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====== Natal Seas - Pods ======

Natal Seas - Pods is a territorial game where the players take on the metaphorical role of competing whales vying for space to protect their young. Played on a hexagonal board, it uses an innovative mechanism of placements and movements.

Inventor: Dale Walton

===== Rules =====

See [[https://cjffield.com/rules/pods.pdf|Pods rules (PDF)]]. Hex-hex **7**.

==== Goal ====

**Territory** in this game means any place you could eventually occupy if your opponent passes for the rest of the game, less those spaces that your opponent could occupy if you passed for the rest of the game.  

A player whose territory covers more than half the board, wins.

The engine shows the ownership of empty territory using colored dots. 
==== Setup ====

Starting with an empty hex-hex-7, the players in turn place one whale (**pod**).

(For an equitable start the first whale should not be in the center, and the second whale should either be adjacent to it, or else at the same distance from the center. -- This is not currently enforced.)
==== Gameplay ====

A turn is either a **placement** of a new whale on an empty cell adjacent adjacent to more friendly than enemy whales, or the **migration** of a single whale in a series of moves to adjacent empty cells. 

//The **migration** is subject to 2 restrictions://

1) For each space a whale enters, there must be a whale of either color that is adjacent, both to the space it enters and to the space it leaves. 
-- In other words, whales skirt around existing pieces analogous to the 'Ants' in 'Hive', except that in Natal Seas, there is no connected 'Hive'.

2) Counting the moving whale as 1, there must be at least as many friends as enemies around each space that the whale occupies on its **migration**.

There is never a reason to pass.

==== Variants ====

No engine variants. A display option hides influence shading.

===== Further details =====

==== Version history ====

  * Current engine version: ''20240802'' (2024-08-02). On Abstract Play since 2024-09-05.
==== Links ====

  * [[https://cjffield.com/rules/pods.pdf]]
  * [[https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3248920/pods-a-simpler-way-to-play-using-single-moves]]

Of historical interest:
  * [[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/402621/natal-seas]]