XANA

Copyright (c) 2005 João Pedro Neto

This game is played on the following board.

There are, off board, 16 white stones, 16 black stones and enough neutral stones (known as walls). The white and black stones should be stackable.

DEFINITIONS A cell is accessible if it is empty and there is a path of empty hexes to a friendly stone The distance between two cells is the number of steps needed to reach from one to the other (hex occupancy is irrelevant) The circle of a stack of height H>0 is the set of all accessible cells up to distance H. Check the examples below. A stack has liberty if it is adjacent to at least one empty hex TURNS  Initially, each player drops a friendly stack (of any size) in an empty cell Pie rule: the second player can swap colors instead of moving On his turn, the player either: pass drops a stack on an accessible cell or on top of a friendly stack moves a stack, or part of it, within its circle Then, optionally, the player can drop one or two walls on accessible cells, in sequence (drops are not simultaneous) After each single move/drop, any stack (of either color) without liberties is captured Enemy captures should be executed first, and only after, friendly captures GOAL When both players pass, the game ends, and wins the player with highest score One point per accessible cell, one point per captured stone, first player gets an extra 0.5 points

 

	A circle of a stack of size 3 The blue dots show the circle of the black stack. Every non accessible cell to that piece does not belong to its circle, no matter if it is close enough. These blue dots show where this stack may move and are also valid cells for Black to drop walls. (in these diagrams, walls are represented by red stones).
	A capture sample If it is Black's turn, he may capture the white stack, by dropping a stack at the green dot (the cell is accessible) and drop two walls at the blue dots (those cells are within the circle of the black stack of size 2). Another possible move would be to secure an area of five cells at the upper left sector, by dropping to walls and a stack near the north edge. Can you see how?

Xana can be played on other board sizes. A good rule of thumb is to initially give 2.N friendly pieces to each player, if the board has edges of N cells (the main variant present here has N=8). I wish to thank Bill Taylor for productive suggestions (especially the split and adding of existing stacks) and several matches that showed Xana as a remarkable game.

Here is a sample game (numbers and letters represent stacks, A=1, B=2, C=3...):

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC         Letters         Numbers
                                   =============================
       . . # . . . . .          1   Ck4  + i4o4     3g8    + e6e10
      . . C # . . . # #         2   Cj11 + g4p3     5o2    + jl3
     # . # # . # 1 2 . .        3   k4k2 + l1f3     o2t3   + m2u2
    . # # . # # # . 1 # #       4   By8  + y6h9     t3>2r3 + w2m4
   . # # . . . . A 1 . # .      5   Bt13 + y10n13   r3>2u4 + wy4
  . # . A . . . . # # # # .     6   Av5  + w6x7     1z7    + x5B7
 . . 1 # . . . . . . . # 1 #    7   y8>1x9 + A8v11  u4>1t5 + g10u6:1
. . 3 # . . . . . . # . # . .   8   x9v10 + x9q14   2z9    + w8z11:1
 . . . # . . . . . . . # 2 .    9   Au12  + r13r15  1f7    + f5d11
  . # # . . . . . . . A # .    10   t13s12 + p13i8  1k14   + l13j15
   # . # C . . . . . # . #     11   Ai6   +  h5h7   1i12   + h11k12??
    . . 1 # . . . B A . .      12   Ar5   +  q4s6   resign
     . . . # # # # . . .       13       
      . . 1 . . # . . .        14        1-0
       . # . . . # . .         15
    
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC                                   

 remaining letter stones: 3 
 remaining digit  stones: 2

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