Epaminondas (game)
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Epaminondas (game)
Epaminondas is a strategy board game invented by Robert Abbott in 1975. The game is named after the Theban general Epaminondas, known for the use of phalanx strategy in combat. The concept of the phalanx is integral to the game. Epaminondas was originally introduced in Sid Sackson's ''A Gamut of Games'' as '' Crossings''. While the original version used an 8×8 checkerboard, the current game uses a 12×14 board and different rules for capture. When published, it claimed to be one of the first modern games to acknowledge the name of its inventor in its rules. Phalanx In the game, a ''phalanx'' is a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of two or more stones of the same color, with no empty spaces or enemy stones between them. A stone may belong to more than one phalanx, depending on the direction considered. Rules Moves White moves first; then turns alternate. * A player can move a single piece one space in any direction (the same as a king in chess Chess is a board game ...
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Robert Abbott (game Designer)
Robert Abbott (March 2, 1933February 20, 2018) was an American game inventor, sometimes referred to by fans as "The Official Grand Old Man of Card Games". Though early in his life he worked as a computer programmer with the IBM 360 assembly language, he began designing games in the 1950s. Abbott 1962, p. 53 Two of his more popular creations include the chess variant Baroque chess (also known as Ultima) and Crossings, which later became Epaminondas. Eleusis was also successful, appearing in several card game collections, such as ''Hoyle's Rules of Games'' Morehead 2001, p. 67 and ''New Rules for Classic Games'', Schmittberger 1992, p. 74 among others. In 1963, Abbott himself released a publication, ''Abbott's New Card Games'', which included instructions for all of his card games, in addition to Baroque chess. Abbott 1963 Abbott also invented logic mazes, the first of which appeared in Martin Gardner's ''Mathematical Games'' column in the October 1 ...
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Board Game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a competition between two or more players. To show a few examples: in checkers (British English name 'draughts'), a player wins by capturing all opposing pieces, while Eurogames often end with a calculation of final scores. '' Pandemic'' is a cooperative game where players all win or lose as a team, and peg solitaire is a puzzle for one person. There are many varieties of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, such as checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as ''Cluedo''. Rules can range from the very simple, such as in snakes and ladders; to deeply complex, as in ''Advanced Squad Leader''. Play components now often include custom figures or shaped counters, and distin ...
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Abstract Strategy Game
Abstract strategy games admit a number of definitions which distinguish these from strategy games in general, mostly involving no or minimal narrative theme, outcomes determined only by player choice (with no randomness), and perfect information. For example, Go is a pure abstract strategy game since it fulfills all three criteria; chess and related games are nearly so but feature a recognizable theme of ancient warfare; and Stratego is borderline since it is deterministic, loosely based on 19th-century Napoleonic warfare, and features concealed information. Definition Combinatorial games have no randomizers such as dice, no simultaneous movement, nor hidden information. Some games that do have these elements are sometimes classified as abstract strategy games. (Games such as '' Continuo'', Octiles, '' Can't Stop'', and Sequence, could be considered abstract strategy games, despite having a luck or bluffing element.) A smaller category of abstract strategy games manages to ...
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Strategy Game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game (e.g. a board game) in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous, decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Almost all strategy games require internal decision tree-style thinking, and typically very high situational awareness. Strategy games are also seen as a descendant of war games, and define strategy in terms of the context of war, but this is more partial. A strategy game is a game that relies primarily on strategy, and when it comes to defining what strategy is, two factors need to be taken into account: its complexity and game-scale actions, such as each placement in a Total War series. The definition of a strategy game in its cultural context should be any game that belongs to a tradition that goes back to war games, contains more strategy than the average video game, contains certain gameplay conventions, and is represented by a particular community. Although war is dominant in strate ...
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Board Game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a competition between two or more players. To show a few examples: in checkers (British English name 'draughts'), a player wins by capturing all opposing pieces, while Eurogames often end with a calculation of final scores. '' Pandemic'' is a cooperative game where players all win or lose as a team, and peg solitaire is a puzzle for one person. There are many varieties of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, such as checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as ''Cluedo''. Rules can range from the very simple, such as in snakes and ladders; to deeply complex, as in ''Advanced Squad Leader''. Play components now often include custom figures or shaped counters, and distin ...
