Vilani equivalent of Chess or Go?

[tanksoldier]

Baseball, soccer, cricket...

Card games they would like bridge, spades, hearts, canasta....

Classic strategy games, I don’t know.

[jason taylor]

Role playing games. They would love those.

[ericthered]

I don't think a physical sport is going to be able to fill the role of Chess or Go. A few things stand out to me about the two games:


They're both deterministic. This is important because it allows you to think further into the future, and reduces the amount of play required to establish one player's dominance of another.



They're both very abstract. Both are ultimately mathematical puzzles, and any resemblance to real world activities is symbolic.



They're both completely cerebral. They can be effectively played by mail, and physical capability does not play a role.



The basic moves are very simple, but the emergent complexity is not.



I think any vilani equivalent to them should fill these attributes, and I don't think that we would be able to actually build the rules for it. I imagine that it would be logistics themed rather than war themed, and there is space for it to be played as a team, with no discussion between teammates.

[thrash]

So, Settlers of Catan without the dice?

Edit to add: C.J. Cherryh described a children's game called Starchase in her novel Cyteen. As I recall, there was a strong trading and resource management component -- selling commodities on one station made the price go down there, and so on -- as a pedagogic tool. It always read to me like a cross between Company Wars (which was about the universe Cyteen is set in) and GDW's Belter. Something of the sort might be a Vilani passtime.

Of course, since the Interstellar Wars all they play is Imperium, trying to make sure the Good Guys win this time...

[jason taylor]

Villani would probably take splendidly to ballet or orchestral music and probably already have their own counterparts.