Diplomatic Go

[shinuito]

Well in some instances it would be clear when only one person plays the capturing move.

Diplomatic Go

This: [image] results in this: [image] While this: [image] results in this: [image]

I think in this post, image one it’s reasonable to say blue captured red, black and green captured blue, black and red captured green, green captured black. So give blue 19, green 40, Black 38, red 18.

Image two - feels more like red didn’t actively capture the big black Group but blue played the finishing blow. Black and blue actively captured green. Red actively captured blacks one stone as did green. Therefore Black gets 19 points. Blue gets 20+18 +1 (new green) points. Red gets 1 Point. Green gets 1 point.

Diplomatic Go

Capturing happens in three stages: Suppose the three players play the following (marked with white stripes) stones: [image] The first stage is placing all the moves on the board. Any connected set of stones of the same colour that contains one stone placed in this stage will be called “new”. The board now looks like: [image] The second stage removes any connected sets of stones of the same colour that aren’t “new” and don’t have any liberties. This would mean the A8 and A9 stones in the…

In these examples with the stages, purple gets 2 points in stage 2 for capturing blue, and in stage 3, purple gets 2 for capturing green and blue gets 2. So purple 4, blue 2 points.

Extrapolating from the examples, in step two of capture, old groups with no liberties are captured, and the most recent (just played stones) that took part in the capture of a different colour group count as capturing said group, those colours receive the points for capture.

That is stones played this turn which have reduced an old group in step 2 from a positive number of liberties to zero will receive points for the capture.

In step 3 new groups with no liberties are captured, again stones played in this turn which reduced the liberties of new groups (of a different colour) from a positive number of liberties to zero, (including a one stone group just played) gets points for the capture.

I think breaking it up into stages like you do anyway and dishing out points in stages with newly placed stones being the ones to ‘claim’ captures could work, but feel free to post counter examples! I think it might also incentivise people to work together to capture groups if they can both receive points from it (other than say just possibly eliminating a player in some cases - could also lead to some funny double crossing potentially).

Re chess, there’s a funny thing where the game continues after one person gets mated but it’s only the last person providing check that gets points for a mate, imagine the instance of double check but the king can’t move out of check. (I think anyway https://youtu.be/JrRVm9lRpfM - apparently there are situations where multiple players gain points at once like with somebody resigning)