Iterations to The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur: Iteration 1

For the first iteration we used 4 Tetrahedral Dice made of paper which were very interesting to make, I played using the route suggested by Bell with the middle area being used as the battlefield. To take a capture a piece and send it to the beginning you would have to land on the piece, very much like chess. No pieces could ever occupy a single square.

Initially playing the game there felt like there was not really a lot of strategic options for the player to take. The player would simply race, there was not very much in the game to offer the player any real choice or sense of control over the game. Dice always add an element of luck to a game but I really wanted to enhance the 'war game' aspect of the game. To get around this I thought it would be a good idea to add a 'king' style mechanic from 'checkers' involving the rosette squares.

The rule I first introduced was that if you land on a rosette square you are given the option of either a second turn or the ability to 'king' the piece on the rosette square you landed on. This added an aspect of perceivable consequence to the game. Players were left with a choice of either moving across the board quicker or controlling the board more. A player could only acquire a 'king' piece if a piece had already exited the board. A 'king' piece could move backwards as well as forwards on the board to allow a player more strategic options. My reasoning behind offering the choice between a second turn and a 'king' piece means that players could opt for a conservative 'race' strategy or an aggressive 'war' strategy.

The goal of the game is always to move all of your pieces to the end of the track although adding a 'king' mechanic allowed for the dynamics of the game to completely change. You could make conscious decisions to move backwards in order to put your opponent further behind. Having a 'king' piece on the board to control the middle area while you let your other pieces travel to the end. The game became more about controlling the middle to gain safe passage for your other pieces.

The Royal Game of Ur: Iteration 2

The first iteration was broken to the point where if you got a 'king' piece before your opponent you almost had a guaranteed win by controlling the entrance of the 'war zone'. The player would be free to allow his other pieces safe passage while the other player would struggle to get a piece past the king unless they captured it and even then, that player would need to be lucky to get a 'king' piece.

In the second iteration I undertook on the Royal Game of Ur, we decided to look more into balancing the dice and how pieces could enter the board because the first iteration although fun I don't feel like there was enough action happening in the middle. Instead of playing rules where pieces could enter as they please, I decided it would be good if pieces could only enter if either you already had a piece in the 'war zone' or you had no pieces on the board. My intention was to create more conflict and give the player with board control at the point in the game the option of either trying to obtain more board control with more pieces or get more of their pieces around the track quicker. If you added another piece to the board through having a piece in the 'war zone' already you would sacrifice your roll and the new piece would be placed on the first square. If you had no pieces and were introducing a piece to the board you would be allowed to roll to attempt to progress.

This added a feedback loop which meant that players who had less control of the board could quickly try to take control back within a couple of turns. The game became less about racing and more about controlling the board and getting as many of your pieces in the fight as possible to capitalize on a lead, for me at least anyway. I always opted for an aggressive game style where my opponent would opt mostly for the speedy route across the board. Racing at the start seemed to give the player an advantage but as I got more pieces on the board and gained control of the board with a 'king' piece I would be able to even the game out and even get ahead.

Most of the capturing of pieces would happen towards the end of the board because an exact roll would be required to exit the board. This made every journey for each piece exciting for both players as this acted as an illusionary feedback loop. Pieces would all reach the end of the board, 'king' pieces really were 'king' pieces at that end of the board and became crucial towards the middle and end of the game.

Conclusion

In conclusion I feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve in forcing a 'war' aspect within the game. The mechanics I introduced shifted the game away from a 'luck based' race game very much towards being a war strategy game where the player is faced with decisions to make every turn. Unfortunately I can't think of any way to take the dice away and make the game all about decision making without really overcomplicating the rules to give certain pieces a set number of squared they can move, in a similar manner to chess.

The issues I faced while iterating this game were definitely more towards keeping the pace of the game up. I wanted the game to feel fast paced as it is a 'race' game. To achieve a fast pace required a lot of careful thought about how the dynamics would shift due to the mechanics being changed.

The end game felt a lot like a checkers/chess hybrid with a race aspect. The game isn't primarily about fighting but racing however with the new mechanics I added the dynamics completely shifted and you really needed to fight to get your pieces to the end of the board, especially with multiple pieces on the board due to the iterated rule regarding pieces being introduced.