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Long time go player here - this is really cool! I only played a little, but it is clear that this game strongly prefers tight extending connections. In go term

Long time go player here - this is really cool! I only played a little, but it is clear that this game strongly prefers tight extending connections. In go terms “territory.” I am not clear if ‘influence’ is as useful a concept here; it seems very strong to make tight connections. One of the many things that make go great is that a range of moves in relation to other stones provide a set of trade offs - more certain connection but less total influence / future territory ‘claimed’ - I’m not clear your variant has this. If so, it would be really useful to explore these move sets and give the player some basic tutorials about them. If it doesn’t, then I humbly suggest you change the rules so that it does. Perhaps tight groups can extend their ‘non placement’ range a little more, or extend their distance at which they connect up to a lone stone? Last note, any beginner go tutorial explains that it costs more stones to live in the middle than it does the side, and that costs more than the corner. I’d be super interested to see some minimal living group definitions in the tutorial. Again, thanks! this is really cool.

igpay 1mo ago
Thanks! Yes, I'm still unsure about how much you can stray from playing tightly connected. I mentioned this in another thread, but I think part of the problem is that the small board is too small. Even though it's 9x9 stones in dimensions, you can "span" the board with only 6 or 7 stones due to the way connectivity works. I think this makes it a bit too hard to play disconnected, but watching some games from stronger players, I think they play less tight and still find a way to win, so idk. The bigger board sizes definitely feel different to me, but I haven't played enough games yet to really know for sure. I'm interested in watching the meta develop. Maybe it will turn out that there really is a dominant strategy and the game is not as deep as Go, but I don't think I've seen enough to start thinking that yet. The discord is pretty active and people discuss strategy a lot if you're interested. Regardless, thanks for playing! https://discord.gg/4ren7UAFeb https://discord.gg/4ren7UAFeb

igpay 1mo ago

Thanks! Yes, I'm still unsure about how much you can stray from playing tightly connected. I mentioned this in another thread, but I think part of the problem is that the small board is too small. Even though it's 9x9 stones in dimensions, you can "span" the board with only 6 or 7 stones due to the way connectivity works. I think this makes it a bit too hard to play disconnected, but watching some games from stronger players, I think they play less tight and still find a way to win, so idk. The bigger board sizes definitely feel different to me, but I haven't played enough games yet to really know for sure. I'm interested in watching the meta develop. Maybe it will turn out that there really is a dominant strategy and the game is not as deep as Go, but I don't think I've seen enough to start thinking that yet. The discord is pretty active and people discuss strategy a lot if you're interested. Regardless, thanks for playing! https://discord.gg/4ren7UAFeb https://discord.gg/4ren7UAFeb