Dice Age Game

Among the initial 2-player board games of all times, is Backgammon. This is a game that depends on the roll of a dice, which will then affect the movement of the pieces on the board. The winner is determined by how quickly they can remove all the pieces from the board, before their competitor.

The Playing Items

Basically, there is a board that has some drawings in the form of long triangles, where the pieces are placed. The pieces of the board have several terms, which all mean the same thing. Some of the names of the pieces are stones, counters, nips, pips, discs, checkers, pawns, draughts, men or chips.

Rules

The major target in the game is to, Bear Off, or remove all the pieces from the board ahead of the opponent. The pieces will be scattered as the game commences, one of the players will then hit or block them. The game is generally played competitions, whereby, the first player to attain a number of points is declared the winner.

 

The Game Setup

There will be several long triangles, 12 in every side. These triangles are called points and they are declared to be linked on a single edge. They will end up forming a track that looks like a horseshoe. They will also be numbered, starting from 1 to 24 and every player will start with 15 pieces. 2 of the pieces will be placed on the 24th mark, 3 will be on the 8th mark and 5 pieces on the 6th and 13th mark. The pieces will be moved from the 24 to 1.

Playing Rules

Every player will need to roll the dice once, so as to commence the game. The player who has the highest number on the dice will move their pieces first. If the player gets the two numbers from rolling the dice, they will need to move the pieces in the right manner, starting with the highest number. In case the player makes a 5-5 roll, they will be able to make a maximum of 4 moves of the 5 spaces available. The move that is to be made must be legal, according to the game. The move is made in accordance with one of the dice, but not both of them. The highest number on the die is the one that should be used.

As a move is made, the piece can land on any point, which is open or is occupied by any of the player’s pieces. Also, it can land on a pointer that has been occupied by a blot or just one opposing piece. Here, the Blot will be considered to have been Hit and for that, it will be placed in the board’s middle section.

This is on the dividing bar on the opposite side of the board. If there are more than two opposing pieces on a point, a player may not be able to land their pieces. That implies that a single point can never be occupied by the two players at the same time.

Suppose one of the player does not Bear Off any of their pieces when their opponents have Borne Off all of their 15 pieces, then the other player is considered to have lost a Gammon. This will be considered two times a standard loss.

If the player, who is losing has not Borne Off their pieces and there are some pieces in the home section of the other player, who has Borne Off already, the player will be considered to have lost three times.

At some point, a doubling cube will be used to make the game faster and also to offer an extra technique for strategy. This type of cube is more of a marker and not a die. It has several numbers, which are 64, 32, 16, 8, 4 and 2, which are labeled on every side.

History

The game originally began in ancient Rome in 476 to 481 AD. The game has all the similar rules on the pieces and winner’s declaration. The major difference was the use of three dice. The game was also introduced in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, formerly known as Persia, Greece, the Great Britain, Eastern Asia and later on in America.

It is also a strategy game that is quite interesting, especially if you clearly understand the rules and how to play it.