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Congo. Animals fight on 7 by 7 board. (7x7, Cells: 49) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Georg Spengler wrote on Sun, Jan 4, 2015 08:12 PM UTC:Poor ★
I hate to say it, but this is a children's game. Alas, it's flawn. It will end in a draw when both players are moderately skillful.

Shi Ji wrote on Fri, Jan 28, 2011 05:31 PM UTC:
The 'drowning rule' means that you can't use pawns to support cross-river attack. So just wait your enemy come from the other side of the river!
Another river rule in Catapults of Troy is also interesting. But these rules all make games more drawish, because they weaken two many pieces. I think a river rule should strengthen more pieces than weaken, or at least just weaken a few pieces like in Xiangqi.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Apr 10, 2010 02:14 PM UTC:
What are other games 'invented by people of this age'?

Yu Ren Dong wrote on Sun, Sep 7, 2008 04:00 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
http://www.zillions-of-games.com/cgi-bin/zilligames/submissions.cgi/2914?do=show;id=11

I am so late to discover this good game. But I think Crocodile standing riverside is so easy to defence. It isn't good for attack.  I wish Elephants also do not drown.

I also use Alfaerie font to change Cango's graphics.

http://pika.cs.nctu.edu.tw/lit/congo.rar

Kuyan Judith wrote on Thu, Apr 3, 2008 03:36 AM UTC:
the river might not be much of an obstacle to attack considering that the giraffe, elephant and zebra can jump it and the crocodile is unaffected.

Mark Thompson wrote on Fri, Dec 2, 2005 01:06 AM UTC:
Regarding possible 'fixes' for the drowning rule (if anyone agrees with me that it needs fixing), what if we declared that the river contains 'islands' at b4 and f4, and any piece can remain on those squares indefinitely without drowning? The crocodile's move is unaffected. This might allow the river still to have an effect on play, but also allow players to launch attacks more easily. Would anyone like to try it?

Mark Thompson wrote on Sun, Oct 16, 2005 04:16 AM UTC:
The 'drowning rule' in Congo is original and interesting, but it seems to
me that it makes it awfully difficult to get an attack going. If you push a
piece into the River, your opponent has the option of immediately making a
counterattacking move that needs an immediate defensive response, which
forces you to lose the piece in the River. It almost seems as though
you're better off waiting for the other player to attack and let him be
the one whose pieces drown. Does anyone know just how the good players
avoid this problem?

Someone once observed that one of the general problems in designing a good
strategy game is figuring out how to force the players to be aggressive,
since many games tend to favor passive play unless a mechanism is
introduced to force conflict. This makes me suspect that Congo might be a
better game if the drowning rule, which seems to discourage conflict, were
revised somehow: perhaps, a piece (or at least a Pawn) should be allowed to
stay in the River one turn without drowning? Any suggestions?

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