Post originally by Shannon Appelcline at 2004-08-04 11:30:23
Converted from Phorums BB System

<i>Is there a valid chance of The Tuchulcha player winning?</i>

Well, keep in mind that if you choose Tuchulcha it's because you're in a losing position. You probably already have two pieces in the Woods very early in the game. I definitely think that choosing to play Tuchulcha improves your lot in life, though you're still the underdog.

As for whether they can win: I think so. If you look at the picture at the very top of the review, it shows the game just as Tuchulcha (black) was eliminated when blue slid into the central altar. As you can see, red was already eliminated, blue had just two pieces left, a full quarter-turn from home, and yellow (Vecuvia) was down to its last piece. Black had successfully been fending off red from getting home and also yellow from getting toward its last seal, but it just hadn't remained positioned well enough to deal with blue as well.

In any case, it felt close enough that I had no objections to playing Tuchulcha (which I was).

(Vecuvia eventually won that game, because with black out there was no one close enough to stop him from putting down his last seal.)

<i>Similiarly, the Vecuvia player. While the normal players have the basic backgammon strategy to work with, it would appear that Vecuvia is 100% purely random.</i>

I'd agree that the Vecuvia player has a very high degree of randomness, and less opportunity for strategy or tactics than the other players. There still is some, primarily in keeping your pawn far enough from the passage that multiple dice can take you in (e.g., 1 space from the passage is clearly worse than 6 because for 1 space you only have 1 in 3 die rolls that can carry you in ["1-X" or "X-1"] while the number is slightly higher for 6 ["6-X", "X-6", "1-5", "5-1", "2-4", "4-2", "3-3", "3-3"], or about 1 in 2 if my quick calculation is right.) And, there's still strategy in trying to make sure you're not hit by the other players through good positioning. But, yes, less.

That might make him less fun to play for, say, me, but I'm sure some folks won't mind, and I also think his presence makes the game a lot more fun for all the others players.

Shannon