Queen Bee movements

[Detektor]

For me this game is nice and I want to play with this, I think this is an interesting and new board game. But there is one piece that I don't really understand. The movement of the QueenBee.
I played some matches with the AI, and there are some situations, that is strange. I took a picture from it : http://ibb.co/buQGi5
I am playing with the black pieces, and the AI is playing with the white.
I cannot move with my black Queen bee in this position, but the AI with the white Queen bee could moved from that position(red line) to that new position(where the arrow show)
How could it happen and why? Can someone help?

[4-vektor]

All pieces that don’t jump or move in any other odd ways can only move if they can physically slide from one position to the next. The black queen bee cannot slide to the position you are pointing to in your image. If it were an ant or bug instead it couldn’t move either. The black queen bee is pinned in its position and cannot move anymore.
The white queen bee however can naturally slide into the space or out of it.
I set up your game with real Hive pieces to show you what I mean in this animated gif:

https://gfycat.com/ExcellentGoodIndianabat

The opening next to the black queen is called a gate. It’s one piece wide, but because of the direction it is pointing it’s too narrow to let any piece physically pass through it.

A quote from Randy Ingersoll’s “Play Hive Like a Champion”:

“A gate formation occurs when two tiles are separated by the
width of one side of a tile. A gate is easy to recognize as
opposite points of two tiles separated by a small gap. The gap
in a gate is too small for any piece to slide through, including
Beetles.”

The opening next to the white queen could be called a door, also one piece wide, but the opening is in a direction that lets a piece physically slide through it.

Again, from Ingersoll’s book:

“When two tiles are separated by the width of a whole tile, the
formation is referred to as a door. Any piece can slide through
a door. It is possible that a bug may gain extra mobility near
a door because while passing through a door, a Spider or
Queen, while maintaining contact with both pieces, may have
up to three choices of direction in which to continue.”

I hope that’s helpful.

[≓Sean Colombo≒]

:D this community rules. Thanks for helping a fellow player, albedo!

[4-vektor]

My pleasure!

[Detektor]

Thank you for your help albedo.

I didn't think of the physically slide method.
I played some matches at yesterday, I cannot beat the AI temporarily, on worker difficulty,
but I could won at twice on the drone difficulty.
It is interesting that there are new pieces, like the ladybug or pillbug. Temporarily, I am playing just the core/base game.
Now, my favourite piece is the beetle, because beetle can block other pieces and can move any direction. :)

[4-vektor]

Always think in terms of playing the physical version of the game. That’s what especially the one hive rule and also the “sliding movement” are built upon.

The great thing about Hive is that the most pieces have very distinct advantages and disadvantages that you can use for yourself and against your opponent. All pieces are different enough from one another to make them nicely balanced. Some pieces are useful in early stages of the game, other pieces are very useful during mid-game, and others are good for the endgame.

If you get the chance, buy a physical set, play against your friends in real life. It’s deceptively easy to learn and much harder to master. ;)

If you throw in the ladybug and the pillbug in the earliest game stages, you can use them to do some neat tricks, like free your queen later on in the game. You can use the pillbug to move a theatening piece away from your queen bee, and that moved piece is fixed for the opponent’s next move, and the ladybug can move away to free up spaces around your queen bee or to create gates that stop your opponent to get near it.

[Detektor]

Thanks for your advice.

[globefish23]

FYI, gates can also occur on top of the hive, where two beetles block another beetle from passing through.
This is even possible on the third layer, when playing with the mosquito expansion, where all 4 beetles and 2 mosquitos are on top.

http://i.imgur.com/Yd0OdVE.png

[4-vektor]

Originally posted by globefish23:

FYI, gates can also occur on top of the hive, where two beetles block another beetle from passing through.
This is even possible on the third layer, when playing with the mosquito expansion, where all 4 beetles and 2 mosquitos are on top.

http://i.imgur.com/Yd0OdVE.png

Wow, I’ve only seen this formation theoretically in Ingersoll’s book, but never in any game I’ve played so far. Even in games I have played against Ingersoll himself, where he always whooped my butt, except once ;)

He’s very active on boardspace.net, and he’s a nice fellow to play against.

[≓Sean Colombo≒]

Thanks for making that layout, globefish!

Originally posted by 4-vektor:

Originally posted by globefish23:

FYI, gates can also occur on top of the hive, where two beetles block another beetle from passing through.
This is even possible on the third layer, when playing with the mosquito expansion, where all 4 beetles and 2 mosquitos are on top.

http://i.imgur.com/Yd0OdVE.png

Wow, I’ve only seen this formation theoretically in Ingersoll’s book, but never in any game I’ve played so far. Even in games I have played against Ingersoll himself, where he always whooped my butt, except once ;)

Randy is great! :) He was a huge help in designing the AI for the Steam version.

[4-vektor]

Originally posted by ≓Sean Colombo≒:

Randy is great! :) He was a huge help in designing the AI for the Steam version.

Yeah, he’s a really nice fellow!

[mallardman]

I've just read Randy's book and I think it is excellent and a must have for all serious players. I'm new to the game and only been playing a month or so and the book has been a great help. I wish there were more available (as e.g. chess books of which I have several hundred!!). A beginner's book by Randy would be very welcome with plenty of full, annotated games (I find boardspace annotations virtually impossible to access). Hive deserves to be much better known, especially in the U.K., as it gives the same satisfaction and pleasure as chess but is less stressful and time-consuming. A wonderful game which I am trying to make more widely known. My neighbour has now bought her own set and I was approached by a local tea shop owner to start a games afternoon when she saw two of us playing at one of her tables. Hopefully we will see a wide interest in the game in my local area and this will be a good start ..............
One slight quibble .............. Why aren't the sets available with raised dots to indicate which bugs are which when annotating the physical game? This would be a great help.

[4-vektor]

You want to indicate if you are moving Grashopper 1, Grashopper 2... of each set?
Raised dots would not be very useful if you stack pieces.

The annotation system is actually unambiguous. And on boardspace.net you can look at all the games. You can even download annotations of all games ever played on there to have a look at them offline with Hive Game Reviewer.

If you take a look at Hive games on boardspace.net you can see which bug is which if you check which direction they’re facing.

But as I said before, the annotation of games should be unambiguous either way.

If you want to indicate the number of your piece, simply let your bugs face in distinct directions:

Grashopper 1 faces to the left, Grashopper 2 faces to the upper left, Grashopper 3 faces to the upper right, for example.

Edit: There is a link on Boardspace.net that describes the whole notation in detail, including the direction the insects are facing in, according to the order they were introduced to the game: https://www.boardspace.net/english/about_hive_notation.html