So! I was reading a webcomic and something a character said made me think of the old "the best offense is a good defense" adage and the overall importance of ensuring one's base is strong before attacking others.
And this is an easy concept to understand in the world of sports, but...what if you're writing in a setting without said sports?
Also, what if you want a game to demonstrate the concept explicitly? Like, it could be a lesson all kids learn while young by learning to play this basic game.
What would that look like?
The first thing to come to mind is dice and tokens. There needs to be a limited resource so players have to choose between building their foundation or extending their reach. There also needs to be an attack function. And the attacks should rollover so that a strong attack wipes out several weak enemies at once. It should also be fairly simple to set-up and explain since this would be a game for kids.
I'm trying to decide the goal of the game... It could be like tic-tac-toe and Tak with extending a road or connecting two points. Or it could be like 7-Minute Empire (might have remembered the name incorrectly) in which the goal is claiming the most territory. Or it could be like Risk where you're wiping out your enemies. Or like Chess or Capture the Flag, even, where you want to corner and conquer a single piece.
All of them have pros/cons for the lesson. Territory capture might be the most flexible, while combat might be the easiest to explain.
If you have an option between increase power or increase reach, both options must be important for the ultimate goal of the game. For that reason, territory or Capture the Flag seem to make the most sense.
What I have in my head at the moment is a checkers or chess board. Players take turns placing pieces. They can choose to occupy new squares, adjacent to any of their current occupied squares, or they can choose to stack. But let's make it even simpler so that this is a game that could be drawn on paper easily. Let's make it a 5x5 diamond. Each player starts with one piece in the corner closest to them.
You roll a die. 1d6 to keep it simple. The number on the die is how many tokens you can place or move. You can place tokens on top of your current tokens or in any adjacent (NSEW only; no diagnonals) squares. This includes on top of enemy tokens. If you place a token on top of an enemy, both tokens are removed and return to their respective players. This does mean you can also move a stack.
Let's say you have a stack of three next to an opponent's piece, and you roll a 2. You can move the top tokens from your stack on top of your opponent. The opponent's piece and one of your pieces are removed. And you are left with a single token in the new space.
This does suggest there should be a height limit. Let's say that stacks cannot be more than 6 tokens high. For now, let's allow someone to move an entire stack, leaving a blank spot behind.
But, say you have a situation where you have a stack of 6 and the row ahead of you has a single token, a stack of two, and another single token. And let's say you roll a 5.
You move 5 off your stack (leaving one behind) and on top of the first single token. Your stack is now 4 high (yours and theirs removed). Move done.
Alternatively, you could move 3 tokens off the stack of 5. This leaves two of yours in the next space. Then you move both of those onto the next space, removing the stack of two. The row is now 3 of yours, blank, blank, 1 of theirs.
The goal is to capture your opponent's corner or to hold three total corners.
I need to play around to see how this plays. Maybe stacks should have a max height of 4...
Anyway! Building up stacks around your corner and one other corner is the best way to prevent the other team from winning. If you can defend two corners, then you can pick whichever battle is easier for one of the other two. And, if you go for their stronghold, you can sacrifice your extra corner if needed.
I'm not sure that this really teaches the lesson, but it might be fun to play?
ETA: Each side has a total of 50 pieces? That feels like a lot for a game, though. Maybe 25 single pieces and 5 5-point pieces? You could play with pennies and nickels as long as you had a way to distinguish between players. Oh! Heads and tails. One person plays Heads and the other person plays Tails. You get 25 pennies and 5 nickels. And you have to keep 5 pennies in reserve at all times for making exchanges with a nickel. Honestly...it'd probably be easier to play with 50 pennies each. So you'd just need a dollar in pennies, a 5x5 board, and 1d6. ...If you don't have a die, you could get six extra pennies. Shake and drop them. If you play heads, you get 1 move per head. If you play tails, you get 1 move per tails. Or, if you have just one extra penny, flip it 6 times and count the number of heads/tails for the number of moves you get.
ETA: If you reduce down to a 4x4 board, I think you could trim to 50 total tokens, 25 each. Maybe even down to 40 total tokens (20 each). That might be the better route. The smaller board would also force more decisions sooner, I think. (Maybe 24 total for a 3x3 board (12 each), but I think that would be too small for interesting play).
ETA: Oh! And what if one of the moves you can make is a bank stack. So, like, if you roll 3, you can place 2 on the board and 1 in your bank. No--better. Your stronghold (your corner) can serve as a bank. You can take from that stack to augment any turn you make. The coins from your stronghold can go to any space you control. The stronghold is a normal stack otherwise, and so can only be so tall. Maybe it can have +1 on the stack. So, if the stacks are normally limited to 5, your stronghold can be 6.
So, you have a stronghold 4 high, and you roll a 2, you could move 3 from your stronghold + 2 for your roll. Only pieces generated from a roll can attack, though. But! You could move a piece from your stronghold on top of a stack and then move that stack to attack. I feel like this adds an extra strategy element to the game. And strengthens the original message/intent.
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