The Royal Game of Ur - The divines demand I change you!

So today we had a look at an ancient game known as The Royal Game of Ur. The game in basis is a race game coupled with a war game I guess. The idea is to get your pieces to the end of the board, you have 5-7 pieces depending on the version, and each opponents units can remove each others from the board, forcing them to start again. The first person to get all pieces to the end of the board wins. Here are the basic rules (as assumed by Irving Finkel;

1. Throw the dice to decide who plays first - highest score goes first, if it's a draw, throw again.
2. Players take turns to throw three binary lots and move one of their pieces. 
3. Only one piece may be moved per throw of the dice and pieces must always move forward around the track.
4. If a counter lands upon a square occupied by an opposing counter, the counter landed upon is sent off the board and must start again from the beginning.
5. If a counter lands on a rosette, throw the dice again (and again if another rosette is landed upon). The same piece need not be moved on the additional throw.
6. Pieces can be moved onto the board at any stage of the game as long as the square that is moved to upon the first turn is vacant.
7. A player must always move a counter if it is possible to do so but if it is not possible, the turn is lost.
8. Exact throws are needed to bear pieces off the board.

Simple enough, so we started off by playing the game with its general rules, or at least some of them. You see on our first go we hadn't really paid full attention and thus we missed out the importance of the rosette squares beyond the use as a safe zone. Fair enough, I won, game set and lets go again.

In our second game we decided to start iterating (we're meant to be doing that in a few weeks, but now seems good enough). So we began by adding the ability to stack units on a square, and in doing so the units then moved as one, this had its benefits quite clearly, however you did need to waste time stacking them up. Fair to say however, the time spent stacking them up did not outweigh the time saved travelling, the game was indeed much faster, but much simpler; there was no real challenge, no risk associated with grouping your units.

Thus came game 3 after another win. This time we decided to add some variables to the gameboard, so many squares are not used in this game because they're simply not understood, but I've never been known to neglect a square simply because its different! Neigh I turned one of the types of squares into a creation to be hated; an insta-kill square, this imposed a greater risk on moving all your units into a single consortium, because in doing so you only ever had one unit to move and should fate decide your next move would land you on the kill square; you had no choice but to advance to your death! This definitely made the game more fun, if not at times longer. Not a bad thing at all though, it simply added depth to the play in general, tactics became more important, like Battleships before it, the game became about tactic just as much as chance.

With my win streak still safe and growing, onto game 4 we went! Our next iteration; the introduction of an add unit to group square; this square would allow you to move any unit (or group if multiples are on a square) up to the other units square, an effective and handy square, luckily a limited one in its appearances too. However, if you look more closely this square is either a help of a hindrance  For example if your only other unit is back near the start, then back you go. Once again the game remained fun and more important did tactics become. Another reasonably successful iteration I think.

After that win came the idea for an iteration involving a fall back square; if a unit landed on one of these, then it would be forced to fallback to the closest unit, whether forward of backwards from the position.

Once again this iteration causes the player to consider tactics even more, it was fair to say at this point we had started to shape a derivative of Ur that relied not so heavily on chance, and more so on a mix of chance and skill. The game already possessed choices to accompany its chances, but these choices had little variety or variables to them. By the end of our iterations (we had room for more (but had run out of time)) I felt that what had been created was a product better refined to tactical play than its predecessor.

Well on that note I think it's about time you all tried this game if you haven't already, and remember; if you don't win then it's probably because God doesn't love you, this is a game of divinity and fortune telling, not just based on pure chance! *casually whistles.