This game was invented by C.S. Elliott (or Elliot?) in 1976. Apocalypse is a simple and fast game whose special flavour comes from an original playing mechanism, which is scarcely seen: instead of moving their pawns alternatively, the players secretly write down their orders and then resolve the move by playing orders simultaneously. It's not enough to look for the different orders combinations, one must also take in account the opponent's psychology.
1. Rules
The game is played on a 5x5 board. Black and white players have 2 knights and 5
pawns each. The initial position of a game is shown below. You'll also need two
game sheets to write down orders and maybe two books for the secrecy of writing.
abcde +----- 1|HxxxH C: white horseman (Horseman=Cavalier in French) 2|x...x o: white pawn 3|..... H: black horseman 4|o...o x: black pawn 5|CoooCThe aim of the game is to capture all the opponent's pawns. The game is drawn if both players lose simultaneously their last pawn or if nobody has a legal order. A move is separated in two phases:
First phase: writing intentions of play
Both players secretly write their orders, by specifying the
start and end squares of the piece they want to move.
The knight moves or captures as in chess by making two steps in one
direction then one step orthogonally. The knight can jump over pieces.
The pawn moves one step forward if the square above is empty, and it "captures"
diagonally forward if the corresponding square contains an opponent piece
before the move (but that piece may have been ordered to move, then the pawn
will move diagonally without capturing). The pawn can't move backward or laterally.
A player cannot give the order to move to a square already occupied by one
of his own piece.
I recommend that once the orders are written, both players exchange their
game sheet, write again their order and resolve the move (see second phase).
Second phase: resolution
When both orders are known, the following rules apply:
Bibliography:
Jeux & stratégie 40, august 1986, p.63 (French game magazine)
Larousse des jeux, 1999 edition, p.233 (French encyclopaedia of games)
2. Sample games
The first wasn't played, but composed to show all the rules. Will you find a shorter one?
;2007/12/31 1.e4e3 d1d2 ;no interference (1) 2.e3d2 d2e3 ;double missed capture (3.iii) 3.e5c4 e3e4 4.d2d1 e4e5 ;double pawn put back (4.iii) 5.b5b4 a2a3 6.c4a3 a3b4 ;missed capture (3.ii) + capture (3.i) 7.c5b4 b4b5 c4 ;pawn put back (4.ii) 8.a3c2 e1c2 ;double identical collision (2.i) 9.b4b3 a1b3 ;double different collision (2.ii) 10.a5b3 c4c5 ;promotion (4.i) 11.e5e4 c5b3 12.d5d4 b3d4 13.e4e3 d4b5 14.a4a3 b5a3 15.**** a3c2 ;no legal moves (5) 16.**** c2e3 ;end of game, black wins (6)
The second game was played against Jacques, a friend in my local chessclub
who is kind enough to cope with my eccentricities. He accepted a game just
after being shown the rules:
;2008/01/12 Jacques - Alain
1.e4e3 e1d3 2.e5d3 d3c5 3.d3c1 c5a4 4.c1e2 a4c3 5.e2c3 c3b5 6.c3b5 b5c3
7.d5d4 c3d5 8.b5c3 a1c2 9.c3d1 d5e3 10.d4d3 e3d1 11.a5c4 d1b2 12.d3c2 b2d3
;black's 13... b1c2 wins in any case
Two more games, one against Jacques and another one against Sylvain,
who also learned the rules at the same time:
;2008/01/25 Alain - Jacques
1.Ha5b3 Ha1b3 2.He5d3 He1d3 3.d5d4 d1d2 4.e4e3 d2d3 5.c5c4 b1b2
6.c4c3 d3c4 7.b5c4 c4c5 8.c3b2 b2c3 9.b2c1 Hc5a4 10.Hc1e2 c3d4
11.He2c3 Ha4c3 12.e3e2 d4d5 13.e2e1 Hd5c3 14.He1d3 a2a3 15.Hd3e1 Hc3a4
16.He1c2 Ha4b2 17.Hc2a3 Hb2c4 ;draw
;2008/01/25 Alain - Sylvain
1.Ha5b3 Ha1c2 2.Hb3c1 Hc2e3 3.Hc1a2 He1d3 4.Ha2c3 Hd3e5 5.d5d4 b1b2
6.Hc3d1 He3c2 7.d4d3 b2b3 8.d3c2 Hc2a3 9.a4b3 b3a4 10.c2c1 a4b5 a1
11.Hc1e2 He5c4 12.He2c1 Hc4d2 13.b3b2 Hd2e4 14.b2a1 Ha3b1 ; white wins
3. Strategy/Tactics in Opening/Middlegame/Endings
Due to the symmetry and move simultaneity, it's obvious no player has an
advantage over the other. But the optimal (drawing) strategy does not exist,
since the outcome of any strategy depends upon the simultaneous moves of the
opponent.
So one can only hope the opponent will make very bad moves (that exists)
or will have a stereotyped behaviour that will make us find a strategy against him.
In progress...
4. Program
In progress...
The first version of it is available here:
apocalypse.zip.
I hope things will evolve quite fast this month (january 2008), but
for the moment the only thing the program does is reading a game
written in a textfile, test laglity of moves and update the board accordingly.
To test it, call it from a do$ prompt (start>programs>accessories>dos prompt)
with a game written in a textfile (the example above is provided).
For example
C:\baah\c>apoc apoc_tst.txt verbose
It will execute orders and show the resulting position:
;Game won by black. ; abcde ; +----- ;1|.xxx. ;2|....x ;3|....H ;4|..... ;5|.....You can try uncommenting some of the moves (by adding semicolons) to see the game at different stages.
5. Insight into programming
It might get a bit technical here, but i'll try to give only the
important ideas.
.....# #.....# #.....# #.....# #.....Please note that standard tests such as looking if the destination square is occupied by a friendly piece, etc, are not treated here.
abrobecker_at_yahoo.com