Hawks & Doves (video game)

"Hawks and Doves" is a turn based strategy game, rooted in chess, which uses archetypes from our world instead of standard pieces for movement and attack. Furthermore, all the pieces are not given to the players at the start. Instead powerful pieces are generated by utilizing environment tiles randomly generated by the game board.

It was created in the Fall of 2006 by Michael Arteaga, Veronica Peshterianu, and Will Riley.

Rules

Choosing Hawk or Dove

At the start of the game, player must choose whether they will play as a Hawk or a Dove for the duration of the game. The fundamental difference between the two teams is the variation in pieces. Hawks receive not only the pawn-like Consumer pieces, but also Bishops, Orators, Pop Stars and Trucks. The Doves play the entire game with only one type of piece, the Activist (Peace Piece).

Choosing the Hawk side, gives the player considerable advantage over the Doves, but more skilled players can still win while playing a Dove. The game was purposefully designed to be harder for a pacifist player because we believe that it is easier to win with aggression and attack instead of peaceful communication. Choose your side carefully!

Choosing Your Leader

At the start of the game, each player must choose a leader, comparable to the King piece.

Hawk Leader

Each player who chooses to play as a Hawk is given a six Leader figures to pick from. No two players can play the same Leader piece so once the piece is chosen, it cannot be chosen by another player.

Dove Leader

Because there is no specific Leader piece for a Dove, the player does not get to pick a Leader piece. Instead, the player only chooses to play the Dove starts out with Activists.

Game Board

The game board for Hawks and Doves is comprised of alternately colored squares resembling a chess board, but the board itself is not limited in size like a standard board. The player can scroll and view the entire board using the arrow keys on their keyboard.

Environment Pieces

We designed our game to have Environment Tiles randomly placed in the game board that generate powerful game pieces. These environment types correlate to the piece they generate and require a certain number of Consumers around them in order to generate their attack pieces. The Environment Pieces are arranged such that no two environments share a perimeter tile, there will always be two tiles between each Environment Piece. The Consumers MUST touch the environment tile to contribute to generating a piece.

Wal-Mart

The Wal-Mart tile generates Consumers for the player. Because the Consumer is the least powerful piece in terms of movement and attack, the player needs to surround the Wal-Mart tile with any 1 other piece to generate a Consumer.

Office Complex

The Office Complex tile generates Lawyers for the player. The player needs to surround the Office Complex tile with 4 Consumers in any configuration in order to generate the Lawyer.

Army Base

The Army Base tile generates Military Police for the player. The player needs to surround the Army Base with 6 Consumers in any configuration in order to generate a Military Police.

Mega Church

The Mega Church tile generates Preachers for the player, a piece which will be discussed later. The player needs to surround the Mega Church with 6 Consumer pieces in any configuration in order to generate a Preacher. Because the Preacher and the Military Police are similar pieces, they require the same amount of Consumers to generate.

Media Outlet

The Media Outlet tile generates Pop Stars for the player. The player needs to surround the Media Outlet tile with 8 Consumers, all the free squares around the environment must be covered in order to generate a Pop Star. Because the Pop Star is the most powerful action piece, it requires as many Consumers as possible to generate it.

Hawk Game Pieces

The Hawk gets 5 individual pieces to play the game with. They move and act similarly to their chess counterparts.

Pop Star

Movement

The Pop Star piece moves similarly to the Queen in chess. It can move vertically, horizontally and on both diagonals as far as possible WIHTOUT jumping over other players or environment tiles.

Attack

In order to attack, the Pop Star must move over an opposing player's piece. The Pop Star can attack from any direction and from any distance, provided there is not a piece of your own or an environment tile in the way.

Preacher

Movement

The Preacher piece moves similarly to the Bishop piece in chess. It can move diagonally in any direction without jumping over players or environment tiles.

AttackIn order to attack, the Preacher must move over an opposing player's piece. The Preacher can only attack at a diagonal, provided there is not a piece of your own or an environment tile in the way.

Military Police

Movement

The Military Police (MP) piece moves similarly to the Rook piece in chess. It can move vertically or horizontally in any direction without jumping over players or environment tiles.

Attack

In order to attack, the MP must move over an opposing player's piece. The MP can only attack veritcally or horizontally, provided there is not a piece of your own or an environment tile in the way.

Lawyer

Movement

The Lawyer piece moves similarly to the Knight piece in chess. It can move in an L formation of two squares in one direction (vertically or horizontally) and then one more square in one direction (vertically or horizontally depending on your previous move).

AttackIn order to attack, the Lawyer must move over an opposing player's piece. The Lawyer can only attack in the L formation described above, provided there is not a piece of your own or an environment tile in the way.

Consumer

The Consumer piece is special because it is required in the creation of the powerful attacking pieces. A specific number of Consumers must surround a tile piece, noted above, in order to generate the more powerful pieces.

Movement

The Consumer piece moves similarly to the Pawn piece in chess. It can move one square in the vertical or horizontal direction.

Attack

In order to attack, the Consumer piece must move over an oppsing player's piece. The Consumer can only attack one square in each diagonal direction, provided there is not a piece of your own or an environment tile in the way.

Dove Game Pieces

Activists

When a player choses to play as a Dove, he does not get any of the chess-like power pieces, nor does he get a leader. Instead, he receives Activist pieces. Activists can be generated, like Consumers, at any Strip Mall environment tile and just like Consumers it only takes one Activist to spawn another.

Throughout the entire game, the Dove player can only use these Activists as his pieces, therefore strategy is key when playing as a Dove character. Because there is no leader, the only way to defeat a Dove is to attack and destroy all the Activist pieces on the board. And for a Dove player to win, he must pacify all the Hawk pieces on the board and convert them to Activists of his own color.

MovementThe Activist piece moves opposite of the Consumer piece. It can move one square in any diagonal direciton. In order to pacify (Attack) an opposing piece, the Activist must move one square in a vertical or horizontal direciton.

Pacifism

The Activist piece does not attack and remove other pieces from the board. Instead, when the Activist moves over an opposing player's piece, it converts that piece into an Activist and then transfers the ownership of the new Activist to the attacking player, much like an activist moves people over to their cause instead of removing them.

Once a piece has been pacified by an Activist, it can't be re-converted, it must be destroyed by a Hawk attacking piece like any other piece on the board.

Game End State

One player must successfully defeat all the other players on the board in order to win, but there are different ways of defeating a Hawk or a Dove. In order to defeat another Hawk, a player must either attack and destroy their Leader piece (playing as Hawk) or pacify and convert their leader to an Activist (playing as a Dove). If there are multiple players as Hawks, a player must get rid of ALL the leaders in order to win.

In order to defeat Dove players, all Activist pieces must be destroyed. This is a harder way to win but it compensates for the fact that Dove players do not have powerful, far moving pieces at their disposal.

For a Dove player to win, he must convert all the Hawk pieces on the board to Activists. Once there are no more Hawk leaders, the Doves win. This allows multiple players who choose to play as Doves to ally and win as a team instead of as individuals.

External links

* [http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~gtg689g/hawksanddoves/index.html Hawks and Doves can be played for free here.]