| This collection of four-row Mancala games contains 13 known distinct variants
played on boards ranging from 7 to 15 columns. It, however, should not be regarded
as even remotely completist in scope as there are many games within the Mancala family.
Game references were taken from Larry Russ's Complete Mancala games book (CMGB)
published by Marlowe & Co, (1995) as well as from Robbie Bell's and Michael Cornelius's
'Board games round the world' (BGRTW) published by Cambridge University Press, (1990).
Further clarifications were received from a Yahoo Discussion Group.
Common to each of the games here, players own the beans (or seeds) on the two rows
closest to them and generally move in a counter-clockwise fashion separately on their
own side. The common goal is to take all of your opponent's beans.
(See each game for further details.)
Each of the 19 listed variants has an 'EASY' and a 'HARD' option.
'Easy' variants were created by using extra ?dummy players (for scoring),
thus making Zillions' move searches more demanding.
So-called 'Hard' variants have no such extra players and are therefore better optimized.
The easy variants can provide a novice introduction to any particular game's subtle
rule differences. |
