Talk:Hexano

This was independantly developed by Joe Peterson as Mini-Hexano, without the one full tree rule. That rule makes the game playable.

Other interesting board topologies that I will soon try are 5x5 offset hexes

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And 6x6 offset hexes... which might take some time.  ;) -JEEP

Playable?

Somebody above said "That rule makes the game playable." Are you saying that omitting that rule makes your Hexano playable? Or something else?

Please always sign your posts on talk/discussion pages. Typing four tildes after your comment ( ~~~~ ) will insert a signature showing your username and a date/time stamp, which are both very helpful, since messages are not listed chronologically. Rootbeer 06:06, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

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That was me (it's signed, just not clearly...). The addition of the rule that you must have a full tree makes the game playable. The version I developed was identical except for that added rule. My version was terribly short and no fun to play. -JEEP 07:32, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

Thanks for the clarification. And don't take the note about the tildes too seriously. That's just something to put into a Talk: page whenever you can't see right away who's saying what, so that newcomers will know to sign their postings. But please edit {{{tilde}}} if what it says seems harsh. Cheers! Rootbeer 08:19, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

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I never knew about Joe Peterson's version. I suspected I wasn't the first to think of it, but never saw anything out there. The rationale for the full-tree requirement in my version was to slow the game down. I like Mega Volcano over Volcano for much the same reason - it's harder to get ahead in terms of points while still progressing towards getting all the colors - the game is "slower", making it a bit more of a tactical challenge. Jeremiah 19:41, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

I understand and wish I'd thought of it. I had given up on this board topology. I hadn't made my rules public for this game because I didn't think it was any good. I was surprised that they hadn't been created, so I created it- then I found that they had been. Wiki's are good. Any suggestions on the various boards? I like the offset boards a lot, but haven't playtested them enough yet. -JEEP 20:14, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

I'll have to give the offset 5x5 topology a try. I've never even considered something like that. It seems like it would be quite a nice idea. I'm also thinking that we should start discussing board topologies in general, beyond the scope of Volcano-style games. I've created an entry here: Game Board Topology - Jeremiah 22:56, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

Playtest results

As I said before, I had given up on this when I came up with it. Then I saw the additional requirement to have a tree. I played it once and it was much better, so I decided to try it again. We playtested Hexano at lunch today. The requirement for a full same-color tree does help the game a lot; however, it's still too easy to move around. There is little that can be done to impede your opponent. And w/o playing for points, you don't really care if you set up double captures. Even if you do count points, it's not quite there yet. So we tried another variation: 6 colors with 3 of each color + 1 additional red nest.

It worked out pretty well. Playing to go out seems to be better than playing for points. With only 4 caps, it was a lot easier to make some defensive placement of caps before you erupt anything. Overall, it played much better. The 6 colors was a nice way to extend the game. It makes me think that 4 colors with only 4 caps would be a good thing to try.

Things left to experiment with: Hexano rules with 5 nests of YGB and 4 nests of red with caps. After seeing how much only having 4 caps helped reduce maneuverability, I think this is a worthy thing to try. 134.134.136.2 20:40, 31 May 2005 (GMT) This was me... -JEEP 21:15, 31 May 2005 (GMT)

Four caps seems like a significant improvement to me, to the point where it ought to be incorporated into the principal rules. --Carthoris 01:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)