Cintos: a simple yet challenging board game

What is it? How do I play?

Cintos is a board game originally developed for Mac OS X by a guy named John Haney. It's a game not unlike chess: much simpler, actually, but still strategy intensive. The board is an 8x8 grid home to 16 pieces. Each of the two or four players controls an equal part of the board and an equal number of the pieces. (See the graphics below for the board setup.) Players take turns moving pieces forward, backward, left, or right. Every move triggers a battle in which players have the opportunity to capture each other's pieces. The object of the game is to capture all of the pieces.



The outcome of a battle is determined by three things: numbers, territory, and initiative—in that order. The battlefield, the area considered during a battle, is the square to which a piece is moved and the eight surrounding squares. There are five possible outcomes.

Victory by Numbers: If one player has more pieces on the battlefield than any other, that player captures all of the other players' pieces there.

Victory by Territory: If there is a tie and all of the pieces on the battlefield are on the territory of one of the tied players, that player captures all of the other players' pieces there.

Victory by Initiative: If there is a tie and all of the pieces on the battlefield are on the territory of a player not involved in the tie but the moving player is one of the tied players, the moving player captures all of the pieces there.

Tie by Initiative: If there is a tie and all of the pieces on the battlefield are on the territory of a player not involved in the tie and the moving player is not one of the tied players, the tie stands.

Tie by Territory: If there is a tie and the pieces on the battlefield are spread across multiple players' territories, the tie stands.

When a piece is captured, it changes color and comes under the captor's control, to be used like any other of his pieces. If you capture the last of a player's pieces, that player is eliminated and you also capture his territory. When territory is captured, it changes color and comes under the captor's control.

If you're having trouble understanding the rules, check out John Haney's pages for Cintos rules and detailed examples. Mac users might benefit from downloading the original game and trying it out.

Here's how everything works in the map. Use your Corsair to cast Disruption Web on a Medic to select a piece (that Medic will turn into a Marine to mark the piece you've selected) and then on a Ghost to select a possible move. If you change your mind after selecting a piece, cast Disruption Web anywhere to reset your selection. Your Corsair's energy will be enabled continuously during your turn, so you can key the second cast before the first one executes. Use other players' turns to reposition your Corsair so you don't waste time on it during your own turn. Sound effects and text messages accompany various actions to make sure you know what's going on.

Hopefully player territories are pretty intuitive. The dirt/grass pattern is red territory in the upper left and blue territory in the lowerright. The mud/high dirt pattern is yellow territory in the upper right and green territory in the lower left. I made it checkerboard instead of solid to make it easier to discern individual squares.

A fascinating element of the strategy is alternating focus on offense and defense, which is only really apparent in four player games. Fighting on your own territory is advantageous because you can successfully attack without maintaining numerical superiority on the battlefield. Aggressive assault on neutral territory is also advantageous because, again, you can capture your opponent's pieces without numerical superiority. With the few pieces in the game split among so many players and the board being so small, the differences are immense.

Downloads & Changelog

Planned features in future versions
- Add proper mission briefing.
- Choice between two or four player game.
- For two player games, vertical and diagonal territories.
- For four player games, team play.
- Two boards for two simultaneous games!
- Companion mod to replace terrain graphics with solid, outlined colors.

Version 1.5 currently in progress

Version 1.4 released on 11/27/2009
- Converted to four player game.
- Smaller board and pieces fit entirely on the screen.
- Updated sound effects and notifications.
- Redesigned triggers, speeding up the counting system.
- Observer slots...just in case this gets really popular.
- Cut out mission briefing, pending updates.
- Download this version, 52.93 KB.

Version 1.3 released on 11/13/2009
- Added mission briefing and mission objectives.
- Consolidated team colors.
- Sound and text message notifications now work for both players, not just the active one.
- Fixed an end-game glitch where victory/defeat would be declared before one player technically controlled all the pieces.
- Pared down the triggers, making them simpler and more efficient.
- Download this version, 46.75 KB.

Version 1.2 released on 11/10/2009
- Redesigned terrain and triggers from scratch.
- Switched to Disruption Web selection system.
- Improved sound effects and text message notifications.
- No mission briefing, mission objectives, or observer slots.
- Download this version, 46.9 KB.

Version 1.1 released on 05/02/2007
- Revised mission briefing, added turn start notification, added reset function, opened observer slots.
- Download this version, 53.83 KB.

Version 1.0 released on 04/29/2007
- Two players, large board and pieces, horizontal territories, Mind Control selection system.

Screenshots & Examples - from Version 1.2

Every time you move, although you have the opportunity to capture enemy pieces, you also risk having your pieces captured.



Flanking is a fundamental strategy. Because you have to move a piece to trigger a battle, a clump of pieces stuck against each other and unable to maneuver is not very useful.



The defensive advantage cannot be overemphasized. Even a few pieces, skillfully maneuvered on friendly territory, can turn the tide of battle.



This is the same game that was in the previous screenshots. Once again, the defensive advantage is key.



