Honey War

Honey War is a game played by two players, on a board of hexagons tessellated in the pattern of a larger hexagon, with a side length of 6 and a diameter of 11 hexagonal cells. These cells are colored with any three colors (though orange, purple, and green is traditional) such that no cells have a neighbor of the same color. The board is oriented such that each player is seated in front of a corner of the board opposite their opponent.

The game has some similarities to Chess, in that there are different types of pieces which move in different ways, players take turns moving pieces, and the game is won by destroying a particular piece, but beyond that the two games are very distinct. Honey War has a more overtly militaristic theme than Chess, and all of its pieces and rules are directly inspired by ancient warfare (however, Honey War is still an abstract game of strategy, and not a war game.)

A playable simulator is available online here.

Terminology
This defines a number of important terms used elsewhere in this document. Full descriptions of turns, phases, and actions are to be found in the and  sections of this document.


 * Turn
 * An interval in which one player is allowed to take actions. Turns alternate between the two players.


 * Phase
 * A half of a turn, during which a single action may be taken. During Phase I, only Type I actions can be taken. During Phase II, either Type I or II actions may be taken.


 * Action
 * Something a player may do on their turn, divided into Type I (movement) and Type II (attack/offensive).


 * Move action
 * An action which involves moving a piece from one cell to another. Mostly synonymous with Type I action, except that moving a trebuchet is Type II.


 * Attack action
 * An action which involves damaging or destroying another piece. Attacking is always a Type II action.


 * Counterattack
 * A special rule for the castle and garrison by which pieces which attack it are damaged. It is not a type of action, because it is not performed by a player and does not take a phase, however in every other respect it is treated as if a ranged attack (dealing double damage in the case of the castle). A counterattack does not have a range restriction.


 * Melee attack
 * An attack involving the attacking piece moving through the cell occupied by the attacked piece. This includes the attack pattern of the footsoldier and the cavalry.


 * Ranged attack
 * An attack taken at range, without moving the attacking piece.


 * Double damage
 * If an attack is described as dealing double damage, then it entirely destroys the attacked piece and no special rules for how that piece takes damage are applied, including counterattacks.

Rules
The objective of the game of Honey War is to destroy your opponent's castle. In order to do this, pieces are moved around on the board and used to attack other pieces.

Setup
There are two standard starting positions for Honey War, mirrored and rotated. In each, the first player's pieces are arranged as in the image to the right, and the difference is in the arrangement of the second player's pieces. In mirrored play, the layout is flipped over the center of the board, such that player two has two infantry to their right side. In rotated play, instead the layout is rotated about the center such that each player has two infantry on their left side. Another variant of the game starts with just two towers, placed in the green cells between the towers in the three tower layout. Two-tower games can of course be played either mirrored or rotated.

At the beginning of the game, each player has control of:
 * 11 footsoldiers
 * 3 infantry
 * 3 calvalry
 * 1 trebuchet
 * 1 castle
 * 1 chariot

For beginners, or simply for a faster game, a smaller board 5 cells to a side and 9 in diameter may be used, with one, two, or three towers. (Equivalently, one may play on a standard board and ignore all cells on the edges.) On the smaller board, the foremost footsoldier is removed, but otherwise the layout is identical.

Turns
During the game, each player takes turns moving and attacking. Players may not pass their turns. Each turn is comprised of two phases, called either moving and attacking, or simply phase I and phase II. There are also two types of action, called either move and attack actions, or type I and type II actions, respectively. The numeric names exist for precision, while the other names are commonly used idiomatically. Note that for a trebuchet, movement is a Type II action; trebuchets have no Type I actions. During the first phase, a player makes a single move action. During the second phase, a player may make either another move action, or take an attack action, which can destroy or damage an opponent's piece. Once both actions have been performed, the next player takes their turn. The same piece may take both actions in a turn, or the two actions may be used for different pieces.

The first player's first turn is abridged, skipping phase II, in order to curtail first-mover advantage.

