RE: [piecepack] Alien City an abstract strategy game?

[Michael Schoessow <mschoessow@...>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Hale-Evans [mailto:rwhe@...]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 12:14 PM
To: piecepack@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [piecepack] Alien City an abstract strategy game?


On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 07:32:31AM -0800, Michael Schoessow wrote:
> Ron H-E wrote:  
> > Your own Alien City is
> > practically a pure abstract strategy game with just a thin theme,
> > IMHO.    
>  
> You're right, Alien City is technically a purely abstract game; there is
no
> luck and no hidden information.

 > That's not quite true; the board setup at the beginning of the game is
 > totally random, so there is quite a bit of luck there.  Apart from the
 > random setup (which helps keep the game fresh, like Fischer Random
 > Chess, IMHO), AC is a pure abstract strategy game, however.

 > Ron 
 
The tile setup is random but this is completed and in plane view to both
players before the game starts, so it doesn't constitute luck in the sense
that one player might get lucky compared to the other. To look at it another
way, I could say that I've invented a very large number of abstract games
similar to Alien City, all of which are identical except that they each have
a different specified starting tile arrangement.
 
- Mike