Talk:Martian Backgammon

Rules Questions[edit source]

For those of you who have played this one:

The online rules are sparse about how captured pieces re-enter the board through the Re-Entry Point. I've made assumptions on how this works, basically by treating the Re-Entry Point as an invisible square just off the board, and moving the pieces back onto the board per standard movement rules. A more official explanation would help clear this up both for me and future players. - Cerulean 16:29, 28 Jul 2005 (GMT)
The pieces must exit the board in the nest order, but can I create another nest before all other nests are finished? Can I exit in the order of 1-1-2-2-3-3 pip pieces instead of 1-2-3-1-2-3, or must I do the latter? - Cerulean 16:29, 28 Jul 2005 (GMT)
Also, if Andy ever reads this... I'd like to add Martian Backgammon to the BoardGameGeek database, with your permission. - Cerulean 16:29, 28 Jul 2005 (GMT)
- Done! Martian Backgammon was added on Sept. 13. - Cerulean 13:30, 14 Sep 2005 (GMT)

Did anyone ever answer Cerulean's 2005 questions above? The same difficulties occurred for me in play. We decided on a liberal clearing-off rule, i.e. 1-1-2-2-3-3 was okay, as was 1-2-3-1-2-3. (A look at the original v.1 rules suggests that the stricter 1-2-3-1-2-3 requirement may have been intended. --Carthoris 23:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC))

Also, in conventional backgammon, there is a rule that pieces "on the bar" (effectively, sent back for re-entry) must be re-entered before that player can move other pieces. I played that way, because it seemed to make stepping on singletons more consequential, but there's nothing about it in the rules at WTS.

The way I played seemed to work fine; but the posted rules don't give me much confidence that it matches what anybody else might be doing with this one, so there's no way it could make it to my Starship Captain list. (I think Blockade is a better game of pyramid backgammon anyhow.) --Carthoris 22:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)