Madagascar · Malagasy

Fanorona

also called Fanoron-tsivy

Fanorona is played on a board of nine by five intersections and is closely bound up with Malagasy royal history and divination practice. Its distinctive rule is that a piece captures either by moving towards an enemy line or by moving away from it, and captures chain.

Played in: Madagascar

— The board

Play against the machine. Your best score is kept in this browser only — nothing is sent to the archive.

Click or tap to play.

— What is playing against you

Looks one move ahead. It is the weakest of the searching opponents.

Searches the game tree 1 move ahead fanorona-engine.ts — minimaxF()

Turns on a panel over the board listing the moves the machine considered on its last turn, the score it gave each one, and how many positions it examined to get there. The numbers are the engine's own.

The prototype's documentation claims a two-ply search. The code passes a depth of one, so it sees your immediate reply and no further. It adds five points per piece captured to whatever the search returns. On medium it does not search: it counts the capture and subtracts half a point for every reply you would have, a crude way of preferring moves that leave you with fewer options. Fanorona's compulsory-capture and chaining rules mean the branching factor swings wildly from turn to turn. Watch the candidate count: some turns it has one legal move, others a dozen.

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What this version is not

The nine-by-five board, the approach and withdrawal captures and the chain rule are all implemented. The computer opponent searches only two moves ahead, so it plays weakly. The variants Fanoron-dimyand Fanoron-telo are not offered.

— How it is played

Pieces move one step along a marked line. A capture is made by approach — moving onto a point adjacent to an enemy piece, taking it and every enemy piece continuing in that direction — or by withdrawal, moving directly away from an adjacent enemy piece with the same effect. Capturing is compulsory where available, and a capturing piece may continue capturing in a chain.

— Sources

Bell, R. C. (1979). Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, rev. ed. New York: Dover.

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