Adam wrote:I am up for testing the copenhagen interpretation, where the king can appear to both win and draw simultaneously. It sounds like a lot of fun. Before we know it we'll have sappers quantum tunneling through the draw fort walls.
We have Hnefatafl players very well informed in quantum physics here!
Adam wrote:My concern is that white is in fact getting yet another form of leverage over black. I find the bunker particularly easy to form in games, its the easiest to prepare for while pretending to do something else, and is quite hard to prevent unless you keep the board edge busy as black.
I'm in the end game of an instructive Copenhagen test game with crust right now. It turned out that the opening and middle game remained pure Fetlar, unaffected by the two rule additions, except that now the center draw-fort option is off. There did not seem to be space for a fort at the edges until the end game where black has only 16 pieces left, 12 of which are blocking the corners and 4 left to fight white. White is left with king and 5 men. Even then it doesn't appear to be easy to create this fort, and even more difficult when the king should end up inside and moving. Although I think that a stronger player would manage to do it.
Adam wrote:Edge forts seem to be a good way forward. They make sense as they bring to mind forging a connection to the outside world of reinforcements and supplies which can perpetuate a siege.
White pieces on the board edge bring to my mind that they do connect to the surrounding terrain of the board. And so can be imagined to enter that terrain, circumvent and re-enter the board from another direction, killing blacks and breaking the barrier from outside, and so the game is not definitely over yet but a draw. I guess this is actually also the idea behind the edge fort win; the king is connected to the surrounding terrain, running and cannot be captured, so he escaped.
The games archive contains in all 383 Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11 games since 2010.12.23, of which only 29 are draws. Some of the "draw games" are test games or abandoned games because of applet deadlock or some other reason and are ignored.
Left are 15 draw games. With the suggested Copenhagen rules, 8 would remain draws and the rest turn into 1 white win and 6 black wins. This seems to be but a small change and a modest price for voiding all early draws.
It's interesting that these draw games give examples of about all draw types.
crust / Hagbard. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 91 moves, 2012-01-23 19:07:05 (correspondence) draw
Hagbard / Angle. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 79 moves, 2012-01-11 12:31:18 (live play) draw
chuck ward / Hagbard. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 27 moves, 2012-01-05 22:25:04 (correspondence) draw
Center fort. Would be encircled and turned into a black win.
Adam / crust. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 100 moves, 2011-08-31 23:09:46 (live play) draw
Fine example of a garbo fort. Would still be a draw.
Roderich (tourn.) / crust (tourn.). Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 132 moves, 2011-08-15 20:31:09 (live play) draw
Draw by agreement. Would still be a draw.
Adam (tourn.) / Roderich (tourn.). Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 36 moves, 2011-08-14 21:39:16 (live play) draw
Perpetual check. Would still be a draw.
Hagbard (tourn.) / Roderich (tourn.). Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 50 moves, 2011-08-12 17:53:15 (live play) draw
Center fort. Would be encircled and turned into a black win.
Repoupoune / Roderich. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 43 moves, 2011-08-11 20:28:59 (live play) draw
Perpetual check. Would still be a draw.
Adam (tourn.) / Jonas (tourn.). Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 74 moves, 2011-08-04 22:09:58 (live play) draw
Edge fort with moving king. Would be turned into a white win.
Jonas (tourn.) / Adam (tourn.). Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 44 moves, 2011-08-04 21:48:31 (live play) draw
cosinus / Hjalte. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 62 moves, 2011-07-15 21:56:44 (live play) draw
Center fort. Would be encircled and turned into a black win.
Hagbard / sea slug. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 43 moves, 2011-05-13 20:44:36 (live play) draw
Perpetual check. Would still be a draw.
Pedro / crust. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 64 moves, 2011-02-13 16:26:26 (live play) draw
Edge fort with non-moving king! Would still be a draw.
Hugues / MaC. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 73 moves, 2011-02-06 16:08:27 (live play) draw
Hugues / crust. Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11, 31 moves, 2011-01-27 20:24:08 (live play) draw
Perpetual check. Would still be a draw.
A recent analysis on the Fetlar balance gave (2012.01.30)
Hagbard wrote:The count shows for Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11:
16 white wins (defenders) = 44%
14 black wins (attackers) = 39%
6 draws = 17%
Copenhagen rules used on those 6 draws give:
Adam Roderich 0.5-0.5
Perpetual check. Would still be a draw.
Adam Jonas 0.5-0.5
Edge fort with moving king. Would be turned into a white win.
crust Hagbard 0.5-0.5
Jonas Adam 0.5-0.5
Hagbard Roderich 0.5-0.5
Center fort. Would be encircled and turned into a black win.
MaC crust 0.5-0.5
Draw by agreement. Would still be a draw.
which changes the 6 draws into 2 draws, 1 white win and 3 black wins
resulting in a balance for Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11 of
17 white wins (defenders) = 47%
17 black wins (attackers) = 47%
2 draws = 6%