Re: Re: [pbmserv-dev] A three-player connection game

["David J Bush" <twixt@cstone.net>]

| >These are the only two connection games I know of that are totally 
| >independent of edges.
| 
| Whoops! Forgot about all the tile placing games like Trax, Andantino etc.

One of the winning conditions to Trax is to span parallel edges which are
at least 8 tile widths separate, as long as these are outermost edges in
that dimension. So depending on what you mean by "edges," Trax may not be
totally independent of them. I know you know I know what one of the two
games you were thinking of is.

At the risk of being a wet blanket, many zero sum games with more than two
players have an inherent problem known as the kingmaker problem. One player
discovers he will not win, but his play will determine which of the others
will win. So the winner is not so much determined by the winner's skillful
play as it is by how one of the losers decides to play. This would be
especially true if one of the players plays unpredictably (meaning badly.)