BILOBA(6)

NAME
biloba - multiplayer strategy board game

SYNOPSIS
biloba [server]

DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents briefly the biloba command.

This manual page was written for the Debian™ distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

biloba is an abstract strategy board game which allows up to four players.

Allows single player gaming against its own AI engine, and multiplayer gaming through the network.

GAME RULES
Game has a help facility included, the question mark icon on the top right corner. After clicking it rules are fully explained with graphic diagrams. Just click on the anywhere screen to advance help screens.

For completeness a summary of the rules extracted from the game homepage is included below.

  Goal
The goal of the game is to remove all opponent's pawns from the board.

  Moving
A pawn can move to next free tile in any direction (a). A pawn can also jump over any other pawn, one at a time, but never backwards (b).

  · | · | ·       · |   | · |   | ·
 ---+---+---     ---+---+---+---+---
  · | O | ·         | X | X | X |
 ---+---+---     ---+---+---+---+---
  · | · | ·       · | X | O | X | ·

 (a) Movement    (b) Jumping

  Taking and replacing
An enemy pawn is taking by placing two pawns on each side of one of its horizontal, vertical or diagonal axis.

    |   |         | X |         |   | X
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
  X | O | X       | O |         | O |
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
    |   |         | X |       X |   |

The pawn is then removed from the board, and replaced by one of the two pawns that took it out.

    |   |         | X |         |   | 🡗
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
  X | X | ←       | X |         | X |
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
    |   |         | ↑ |       X |   |

If more than one enemy pawns are taken in a same move, they will be all taken out of the board before doing the replacement.

    | X | X       | X | X       | X | 🡗
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
  X | O |       X |   |       X | X |
 ---+---+---   ---+---+---   ---+---+---
    | O | X     X |   | X     X | X | ←

If replacing a pawn lets you take out other ones, they must be removed first, and followed by more replacements.

Taking pawns is mandatory when possible, and unlimited.

If a player is forced to take pawns at the beginning of the turn then take movements are made, replacements are made and turn is over.

If a player can take a pawn while not in turn (in 3 or 4 players games), will wait for the turn, and make take if it is still possible.

The turn is over when the player which started it has done all the possible takes and replacements.

  Special tile
The tile at the center of the board is special. When a pawn enters it it's required to move again to any of the seven adjacent tiles.

Pawns can't stop on the special tile.

The special tile is not accessible by jumping over a pawn.

  End of game
The winner is the last player to have at least three pawns on the board.

As soon as a player only has two pawns left, and can't take an opponent's pawn out just after, that player loses and the two pawns left are removed from the board.

If, after having lost a pawn, player can take another pawn by doing a move, it's a draw.

OPTIONS
The optional machine name or address where a peer biloba is listening for a network game. Port used is 8000.

SEE ALSO
biloba-server(6), Game homepage <http://biloba.sourceforge.net/>.

AUTHORS
biloba was created and coded by Guillaume Demougeot <mailto:dmgt@wanadoo.fr> and Colin Leroy <mailto:colin@colino.net>.

This manual page was written by Ricardo Mones <mailto:mones@debian.org> for the Debian™ system (but may be used by others).

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2005-2019 Ricardo Mones

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2.