Plateau (game)
Game pieces and board.
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| Designer(s) | Jim Albea |
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| Publisher(s) | Plateau Co. |
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | 30 minutes |
| Random chance | None |
| Skill(s) required | Tactics, Strategy, Bluffing |
Plateau is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Jim Albea.
The game was developed over a two-year period culminating in its present form on May 12, 1986. The original name for the game was Pinnacle, but it was discovered that an older board/card game had that name, so around 1989 the name was changed to Plateau.
From the 1980s through the 1990s Plateau was played at Science Fiction conventions mostly in the Southeastern United States. From the 1990s to the present, the game is played live at an online game site and via email. In 1997 a computer implementation of the game was created which facilitates email play and has a computer robot.
Plateau is self-published by Jim Albea.
The Official Rules are on the PlateauGame.com web site.
There are two ways to win: 1) build a stack of six of your pieces on the board; or 2) capture six of your opponent's pieces.
A 4x4 square board and each player has 12 color-coded disks.
Black moves first by picking out two of his pieces and placing them in a stack on the perimeter of the board. White does the same on a different perimeter square.
Players alternate moves. A move can be one of three types:
1. Onboard a new piece. Onboarding is adding one new piece to the play.
2. Move a stack already on the board.
3. Exchange captured pieces.
Onboarding is adding one new piece to the play. This new piece can be placed anywhere that doesn't directly harm an opposing piece. For instance you can on board to any blank square or on top of any of your own pieces. The majority of Plateau moves are Onboards.
The direction that pieces move is determined by the color that is facing up. Some of the pieces have different markers on their two sides. Those pieces can be flipped over at the start of a move, which changes the direction they can travel.
When a piece has a blue side showing it moves diagonally.
When a piece has a red side showing it moves orthogonally (or straight).
When a piece has a blank side showing it can move either diagonally or orthogonally.
When the orange marker is showing the piece moves in a crooked fashion. It moves one square straight and one square diagonally.
A stack moves in a straight line up to one space for each piece in the stack. As a stack is moving it can pick up and drop off friendly pieces from the bottom of the stack. If it drops off pieces on opposing pieces then they become pinned, which means that they cannot move. A stack can jump over any pieces as it moves.
BEFORE: In this example white starts with a stack of four pieces.
AFTER: White moves three spaces dropping pieces off along the way.
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Wikipedia