One of our assignments was to take one of the ancient games I've previously mentioned (Ur, Senet, etc.) and iterate it in whatever way we think will improve it. I decided on my favourite of the games: Tablut.
The main problem I found with the game was the imbalance as a result of the game being asymmetrical in layout (as opposed to Chess for instance, which has the exact same pieces for each player). I did some research into iterations which other people have decided upon, including some interesting mechanics such as having a 'bid' system to see who plays which side. The idea for the bid is to state in how many turns you can win as the favourable side (white, who must reach the board edge with the king), if the other player accepts then you may play as white, but you MUST finish in that amount of turns otherwise you are considered to have failed. If however the other player decides they can do it in less (bidding higher is not allowed) then they may make that bid instead, this can go on indefinitely until the players finally agree to the other's challenge.
Another less interesting mechanic is to force the players to swap sides and play in two halves, if it's 1-1 then it's not considered a win for either side. This forces players to have the weaker start and does make the game entirely fair, but it a less imaginative approach to the problem, I find.
I decided to go for a little refinement of the mechanics and declared certain spaces as legal to exit upon with the king piece, as well as a few more rule touches here and there to attempt to balance the game without ruining the asymmetrical nature of the game (which I personally find quite appealing).
You don't mention which rules you are using for tablut - there are many unbalanced variants out there, as all most people had access to was an inaccurate translation of a Latin account of the game. If in the rules you saw, the king is captured by surrounding him on four sides, and if he can take part in capturing the enemy, and if he wins on reaching the edge, then this would be unbalanced.
ReplyDeleteMore recently the Latin version has been digitised, so a number of people have noticed the original rules were quite balanced. In short, they have the king captured on four sides only when on the central square, and on three sides when beside it. Everywhere else he's captured in the same way as other pieces. This has been play-tested late last year on a popular hnefatafl web site where many of the best players play, and found to be very balanced.
If you are playing with the rules I mentioned in the first paragraph, then other ways to balance the game are to have the king exit through a corner, or to disallow the king from making captures (the first method introduces its own problems, the second is much better and was used in a 19th century version of the game).
I hope some of this information helps!