM on July 3, 2004