A territory-war take on Go: both sides deploy on their own half of a 19x19 board, build strongholds in the opening, and score by encircling, sieging and capturing in the opponent’s zone. Capturing/sieging on your own side replenishes troops.
Key rules (v9.0)
Opening: the first 4 moves must be in your own territory and become automatic strongholds.
Scoring: enclosed area +2/pt, sieged stones +3/stone, captures +4/stone, stronghold bonus +10, war casualties −1/stone — all in the attack zone.
komi 5 for White; 90 pieces per side.
Playable
You can try it right now — it’s a web app, no install needed:
Siege (enemy groups with no liberties, in the attack zone): +3 / captured stone. Capture in the attack zone: +4 / captured stone (ordinary stones).
How exactly does siege work? For example say I reduce an opponents group to zero liberties in my attack zone, what happens? Is it a siege or capture?
The rules description uses two distinct concepts for the word “territory”, which is easy to misunderstand. Namely for defining zones (black territory, white territory) and for scoring (encircled empty points).
The borderline is part of both the attack zone and the defend zone. I assume this is intentional and works with the other rules, but might be unintuitive for players as it’s easy to assume that the two zones don’t overlap.
A scenario I’m particularly uncertain about is when I capture stones on the border line. Since it’s in my attack zone, I would score, but it’s also in my defense zone, so I replenish groups instead of scoring.
Am I understanding correctly that, when a player runs out of groups to deploy, this player must pass for the rest of the game … ? Then the other player can play stones into their territories. Would that make it so those territories don’t count as points, or does territory somehow take life / death group status into consideration? (I’m thinking similar to Japanese go rules, though I’m not sure how that would exactly work for this variant)
Thanks for the great questions, martin3141 — let me clarify how the current v9.0 engine actually handles these.
**1) Siege vs. capture.** They’re separate events checked on the same move. Under the standard “no liberties = removed” capture rule, a group reduced to zero liberties is removed immediately — that is a **capture** (+4/stone in your attack zone). **Siege** (+3/stone) is judged separately on the live position: an enemy group with no real liberties yet still on the board. So one move can push a group from “sieged” status into an actual removal; siege points accrue while it lingers.
**2) Border line is both attack and defense zone — yes, deliberately.** In capture resolution the two checks are independent: a stone captured **on the border line** (row 10) simultaneously scores +4 (attack-zone capture) *and* grants +1 troop replenishment (defense-zone capture). I agree the overlap can read as unintuitive, and I’ll add a clarifying note to the rules.
**3) When you run out of pieces.** You must pass for the rest of the game; the opponent may keep deploying into your territory. Those points do **not** score for you: enclosure scoring only counts empty legal points surrounded by your own stones and excludes enemy living stones inside. So your territory is evaluated live with life/death, analogous to Japanese rules — dead groups at the end are treated as captured, living ones stand.
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And thanks for the cross-link, space_defender! One note: that “Brand New Concept of Go” post describes an **early draft** (default 120 pieces, +0.5 komi). The current **v9.0** ruleset — merged into govariants and playable now — uses **90 pieces, komi +5**, and adds **strongholds** (+10), **troop replenishment** on defense-zone captures, a **deploy phase** (first 4 moves in your own territory), optional **war fog**, and byo-yomi timing. I’ll update the old post to avoid confusion.
Fair point — my previous explanation was sloppy. Under the engine’s rules a group with zero liberties is **immediately removed** (standard “no liberty = captured”), so it can never linger on the board. Ignore that phrasing.**Siege is a live status, not a liberty test.** A group is marked *sieged* when it is simultaneously (1) effectively surrounded, (2) has no two true eyes, and (3) fewer than **8** legal empty points remain inside it. Crucially, such a group **still has liberties** — the moment it loses its last one it’s captured and removed, and any siege score is reversed. The +3/stone siege score is charged ONCE, the moment a group first enters the sieged state; it is reversed (−3/stone) the moment that siege ends — by making life, escaping, regaining ≥8 legal points, or being captured.So siege and capture aren’t an either/or: a group is typically *sieged first* (still on board, +3/stone once, charged at entry), then *captured* when reduced to zero liberties (+4/stone in your attack zone). On your own side of the border, sieging replenishes troops (+1 per 2 newly sieged stones) instead of scoring.
Good catch — in standard (English) Go terms this is indeed essentially what’s usually called a *dead group*. The sieged state here is the same core judgment: no two true eyes and no way to escape.
