Two Merchants, or not Two Merchants

that is the question…

And the short answer is; I am changing the default starting layouts for all three versions of NXS.  The short, medium, and long game are all changing (in two-player games) to a single-merchant version.

All of the new layouts are posted on my website.

The problem:

No matter how many times I have played NXS, there is just no substitute for thousands of eyes on something.  As of this writing, over 3000 people have played NXS on Board Game Arena.  And they have played over 2300 games.

Some of these players are very clever people.  Since the Merchant ship (the 3-0 piece) cannot be captured, many players have realized that if you place your Merchants correctly, you can create an impenetrable border position.  By impenetrable, I mean that there is no way for you to initiate any action that can progress the game forward.  You can offer to sacrifice a piece, they can choose not to take it.  You can “open” your border, allowing your opponent the opportunity to slip in and take territory, and they can choose not to accept.  True, they cannot win this way, but they can choose not to progress the game, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to force the action.

Possible solutions:

One possible solution would be to add some sort of “chess-like” rule regarding repeated board positions.  So if the two players are just moving the same respective piece back and forth, then the game is a draw. The problem here is that one player might not want a draw.  They may just want to drive their opponent nuts until they open their border enough, or leave enough pieces undefended, and then finally attack.  They might “fiddle” pieces in the back, never repeating a position two turns in a row.  NXS shouldn’t be contest to see who flinches first.

The solution for that would be to have a rule about “progressing the game”.  So if one player can be said to be holding up the game, not progressing forward into their opponent’s territory in other words, then would it be a loss for the stalling player?  But what if neither player is progressing the game?  A draw I suppose.  But defining this as a clean rule would be challenging to say the least.

NXS is a pretty clean game in terms of rules, and I really don’t want to add a new one unless absolutely needed.  And, frankly, I’d rather have a game where a draw is extremely unlikely, or even impossible.

And, at least for me, the stuck border situation just isn’t fun.  It reminds me a bit of Terrace.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Terrace.  But it does suffer from “stuck” corner positions.  Especially in the long game, or the four person game.  You often get these painful high corner situations where nobody can really do anything, and it definitely takes some of the fun out of the game.  I don’t want that for NXS.

The good news:

The great thing about this situation is that it is remarkably easy to solve without adding a rule to NXS.  By design, the starting position layouts are flexible.  If you don’t like one, or there is a problem, then just pick a new layout!  So, I created single-merchant layouts for each of the official starting setups.

With a single merchant, an impenetrable border position just isn’t possible.  Yes, I miss having two merchants.  Getting a couple of merchants deep into enemy territory and forcing them to block your territory capture (and thus not focus on their attack) is a strategy I have employed many times.  Setting up your pieces behind a couple of merchants and forcing a wedge into your opponent’s territory is a blast, and it’s hard to defend against.  But honestly, they can also become a crutch when all you do is race them to the border and park comfortably behind an impenetrable wall.  I was as guilty as anyone of this tactic.

The even better news is that if you don’t like the new default layouts, there is nothing stopping you from from using the originals, or any starting setup you want!