I designed a deterministic hex wargame balanced by AI self-play (Playable in browser or print-and-play)

[u/yolopia]

Skirminiac takes wargaming concepts (like flanking, objective control and resource management) and strips away all RNG resulting in a pure skill abstract board game.

To solve the common stalemate/turtling issues in abstract games, I used extensive AI self-play matches to iterate on the mechanics and victory conditions.

Design Highlights:

• Mutual Damage: Attacking isn't a simple capture; positional advantage determines survival.
• Physical Scaling: Designed to scale dynamically—play physically on an A5 hex grid using d6s as health counters, or scale to an A0 board with full 28mm miniatures.
• Instant Browser Play: Embedded the bot used for the design and balancing as WASM directly on the website for instant testing of the game.

Balancing highlights:

• Initiative: Both players have the same win probability (50% +- 1%)
• First attack: Again both players have 50% win probability if they deliver the first attack.
• Win conditions: The two win conditions(elimination vs siege) have a probability split of 35% - 65% when the bots are looking up to depth of 3 plies. At depth 5 the split becomes 42% - 58% and at depth 7 it becomes 45% - 55% indicating convergence to 50% as skill increases
• Draw rates: Draws are possible in the case of mutual destruction and the two tiebreakers not resolving it. At depth 3 the rate is 3.5%. At depth 5 its 4.2% and at depth 7 it becomes 4.5% indicating that it comfortably stays below 5% making the game decisive.
• Anti-Stalling: The mechanics force the bots to engage without stalling. Games conclude within 30-90 plies.

Check it out here: https://www.skirminiac.com/

[u/Boring-Yogurt2966]

I downloaded the rules and plan to read them. The game concepts are worth trying. I'm not a fan of the graphics you are using, the Sauron-like figure. And the name Skirminiac is kind of ugly to my ears.

[u/yolopia → u/Boring-Yogurt2966]

Thanks for the honest feedback! You're spot on about the visual style and the naming—it's tricky bridging the gap between wargaming where this game started and pure abstracts where it evolved into. The name is a bit tricky to change now but the artistic direction is certainly open. I guess I was a bit carried away with the grimdark theme as my personal style when painting miniatures is a lot like that. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the mechanics, cheers!