Two deliberate deviations from how “dead” is usually used, though:
**It’s reversible & dynamic, not a final verdict.** In normal Go, “dead” is settled at the end as a territory attribution. Here, siege is a *live, reversible status*: the defender can make life, escape, or reach ≥8 legal interior points, and the moment that happens the siege score is reversed. So a group can be “dead” now, come back to life, and die again.
**It scores as a one-time event, then reverses.** When a group first enters the sieged state, the surrounding player is charged +3/stone (once, attack zone only); when the siege ends, that charge is refunded (−3/stone). It’s not accumulating while the stones sit there.
**Same term, real confusion.** I’m keeping “siege” for the dynamic-zone scoring concept partly because “dead” already carries the endgame connotation. But if the community reads “sieged” as “a subtype of dead,” that’s actually fine — it *is* a dead-group rule, just with a live score attached. Happy to relabel if that reads clearer.
Hey Benjamin — thanks for this, and for all your work on GoVariants. Point taken on the AI text.
To be honest, my English is only basic — I write these in Chinese and have to lean on an assistant to translate, which is the main reason the rule explainers read the way they do. I’ll keep replies in plain, natural language from here on and try to sound less like a machine.
One thing I’ll fix right away: the escaped `\*` marks — that was sloppy, not intended.
If anything in those rule posts reads oddly because of the translation, tell me and I’ll re-explain in my own words. Thanks for the heads-up.
Ah, that makes sense now — thanks for clearing that up. I thought it was feedback on the thread, didn’t realise it was the private message. Either way, fair point, and I’ll keep replies more natural from here on.
Also good to know you’re the same person from GitHub/GoVariants — I wasn’t sure until now.
My interpretation is that white gets 5 points komi, and black gets 4 points for the lower-right (2 points per territory in blacks attack zone). That sums up to a difference of W + 1.
Does that mean that white did not get points for the upper-left? I thought that the black stone is under siege.
Can you explain exactly how this position should get scored / is getting scored by the implementation on govariants?
You ran into a bug，White should score 7 here = +3 sieged stone + 2 (its point) + 2 (empty point in the enclosure). If later captured: first revert siege −3/stone, then settle capture +4/stone. Feel free to submit your own rule ideas.
Real-time scores are grouped into three categories for display (matching the UI):
Occupation Score = Enclosure Score + Siege Score: earned by enclosing (+2 per empty point) and besieging (+3 per besieged stone, a state score) in the opponent’s territory or on the border line. Enclosures and sieges in your own territory do not count toward Occupation Score.
Defense Score = Capture Score: capturing an opponent’s stone earns +4 per stone, regardless of the captured stone’s location; captures in your own territory also count toward Defense Score.
Casualty Score: each stone you lose to capture costs +1, deducted from the total.
Stronghold Reward (+10 per capture) is settled separately and is not merged into Occupation or Defense.
White additionally gets +5 komi at the end of the game.
Core principle: enclosing, besieging and capturing in the opponent’s territory or on the border line score points; doing so in your own territory scores nothing. Capturing always earns +4 (regardless of location) and does not replenish troops; only besieging can replenish troops.
3. Enclosure Score
Forming a valid enclosure in the opponent’s territory or on the border line, each countable empty point inside earns +2.
Countable empty points = total intersections inside - your occupied points - opponent’s living occupied points.
Points occupied by the opponent’s besieged stones count toward your enclosure score.
Enclosures inside your own territory earn nothing.
4. Capture Score
Capturing an opponent’s stone earns +4 each.
Score is independent of the captured stone’s location: whether it lies in the opponent’s territory, your own territory, or on the border line, it is always worth +4 per stone.
Capturing does not replenish troops (siege replenishment is covered in Rule 1).
A multi-stone capture accumulates by count and is never clawed back.
5. Siege Score
Siege score is a state score: when stones enter besiegement, the besieging side earns +3 each; when the besiegement disappears, that score is immediately deducted.
Besiegement disappears when: siege is lifted (making life, breaking out, or free legal points >= 8) or the stones are captured.
Awarded only when the besieged stones lie in the opponent’s territory or on the border line.
Besieging in your own territory earns nothing but restores troops.
6. Strongholds
The 2 stones each side plays during the deployment phase automatically become strongholds.
Capturing an opponent’s stronghold: extra +10.
A besieged stronghold is not considered captured; only actual capture triggers it.
Endgame on total stronghold loss: if a side’s 2 strongholds are both captured, the game ends immediately, settled by current total score (including komi).
Capturing a stronghold does not count toward casualty score.
7. Casualty Score
Each stone captured costs you +1 of casualty score, deducted from the total.
for those in the thread, this was in response to a private message I sent..
