triccasta
Adding diplomacy to Accasta.
board setup
Triccasta is an Accasta variant for 3 players. The board is enlarged and provides 60 cells now. It is still a six-sided board, but now it rather looks like a triangle with cut off corners.
Figure 1: The Triccasta board and the initial setup.
The number of cells is equal to the number of pieces on the board. So this is more or less the space/pieces ratio of the original game, where 40 pieces are placed on 37 cells.
However, distances have changed. Chariots are closer together, whereas there is more space in the center of the board.
third player
The third player is provided with 20 pieces of golden color.
Figure 2: Golden Shield, Horse, and Chariot
The official rules remain unchanged. However, some issues must be adjusted or rephrased:
sequence of play
White starts making the first move, then it's Blue's, and lastly Gold's turn. After that, players continue to move in this order.
forced pass
There can (rarely) be a situation where a player cannot make a (legal) move. This player must now pass his turns until one of his pieces are released or an opponent makes a move which enables the blocked player to take part in the game again. However, as in the original game, it is not allowed to pass a turn, when a move is possible.
winning the game
There still is only one winner. At the end the other two players lose the game. A single player cannot resign, only two of the players can do according to an agreement. All 3 players have to agree to a drawn game. One player can propose a draw and the others can accept that. However, if one player refuses that proposal, the game continues.
A player wins, if he can place three of his stacks in any (but one!) of the two enemy castles and the attacked player is still confronted with this situation, when it is his turn. That means, that the third player could possibly head off his own loss by capturing or blocking one of the attacking stacks.
However, if this third player (sitting between the attacker and the attacked player) can place at least 3 stacks in one of his opponents' castles, it is still true that the player who attacked first can proclaim winning the game.
stack height
The limiting rule of three pieces of one color in a single stack still applies. That is, in a game of Triccasta stacks can now grow up to 9 pieces large.
releasing
As in the original game, it is not allowed to release an enemy piece in one's own castle.
remarks
The inspiration to Triccasta came to me when I discovered the well-designed three players chess variant III-Color-Schach by Peter-René Töttger. His studies regarding the victory conditions helped me a lot. I found his observations that there can emerge diplomacy when three players come together (where only one can win) very interesting and thought that I could transfer this to a three-player variant of Accasta.
However, these rules are still to be tested. Actually I have not played Triccasta against another opponent except myself. Especially I am not sure about the typical kingmaker effect of 3-player games. So there is room for adjustments, improvements, or - maybe - new discoveries.