Esgros 2024

Esgros (from Scottish Gaelic: sgrios, meaning "annihilation") is a drawless annihilation game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the hexes (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal board. The recommended size is 5 cells per side, but boards of 4 or 6 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of stones in their own color.

Definitions: A group is the maximal set of connected stones of the same color. A single stone is also a group. The size of a group is the number of stones it contains.

Turns:Black plays first, then turns alternate. On your turn, perform the following actions in order:

Place a stone of your color on an empty cell so that, if the resulting group becomes larger than your enemy's largest group, it is as small as possible. Remove all smaller enemy groups adjacent to the group of the placed stone from the board.

End of the game:You win if the last enemy group is eliminated from the board.

To balance the game, before starting, the first player places a black stone on an empty cell, and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the pie rule.

Notes:This game is inspired by Mark Steere's Oust, as an attempt to make a similar game but with only one stone per turn, in addition to making better use of the space.

—description from the designer