Testing & Feedback

You can never find all the bugs on your own and it's especially difficult to test a multiplayer map by yourself. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Anyone interested should PM me. I always welcome feedback—whether it's about my ideas, the map, or my explanations. If you're a fellow mapmaker curious about how I designed the map, don't hesitate to ask questions. I'd be happy to explain every single trigger if you're struggling with a map of your own.

Post has been edited 12 time(s), last time on Nov 28 2009, 4:00 am by Yossarian.

I'm having trouble understanding the difficulty of making this a four player map. For each "battle," simply add 1 mineral to a CPU player, one of which is on each team, for each piece in the battle for that team. I assume you're just using a centered 6x6 location on a burrowed zerg unit.

If CPU1 and CPU2 have accumulated the most ore, tie. If CPU1 has accumulated the most ore, win. If CPU2 has accumulated the most ore, lose.

Obviously swapped when it's the other team's turn. Should be reasonably simple from what I can gather...

EDIT: Ah. You didn't use the "most" triggers. They're quite useful. =p

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 10 2009, 11:22 am by FaZ-.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. God fucking damn it.

See, I remember the "most" triggers. I remember that "most" actually means "most" OR "tied for most". That was why, originally, I had decided not to use them. But of course all you have to do is check the "most" condition for all players involved to compensate.

Man, I made this so unnecessarily complicated. I feel retarded. I *knew* there was an easier way to do this.

I guess I've got my work cut out.

If there is a tie in number of tanks, then whichever side has more tanks on their territory in the battle radius should win the battle and collect all the tanks.

Update! Cintos is now up to version 1.3--1.0 being the original I made two and a half years ago, 1.1 being my revision to that original, and 1.2 being the version I first uploaded with this thread. Here's what's new in version 1.3:

- I've added a mission briefing and mission objectives.
- Human players are now the same color as their counterpart trigger computer players to hide the game mechanics a little better and make the gameplay look a little smoother.
- Sound and text message notifications now work for both players, not just the active one.
- I've fixed an end-game glitch where victory/defeat would be declared before one player technically controlled all the pieces.
- I've pared down the triggers considerably by revising part of my counting system. They're much less confusing and more efficient now.

I'm really hoping to get some feedback, guys. I was aiming for a bit wider audience than I've received so far. This is a really fun game, if you're into board games. It's not as strategy-heavy as, say, chess, but it really makes you think.

Oh, and, Falkoner: I like your idea, but I don't think it's really necessary. I'd kinda like to stick with the creator's rules, anyway. If Cintos becomes popular at all and more people start playing and it becomes an issue, I'd be flexible, but at this point I don't think it's worth making it more complicated.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 16 2009, 5:29 am by Yossarian. Reason: See first post for download.

So...after several hours of brainstorming, I figured out how to convert my current port into a four-player version. I've come up with, dare I say it, a rather ingenious counting-and-comparing system that is entirely dynamic (i.e. uses "Current Player" and not specific player references) and only adds a few triggers. I'm a bit swamped with schoolwork at the moment, so it may be a little while before I have time to sit down and implement the triggers. When I do, it would be great to have a bunch of people to help me test, seeing as otherwise I'd have to run *four* parallel copies of SC to do it myself, which is a little bit beyond my means.

I was looking at my old version of Cintos and realized that the only reason it didn't work was a mistake in player settings under Forces and the size of a couple of locations. I fixed those problems and just tested it; everything else seems to work perfectly fine. The old version uses a Dark Archon/Mind Control selection system and one of the complaints testers expressed was that Mind Control's range wasn't good enough and sometimes they had to waste time moving the slow Dark Archons around the board to reach pieces on the other side. So I threw in a couple of extra Dark Archons around the board.

It would be cool if people could try out both the old version and the new one to see how they like the mechanics. The old version is definitely bloated in terms of triggers. The counting system is very inefficient. It's amazing it actually works, considering how many weird conditions it has. Anyhow, enjoy!

I've finally converted the map into a four player game. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. (So far, anyway.) I'm not sure how much it actually, works, though, because I can't test it on my own.

So PLEASE...I NEED some BETA TESTERS! Post here or PM me if you're willing to help. Tell me what your time zone is and when you can be online for testing. This would require probably an hour's commitment. There will probably be a couple of minor bugs right away. We'd have to stop, give me time to fix them really quickly, and start over. Once we got the small kinks worked out, we'd have to run several full games to make sure the counting and comparing system works right.

Again, I really need some help here, guys.

I can help test, I'm usually free on the weekends at usually any time and fridays I'm good past 5PM GMT-7. Most days I'll be able to do past 7PM GMT-7. Just give me a PM when you're on SEN.

The game sounds completely awesome, I hope more people get into it

Haven't played this, but it sounds fun...

Although wouldn't there be tons of stalemate? or like Huge sudden changes of the game?
Oh well.. gotta try this out..

EDIT: OH OH I'll beta test

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 25 2009, 1:00 am by UnholyUrine.

I am rather busy and won't be able to help BETA test much, but I have plenty of experience with SC board games, so if you ever want input/help on how to make things simpler/why things aren't working, PM me anytime. Good luck with your project!

UPDATE! A working four player version is now available. This game is loads of fun with four players. I encourage everybody to give it a shot.

Does the newest version still work with only 2 players?