Death Match: Tactical Escape

Choose your escape timing wisely in a game where you don't know what your win-con is!

Background

One night, a mysterious figure showed up in your room. How did they get in...? Before you can even process what is happening, you slowly drift into unconsciousness.

When you wake, you are trapped in a dark, stuffy room. It smells of sulfur and concrete. There is another person here with you. You hear the quiet buzz of a speaker turning on — "welcome to the Marcer Maze," it declares.

It seems you've been trapped. The only way out? To win this bluffing abstrat game against the person standing right across from you.

Can you do it?

Rules

This game takes place on a 5x5x5 hex grid.

The DMO chooses who goes first. On the first turn, the player who goes first can only place 1 piece. On every subsequent turn, players can choose one of the following actions:

1. Place up to 2 pieces of your color. You cannot place a piece on a cell that had a piece of your color just removed.
2. Remove 1 piece of your opponent's color. Your opponent cannot place a piece back there on their next turn.

The game will progress in this manner until a player declares to escape, at which point the game will be stopped and the winner will be evaluated.

Win Conditions

In Tactical Escape, both players will choose their opponent's win-cons. At the start of the game, both players will be presented with the same 3 out of the following 12 win-cons:

1. Your opponent wins if they currently have exactly a 5-in-a-row.
2. Your opponent wins if they currently have a 6-in-a-row or greater.
3. Your opponent wins if they currently have a group of 10 or greater and they have the largest group.
4. Your opponent wins if they currently have at least 4 groups of at least size 3 and they have the most such groups.
5. Your opponent wins if they currently connect two opposite edges of the board.
6. Your opponent wins if they currently completely surround a group you own.
7. Your opponent wins if they currently have the most flowers, defined as a cell and three cells adjacent to it that are all 120 degrees from each other all being filled with the same color.
8. Your opponent wins if they currently have at least 5 groups that border any piece of your color and that amount is greater than the amount of groups of your color that touch any piece of their color.
9. Your opponent wins if you have two identical baskets, where identical baskets are defined 5 connected pieces that are identical in color and shape (rotation and reflection allowed).
10. Your opponent wins if you have at least 5 of your pieces in cells that all share a number.
11. Your opponent wins if they have gone their last 3 turns without placing 2 pieces.
12. Your opponent wins if they declare ESCAPE between you choosing this win-con and choosing another one.

You must then privately select one of these in your submissions channel. This will be your opponent's win-con.

After each player takes 10 turns, they must privately submit a second win-con to give their opponent from the initial 3. After each player takes an additional 10 turns, they must privately submit a third win-con to give their opponent from the initial 3. You cannot take a win-con you already have. The win-cons stack.

If you believe that at least one of your win-cons is currently fulfilled, you may declare to ESCAPE from the Marcer Maze in addition to your move for the turn. Doing so will immediately end the game. If the player who declared ESCAPE fulfilled a win-con given to them by their opponent, they have successfully won the Death Match and will escape the Marcer Maze. If they did not, they have failed in their escape attempt and lose the Death Match, stuck in the harrowing halls of the Marcer Maze forever.

Timing

You have 90 seconds per move, with an additional reserve bank of 5 minutes that is used in 10-second periods, for a total of 30 periods.

You also have 90 seconds to choose a win-con privately. You may use reserve time for this as well.

If you run out of time, you will immediately lose the Death Match.

Examples

Here are some examples to illustrate what different win-cons mean, as some of them are unintuitive.

"Groups" are defined as connected group of pieces of one color. A single piece by itself is also a group. The size of a group is simply how many pieces it has. For example, in the following image, there are 3 groups, each of size 1, 3, and 4.

For win-con 5, "two opposite edges" means two completely opposite edges. To connect them simply means to have a group that has a piece placed in both edges. An example is shown in the following image, and the full list of opposite-edge pairs are:

A1/A2/A3/A4/A5 and I1/I2/I3/I4/I5

E1/F1/G1/H1/I1 and A5/B6/C7/D8/E9

A1/B1/C1/D1/E1 and I5/H6/G7/F8/E9

For win-con 6, to completely surround a group is to have all adjacent cells to a group be filled with a piece of the opponent's color. In the following image, all red groups are completely surrounded by blue.

For win-con 7, an example of a flower is provided at F3/G3/G4/H2. Multiple flowers can be found in the same group; for example, in the image as a whole, there are 3 flowers.

For win-con 9, an example image is provided below. Importantly, win-con 9 doesn't check for groups, but for all sets of 5 connected pieces. Both blue and red would currently have two identical baskets.

Amendment: If the game reaches turn 50 and neither player has declared escape, I will end the game immediately for my own sanity. Whoever fulfills more win conditions wins. If it is a tie, both of you lose. Please don't do this. This should never happen.