- > No written rules for this game survived antiquity. To reconstruct how the game may have been played, researchers turned to the Ludii General Game System — a comprehensive digital platform developed at Maastricht University that can model and simulate thousands of historic board games. The results were published in the journal Antiquity (Volume 100, Issue 409, 2025).
> Using Alpha-Beta search agents — the same class of algorithm that powered early chess computers — the team ran 1,000 simulated rounds for each candidate ruleset, allowing one second of processing time per move. The AI tracked which lines on the board were used most frequently during play, generating detailed edge-usage statistics....
> Nine game configurations matched the wear criteria. All of them were blocking games, and the most frequently matching format was a four-versus-two game in which pieces start on the board. This site faithfully reproduces one of these AI-validated configurations.
I would say this is more "inspired by" Ancient Rome.
by NoboruWataya
0 subcomment
- Somewhat similar to Tafl games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games
Similar in that it is asymmetrical, very old, and we don't quite know what the rules were (though with tafl we have slightly better historical evidence, including an account from Carl Linnaeus in 1732, which has allowed us to produce a few educated guesses). In fact tafl is sometimes speculated to derive from the Roman game of ludus latrunculorum - I'm not sure if that is the same game described here.
- Reminds me of the mystery of the Roman dodecahedrons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron
I was thinking of them yesterday because I noticed one for sale in the antiquities shop in Andor, which brought up all sorts of Earth/Rome/Star Wars cannon questions.
- This reminds me of bear games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_games
Here's a tablebase analysis for a simple bear game I constructed a while back: https://emarzion.github.io/coqtbgen/
- Too assymetric IMO. I have no problems winning with hounds even on hard, but I have no chance of winning except against easy.
- Since the rules are entirely reconstructed, I have to say I'm a bit skeptical of a game where a central point is keeping a count of moves up to 150. It seems too unpractical for a casual game.
Are there other known ancient games that work like this?
- Neat, but this game seems too simple. I think AI has missed a core gameplay mechanic.
There needs to be something to stop a deadlock. Like an element of luck for the hares?
- I always like to hear about ancient board game reconstructions. Like music and religion, games are something every culture creates. Another recent example is the case of Liubu, a game from ancient China for which the rules were lost. Still, a reconstruction is being attempted by Carnegie Melon:
https://projects.etc.cmu.edu/liubo-lab/
by alcaracalla
0 subcomment
- The rules seem like a rather boring pre-decessor to the mills game/nine men's morris. I guess this is what I would draw inspiration from though, to make the game more interesting, because the board is actually kind of neat.
- It should be "novus ludus" not "nova ludus". (now go and write 100 times...)
- The AI could have constructed any number of rules seeing as how it's literally a "best guess" and it chose rules that aren't very fun. Congratulations, I guess.
Edit: Or, put a different way: Sometimes the rules to games are lost for a reason; they're not very good.
by samaysharma
0 subcomment
- I was curious to learn more about how they discovered and reconstructed the rules. They explain that at: https://ludus-coriovalli.web.app/about
by wood_spirit
3 subcomments
- Another ancient board game to be decoded is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Game_of_Ur. This is from 2600BC so is older to Christ than Christ is to us.
The videos on the game (and all his other videos) with Irving Finkel, a curator at the British museum, are spellbinding. He has the looks, manners and enthusiasm of an eccentric museum curator from central casting!
- Playing a lost 2000 year old game is awesome.
- Cool however no idea how to play this!
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