Bifröst

Main Match 12: Bifröst

Bifröst, the rainbow bridge to the realm of the gods, is the site of your final challenge. Connect the realms, or fall trying.

THIS IS A LIMITED COMMUNICATIONS MM. YOU MAY NOT COMMUNICATE IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE CHANNELS FOR THE DURATION FOR THIS MM.

SUMMARY

Each player controls a color, and will be playing the same game 6 times. In each instance of the game, there is a wincon and losecon. In the game, on a player's turn, they color one empty cell with their own color. You get 1 minute per move. The wincon is to connect 3 distinct edges with cells of your own color; the losecon is if you cannot even if all empty cells are your color. These conditions only activate at the end of your own turn. In each game, first place gets 3 points, second place gets 2 points, and last place gets 0 points.

The winner of the MM is whoever has the most points from all the games. Tiebreaker is first by higher number of first place finishes, then by total number of cells color across every board.

RULES

The MM revolves around a three-player turn-based strategy game called Bifröst. This game takes place on the above hex board, with some cells already filled in with colors. At the beginning of the MM, each player is secretly assigned a color: Red, Green, or Blue. Bifröst will be played 6 times over the course of this MM; 3 times in the first half, and 3 times in the second half.

In each half of the MM, players will be simultaneously playing 3 games of Bifröst, where the starting player is distinct in each game. In the first half, the turn order will be Red, Green, Blue. In the second half, the turn order will be reversed, being Blue, Green, Red.

On a player's turn, they may place up to 1 piece of their color on the grid on any empty space. At the end of a player's turn, they may satisfy their wincon, their losecon, or neither. A player's wincon is if, using their pieces only, they connect 3 distinct edges of the board. A player's losecon is if, even if every empty cell is filled with their color, they cannot connect 3 distinct edges of the board.

Formally, these are the edges:

["A1", "A2", "A3", "A4", "A5"]

["A5", "B6", "C7", "D8", "E9"]

["E9", "F8", "G7", "H6", "I5"]

["I5", "I4", "I3", "I2", "I1"]

["I1", "H1", "G1", "F1", "E1"]

["E1", "D1", "C1", "B1", "A1"]

A player that achieves either their wincon or losecon stops playing on that board, so they cannot place any more pieces on it. When a player wins, they take the highest placement unclaimed by a player on that board; similarly, when a player loses, they take the lowest placement unclaimed by a player on that board.

For example, if Red wins on game 1, then Green loses on game 1, the placement of players on that board from first to third is Red, Blue, Green. If Green loses on game 2, then Red loses on game 2, the placement of the players from first to third is Blue, Red, Green.

A player earns 3 points for first, 2 points for second, and 0 points for third.

At the end of the MM, each player's identity and score will be released. The winner of the MM is whoever has the most points from all the games; loser is whoever has the least. Tiebreaker is first by higher number of first place finishes, then by total number of cells color across every board.

BOT COMMANDS

This game will be played with a bot. The board will appear similarly to how it is shown above. For each game, there will be a global channel and each player will also get their own private submission channel (e.g. a channel might be #red-game1-submissions). You can only submit in your own submissions channel, and only for the game it is associated with.

Each channel will only have the board state of one specific game, but will be updated for each player's turn, even when it is not your turn. You will be pinged in a submissions channel when it is your turn on a board. Additionally, the board will be outlined with the color of the player whose turn it currently is on that board.

You will submit by sending a message (without slashes) with the move you want to make (case does not matter). For example, you may send A1 as your move. The bot will reply with your move when you have made a move; if the bot does not respond, or gives you an error, it means your move was invalid in some way (explained in the error message). You may also use the command /undo in order to undo your move, making it so your current move is empty.

Players have 1 minute per move (with warnings at 30, 10, and 5 seconds remaining), but it is highly recommended to submit at least 5 seconds before the time is up due to latency, as the bot will not be as forgiving as human hosts. Players will be informed on the previous player's move, as well as if, on that move, the previous player has won or lost. Then, once the bot finishes processing, it will ping the current player in each game in their respective channels.

Note that even if a player has won or lost a board, and can therefore no longer make moves, the bot will still wait on their turn. Therefore, each player will have to make decisions on at most one board at a time.

EXAMPLE

In the above example, if it was each of the players' respective turns, Red has won and Blue has lost. Green has neither won or lost in this state. Note that the example board looks different because I got lazy and didn't want to recreate this board in the code.