Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

Yes, I have heard that in abstract discords I’m in

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I don’t necessarily think bigger is better for a lot of abstract games.

Tumbleweed works nicely on like sizes 6, 7 and 8, but if you scale it up too high, the line of sight mechanics are very tedious and the game lengths likely a lot longer.

I’d probably feel similar about something like amazons.

I think games naturally evolve to larger board sizes when they’re popular and competitive enough that the smaller sizes become a bit stale, or one sided.

So there might not be a need to try to force it out of a belief that the game might be better on a bigger board size, just because Go or some other game conceivably is.

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That would probably explain the existence of that argument there.
That is like going to a horticultural discord server and hearing people argue that every building looks better with live vibrant plants in it :slight_smile:

The larger the size, the more complex and more abstract a situation/game/problem becomes. It makes sense that people with that particular interest would like things to be as abstract as possible and in the case of a lot of things that just means “make it bigger!” (another good examples would be puzzles. Larger size for the puzzle, smaller size for the pieces and off they go).

That might be the logic, but I don’t think it’s the point.

I think, but maybe I’m misunderstanding

that at least the tone is implying that some people in abstract discords prefer certain other games to Go, which are on small boards - which may work better or be more interesting on large boards. Or that 9x9 go is a better game than a lot of other games.

It’s a little bit hard to read, being quite a long sentence.

Equally, just because you like Go puzzles, doesn’t mean you’ll like Igo Hatsuyoron 120, because it’s bigger and more complex.

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Historically there were examples of games increased their board sizes but later on abandoned those larger boards and favored smaller ones. One example is the Chinese variations of Chinese chess (or “elephant” game 象戲). Ancient texts describe a variation called 廣象戲 (literally means larger/wider elephant game).

「象戲,戲兵也。黃帝之戰,驅猛獸以為陣,象,獸之雄也,故戲兵而以象戲名之。余為兒時,無他弄,見設局布棋為此戲者,縱橫出竒,愕然莫測,以為小道可喜也。稍長,觀諸家陣法,雖畫地而守,規矩有截,而變化舒捲,出入無倪,其説亦可喜。暇時因求所謂象戲者,欲按之以消永日。蓋局縱橫路十一,棊三十二,為兩軍耳,意苦而狹也。嘗試以局縱橫路十九,棊九十八廣之,意少放焉。然按圖置物,計步而使,終亦膠柱而已矣;而智者用之,則十九者之間,盡強弱之形,九十八者之間,盡死生之勢,而十九、九十八之外,死生強弱可循環無窮。飽食終日,得五說而為之,則涿鹿之縱橫猶目前矣。」

The original texts were written somewhere around the 11th century in the Song Dynasty, which was in the “early development phase” of Chinese chess (although I said early, it was probably already about several hundreds of years when it was widely known in ancient China, but they were still in their original form playing inside the grid with 8x8 in the previous Tang Dynasty, the localization took a while). But by this text in the 11th century, it became playing on an 11x11 board with 32 pieces (and playing on the intersections, instead of inside the grid). And the author went on to describe the larger/wider variation, that played on a 19x19 board using 98 pieces (which was pretty obvious why they tried to play like this, when Go was very popular, but “chess” variants were less popular and relatively new)

We also know these “variants” weren’t just isolated experiments, since we also know a variant of it transmitted into the ancient Korean kingdoms as well, using the same name - 廣象戱. However, it was reduced to 15x14 grids and some 86 pieces and survived to at least the 18th century. (whether the idea of a wider board was transmitted to ancient Korean kingdomes and they developed their own variants, or the variants transmitted, it is hard to say). But later on, both the Chinese and Korean variants settled for a smaller board size of 9x10.

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I’m not saying it follows from a game being good at a small size that it’s better at a large size, I’m just saying it doesn’t follow from a game being good at a small size that it won’t be better at a large size

I think there are fewer designers than devs generally (like it would be silly to have 5 designers and 1 dev, but it’s fine the other way around). But I also wouldn’t be surprised if Go exacerbates the ratio.

Design by evolution hehe

I do think there is merit to a smaller game in other contexts too. I love a good 9x9 both because the physical board is easier to carry, and I dont have to carve out 1 hr to play :smiley:

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You can finish a 19x19 in an hour? Damn :rofl: I usually need the better part of two for a casual game, five for a serious one :sweat_smile:

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Same for over an hour but usually under two. And almost never like 5 even the most serious I played.

Haha no joke. I guess depends who it is. I have one friend who is consistently 3hr plus, other people I can play in under 30 min :upside_down_face: I’d say 1h20m is about the sweet spot for me though

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I take an average of 1 to 2 years to complete a 19x19 game

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I probably play faster in corr than I do in live ironically :sweat_smile:

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When a car comes to a cross road, what is most likely?

  • The car turns right.
  • The car goes straight.
  • The car turns left.
0 voters

If a grenade suddenly lands near your feet, what do you do?

  • Kick it away
  • Pick it up and throw it away
  • Just run away
  • Stay still on the spot to analyse the situation first
0 voters
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I’d probably be thinking about how I was trying to act like some jerk hadn’t startled me with a fake grenade at the time I went boom

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I’d totally not be prepared for a situation like that, so I don’t expect I’d do anything reasonable.

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Incidentally, the “correct” response (jump out of the way and stay close to the ground) is not an option in the poll.

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That probably falls under “just run away”

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On the contrary, running away still presents you as a significant shrapnel target.

It is better than staying there, of course, but you need to reduce the amount of area you present to the grenade, therefore you need to drop on the ground (preferably vertically away from it for the same “reduction of area of effect”, but let’s face it, who has time for that in such an occassion? :melting_face: )

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I am interpreting the options far more generally than you seem to be

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