…and my personal aversion to draws.
I admit it. I am biased against draws. If a game ends in a high proportion of draws, I consider it a flaw. One of my goals when designing NXS was to have a draw-less game. As far as I can determine, especially since I removed the second Merchant from the standard two-person setups, NXS can’t really end in a draw. Even if one player loses every ship but the Merchant, the other player still has a Merchant plus one other ship, which is enough to win (assuming you are playing to 10).
However, a player recently asked me about a hypothetical rare end condition that I had not considered. “What if I move in such a way that I give myself 10 spaces, but also give my opponent 10?” Under the current rules, this would be illegal:
It is illegal to move in such a way that you give your opponent enough territory to win, except:
Close call victory
If moving one of your pieces will give your opponent the requisite number of spaces to win, but will also give you more territory than your opponent, you still win the game.
Example: Moving your piece gives your opponent 10 spaces, but also gives you 11 or more, you win the game in a close call.
But should it be? Here my personal aversion to draws is clearly coming through. If I move my piece in such a way as to give both my opponent and myself exactly 10 (or 11 or 12 for that matter), should that actually be a draw? And here is where the rare game ending comes into play. What if I can’t give myself a “close call” win, but if I don’t, my opponent will be able to win on their next move? Clearly it would be to my advantage to force a draw instead.
Should I allow for a draw in this rare situation? And if I do, how do I program it on BGA 😉
the NXS nexus 