Modern canonical Tafl variants
Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 6:41 am
Hi! I’m started digging around for Tafl resources recently and I’ve been incredibly amazed at how much modern history there is with regards to the development of this game in the last two decades or so—from the rediscovery, the innovation and all the play testing that has been done.
I’ve been thinking of implementing Tafl games on another free correspondence game platform, and I wanted to introduce all the important competitive variants that this community has discovered. It won't be in competition to this site of course, since I intend to only bring the stable variants there for the wider abstract strategy games players to enjoy, while I'm sure that this community will continue to experiment, innovate, and push the boundaries of this genre of games. I will of course point to this site for the rules, and perhaps there may be new people that could be interested in joining the tournaments here as well!
What I need is a good "default" variant (it's hard to change this later, so I have to make sure that it is completely stable), and a good sample of the various variants.
I'm currently leaning on having Historical Hnefatafl 9x9 (Saami Tablut-w) as the default because it seems to be the more elegant and balanced version and it's been used in the 2022 and 2023 WTF tournaments. I understand that Copenhagen has been the dominant variant for a long time, but it's difficult for beginners and the trend seems to be that more people are liking the historical variants recently. Let me know if you feel otherwise, but I think that using Saami Tablut-w would be better in the long term.
As for the variants, these are the ones that I'm thinking of supporting:
I would appreciate some opinions on the choice of the default variant and the selection of variants. Thanks!
I’ve been thinking of implementing Tafl games on another free correspondence game platform, and I wanted to introduce all the important competitive variants that this community has discovered. It won't be in competition to this site of course, since I intend to only bring the stable variants there for the wider abstract strategy games players to enjoy, while I'm sure that this community will continue to experiment, innovate, and push the boundaries of this genre of games. I will of course point to this site for the rules, and perhaps there may be new people that could be interested in joining the tournaments here as well!
What I need is a good "default" variant (it's hard to change this later, so I have to make sure that it is completely stable), and a good sample of the various variants.
I'm currently leaning on having Historical Hnefatafl 9x9 (Saami Tablut-w) as the default because it seems to be the more elegant and balanced version and it's been used in the 2022 and 2023 WTF tournaments. I understand that Copenhagen has been the dominant variant for a long time, but it's difficult for beginners and the trend seems to be that more people are liking the historical variants recently. Let me know if you feel otherwise, but I think that using Saami Tablut-w would be better in the long term.
As for the variants, these are the ones that I'm thinking of supporting:
- Historical Hnefatafl 11x11 (Welsh Tawlbwrdd-w)
- Historical Tawlbwrdd Lewis cross-w 11x11
- Sea battle-2526 9x9 -> Should we go with the w version?
- Sea battle tafl 11x11 [Sea battle T cross 11x11 (Dardell setup)] -> Should we go with the w version?
- Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11
- Berserk Hnefatafl 11x11
- Tyr 15x15
- Tyr 11x11
- Magpie 7x7 [cross]
I would appreciate some opinions on the choice of the default variant and the selection of variants. Thanks!