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Vying Games : Three Musketeers

Three Musketeers is an abstract strategy game invented by Haar Hoolim, and described in Sid Sackson's book A Gamut of Games. Three Musketeers is interesting in large part because it's a game of unequal forces / objectives.

How to Play

The two players Red and Blue take control of the red and blue pieces, respectively, on the board. The red pieces represent the three musketeers and the blue pieces represent the Cardinal Richelieu's men. Red moves first.

Movement

The red pieces, aka the three musketeers, may only move horizontally or vertically (not diagonally) to an intersection occupied by a blue piece. In the course of moving, the red piece captures the blue piece.

The blue pieces, aka the enemy, may only move horizontally or vertically (not diagonally) onto any unoccupied intersection.

Winning

The Blue player's objective is to line up all three musketeers on to a single horizontal or vertical line. If at any point in the game this objective is met, then the game ends with Blue as the winner. (Your humble editor isn't sure how that makes any thematic sense... I've been told to imagine that the Cardinal has employed a sniper who has only a single bullet, so all three musketeers must be lined up so they can be taken out with one shot)

The Red player's objective is simply to free the musketeers from the enemies. If at any point the three musketeers can no longer move (because there aren't any enemies that they can capture), and the Blue player hasn't met his objective, the game ends with Red as the winner.

About the (lack of) Bots

There aren't any Three Musketeers bots as of yet. You can get a feel for the rules and very basic strategy by playing against RandomBot. For a challenge, try playing as Blue.