According to the given rules, the pieces, eight on each army, start in reserve off the board. A move consists of either: 1) placing a piece from your reserve on any vacant square; 2) moving a piece to any adjacent square, orthogonally or diagonally (as a chess king), or 3) capturing an enemy piece by jumping it, like an 8-directional checker. Multiple jumps are allowed. When a jump is possible, jumping is compulsory, though the player may choose any jumping move available and need not capture the greatest possible number of pieces. The object is either to form a line of three of your pieces, orthogonally or diagonally with no intervening spaces, or to capture six enemy pieces (i.e. reduce your enemy’s forces to two so that he cannot win). It looks to me as though White can make a first move on a central square and win pretty quickly; I’m not even sure the game would consist of anything other than onboarding and capturing. But I haven’t analyzed the game completely yet. Possible variants suggest themselves: what if jumps took priority over any other move except a move to win, or to avoid immediately losing? Or if a player with a jump available could make a different move at the expense of sacrificing one piece of his own choice? What if the object were to achieve a row of three that could not be broken up by the opponent’s next move? How would it play if the object were to achieve some different pattern? Would some of these variants play better if the movement power were changed -- perhaps to a knight move? How would the natural hexagonal variation (onto a board of 19 hexes) play? If you have eight pennies and eight nickels and can draw a 4x4 grid of 1-inch squares you’re ready to play Moxie. If you play this game and have comments or suggestions for variants that would improve it, I’d be interesting in hearing from you. |