Pieces
Honey War has seven different types of pieces: Footsoldiers, Infantry, Cavalry, Chariots, Trebuchets, Castles, Towers, and Garrisons. In text, the piece names may be abbreviated to single letters as:
 * T = tower
 * F = footsoldier
 * I = infantry
 * B = trebuchet
 * C = castle
 * K = cavalry
 * H = chariot

Foot-soldiers
Footsoldiers are the most basic unit in your army. In this guidebook, they will be depicted as a simple circle, pictured in the first figure below. They can only move to an adjacent hex in the direction of the enemy and cannot move straight forward (see second figure below).

Footsoldiers can attack any other piece of the opposite color. In order to do so, the footsoldier moves to the hex behind the attacked piece relative to where it is standing, as in checkers. If a piece inhabits that hex already, the footsoldier cannot attack, regardless of which side it is on. See the third figure below for a visual depiction of the footsoldier's possible attacks.

Infantry
Infantry units are essentially upgraded footsoldiers. They are represented with the symbol shown in the first figure below, which is meant to look like a footsoldier wearing a hat. They can move to any adjacent cell. They can also move two hexes left or right in the direction of the enemy. See the second figure for a visual depiction.

Infantry attack by jumping over the enemy as a Footsoldier would. It jumps over an adjacent piece to land behind it in a straight line. In either direction where the infantry soldier can move two cells, however, an infantry can jump a piece two hexes away as long as the space between them is empty. In doing so, it travels three cells in a straight line to the opposite side of the attacked piece.

On the gameboard, infantry is represented with a normal footsoldier piece topped with an upgrade hat. If an infantry unit is attacked, the upgrade hat is removed and the infantry unit becomes a footsoldier.

Cavalry
Cavalry units function differently than infantry and footsoldier units. They are represented as a shape meant to imitate a beast of burden, shown in the first figure below. Their move consists of exactly two movements. The first move is to any hex that is empty or occupied by a friendly piece adjacent to the cavalry's position. The second is to another empty hex such that the angle formed between the two moves is 120 degrees. As a consequence, each cavalry unit must stay on the same color of hex the entire game. In the gallery below are two diagrams, the first of which describes how a cavalry unit can move when no hexes are blocked and the second of which shows various cases where the unit cannot move.

A cavalry's attack is called a charge. In it, the cavalry moves (in the same manner as described above) to a space occupied by an enemy piece, and then takes another non-attacking move in any direction, including back to where it started. A cavalry may only charge to attack an enemy piece; if a player uses their second action to move a cavalry without attacking it may only move once.

Chariots
Chariots are very powerful units and each player only has one. Chariots are very fast and can move in any direction any number of spaces, as long as they only go in a single straight line and are not obstructed by any pieces.

Capturing with chariots works using the same jumping mechanics as footsoldiers and infantry units use, but from a further distance. They can jump over an enemy piece to land immediately behind it unless there is another piece behind the target.

Trebuchets
Trebuchets, represented by the symbol in the first image below, have the simplest movement pattern of them all. They can move to any adjacent space, but only as a Type II action. They are immobile during the first phase. Thus, a trebuchet can either move, or attack, but not both, in a single turn.

Trebuchets do not move to attack; instead, they can shoot a projectile. This projectile flies over any and all pieces and lands exactly two hexes away in a straight line. Any pieces there are removed from play, regardless of the amount of attacks the piece would normally require to take it out of play (i.e. castles, towers, infantry). This makes the trebuchet the strongest offensive piece.

Castles
The objective of the game of Honey War is to destroy the other person's castle. The castle is immobile, and thereby requires the protection of all the other pieces. The castle is represented with the symbol on the right, but on the gameboard with the two interlocking castle pieces.