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Epaminondas
Epaminondas (; grc-gre, Ἐπαμεινώνδας; 419/411–362 BC) was a Greek general of Thebes and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent position in Greek politics called the Theban Hegemony. In the process, he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years after being defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also militarily influential and invented and implemented several major battlefield tactics. Xenophon, the historian and contemporary, is the main source for Epaminondas' military prowess, and Xenophon describes his admiration for him in his major work '' Hellenica'' (book VII, chap. ...
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Phalanx Formation
The phalanx ( grc, φάλαγξ; plural phalanxes or phalanges, , ) was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar pole weapons. The term is particularly used to describe the use of this formation in ancient Greek warfare, although the ancient Greek writers used it to also describe any massed infantry formation, regardless of its equipment. Arrian uses the term in his ''Array against the Alans'' when he refers to his legions. In Greek texts, the phalanx may be deployed for battle, on the march, or even camped, thus describing the mass of infantry or cavalry that would deploy in line during battle. They marched forward as one entity. The term itself, as used today, does not refer to a distinctive military unit or division (e.g., the Roman legion or the contemporary Western-type battalion), but to the type of formation of an army's troops. Therefore, this term does not indicate a standard comb ...
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Sid Sackson
Sid Sackson (February 4, 1920 in Chicago – November 6, 2002) was an American board game designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game ''Acquire''. Career Sackson's most popular creation is probably the business game ''Acquire''. Other games he designed include '' Can't Stop'' and ''Focus'' (''Domination''), which won the prestigious German Spiel des Jahres game design award in 1981. Other notable works include his books, especially ''A Gamut of Games'' and '' Card Games Around the World''; both titles include a large array of rules for games both new and old, and Sackson himself invented a number of the games covered by these works. For several years in the mid-1970s, Sid Sackson wrote a monthly column for ''Strategy & Tactics'' magazine called “Sackson on Games” in which he reviewed games (other than wargames). Sackson's book collection was arranged in groups of five books so he would know if a book was missing and which one it was. Sackson collec ...
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A Gamut Of Games
''A Gamut of Games'' is an innovative book of games written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969. It contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been published. It is considered by many hobbyist gamers to be an essential text for anyone interested in abstract strategy games, and a number of the rules were later expanded into full-fledged published board games. Some of the games which were later sold separately include Focus, Property and Origins of World War I; Robert Abbott expanded his game Crossings, published here, into the more-refined title Epaminondas. Many of the games covered in the book were creations of Sid Sackson himself, who was a prolific game designer. Book Sections The sections of the book and the games covered therein are as follows: In Search of Big and Little Games *''Blue and Gray'', a board game by Henry Busch and Arthur Jaeger *'' Hekaton'', a card game originally publ ...
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Crossings (game)
Crossings is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Robert Abbott. The rules were published in Sid Sackson's ''A Gamut of Games''. Crossings was the precursor to Epaminondas Epaminondas (; grc-gre, Ἐπαμεινώνδας; 419/411–362 BC) was a Greek general of Thebes and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent posit ..., which uses a larger board and expanded rules. Gameplay Equipment * 1 8x8 gameboard * 32 stones (16 of each color) Setup This is the starting position of Crossings. Object * Cross one stone to the opponent's end of the gameboard. Turns * Play alternates with each player making one movement on a turn. * Red takes the first turn. Movement A ''group'' is a series of one or more same-colored stones adjacent to one another in a line. (diagonal, horizontal, or vertical) A stone may belong to one or more groups. * A player may move a single ston ...
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Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. The rules of chess as we know them today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no use of dice or cards. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, t ...
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Games (magazine)
''GAMES World of Puzzles'' is a puzzle magazine formed from the merger of Games and World of Puzzles in October 2014. The entire magazine interior is now newsprint (as opposed to the part-glossy/part-newsprint format of the original ''Games'') and the puzzles and articles that originally sandwiched the "Pencilwise" section are now themselves sandwiched ''by'' the main puzzle pages, replacing the "feature puzzle" section. (They are still full-color, unlike the two-color "Pencilwise" sections.) Like the original ''World of Puzzles'' (which is now discontinued), the answer key is now at the rear of the magazine. The new combined title remained on the same 9-issue-per-year publication schedule as the original ''Games''. Games ''Games'' magazine (ISSN 0199-9788) was a magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and it was published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group. History Games was originally published by ''Playboy'' (debuting with the September/October 1977 i ...
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