The castle can stand two attacks before it is destroyed. The first attack removes the top piece from the castle; the second attack removes it from play. Any piece that attacks the castle is instantly destroyed upon completion of the attack, regardless of how many attacks it would normally take to remove that piece from play. This counter attack is not an action taken by the defending player, but is an automatic consequence of performing the attack.

Towers
Towers are represented with the symbol below. Towers are immobile, and they start off neutral. When a tower is neutral, either player can attempt to control it.

Players can take control of the tower in two ways. They can convert the tower into a Garrison by capturing the tower with an infantry or cavalry unit that would be able to move to that position as a type II action. When they do this, the player places the piece they used to capture the tower on top of the tower piece. Alternatively, a player can capture the tower with a footsoldier unit. Doing so destroys the tower, but allows you to add an upgrade hat to the footsoldier unit, therefore turning it into an infantry unit.

A neutral tower may be attacked and destroyed by a trebuchet, but otherwise they cannot be destroyed while neutral.

Garrisons
Garrisons can be created from Towers using the method described in the Towers section. Garrisons are immobile, and may not take type I actions. Garrisons can attack any adjacent hex without moving as a type II action.

If a garrison is attacked other than by a trebuchet, then the garrison dies and reverts to a neutral tower, but with a defensive counter attack similar to that of the castle. If the attacking piece is not a trebuchet, then the garrison will automatically perform a standard attack against it simultaneously to the attack.

If attacked by a trebuchet, then the entire tower is destroyed, not just the garrison, and no counter attack takes place.

Rule Variations
Like most games, Honey War has variations in its rules. Some of these variations exist to modify the game in certain situations which are awkward under the standard rules, while others modify more fundamental aspects of the strategy. These rules should be added only with the pre-game agreement of both players.

Stranded footsoldiers
If a footsoldier ever makes it to the far edge of the board, it becomes unable to attack the opponent's castle under the standard rules because that would require moving backwards. Three conflicting minor rules exist addressing this situation.
 * 1) No change: footsoldiers that get behind the castle are unable to attack it.
 * 2) Allow a backward attack: A footsoldier that is adjacent to, but behind the opponent's castle is specially allowed to attack it.
 * 3) Upgrade: A footsoldier that reaches the far edge of the board is upgraded to infantry.

Bombarded Infantry
In the standard rules, an infantry unit is utterly destroyed by a trebuchet bombardment. However, there is a variation that weakens this into a standard attack, reducing the infantry to a footsoldier. (Because bombardment being especially strong only really makes sense for attacking fixed structures, rather than mobile units.) This rule was proposed and agreed upon for standard play, but then forgotten and further development has taken place since then, so it has been turned into a variation of play to gauge its impact.

Cavalry and Towers
In the standard rules, a cavalry may pass through any friendly or empty cell during its movement. In this modification, a cavalry is also able to pass through a neutral tower. (Note: a cavalry is also able to garrison a tower, which is a type II action.) This modification has been implemented in the simulator.

A distinct but compatible modification allows for a cavalry unit to garrison an adjacent tower, even though it would not be able to land there during a normal movement. This allows for all three of a player's cavalry to be used to garrison towers, instead of just the one which begins on green.

Garrison Range
In this modification, garrisons attack at a range of two tiles, like the trebuchet. They still perform normal damage, rather than double like the trebuchet.

Attacking a Castle Obstructed
Under this rule, because the attacking piece is destroyed instantly, it does not need to have a free space to move to afterwards (if it attacks like a footsoldier). It is ambiguous what the meaning of "instantly" is in the main rules, so this is more of a matter of interpretation than being an actual modification. However, it is still presented here because there is an alternate reading, in which the attack only takes place upon the attacking piece landing, implying that the space must be unobstructed. This modification has been implemented in the simulator.

This rule also closes off a potential strategy of leaving some pieces around the castle on the opposite side from which it is attacked, making it impossible for a footsoldier-like piece to attack even without properly defending the castle via normal, overt means. In the opinion of Fish, the author of this rule, that strategy should be considered an exploit, and preventing it is good.