The Board Cintos is played on an 8x8 board. The board is divided into territorial regions of 4x4 squares as shown in Figure 1A and Figure 1B. Each shows the initial state of the board at the beginning of a game. Figure 1A illustrates the setup for a 4-person game, while Figure 1B shows a setup for a 2-player game.

Figure 1A

Figure 1B

The Pieces

The Cintos board has 16 pieces at all times. The color of the pieces represents the owner (or capturer) of the piece. With the exception of color (and hence owner), there is no difference between any two pieces.

Objective

A player wins when he/she captures all the other pieces. When a piece is captured, it turns the color of the capturing player and can then be used by that player. Thus, a player loses the game when all of his/her pieces have been captured. When a player loses, the capturing player gains the territory of the losing player.

Turns

Turns in Cintos begin with the red player and continue clockwise based upon starting territory. Thus, in the 4-player game, the game would play as follows: red, yellow, blue, green, red, yellow, blue... On each turn, a player moves one piece. The piece may move (by one space) up, down, left or right into an empty space. No diagonal moves are allowed. Once the move is made, pieces are captured (see next section) and the turn has ended.

Capturing Pieces

When a piece is moved, the space moved to is the center of the area considered. The 3x3 square centered at the space moved into (the space and its eight bordering spaces) is the area of interest. Either all of the pieces in the 3x3 area will be captured, or no pieces will be captured.

Pieces are captured in any of these three situations.	Examples
Victory by Numbers If one player has more pieces in the area than all others, that player captures all the pieces in the area. Note that this situation disregards territory.
Tie on Home Territory If all the pieces in the area are on the same color territory and the player of that color (the "home" player) has the most pieces (including ties for most pieces) in the area, that player captures all the pieces in the area.
Tie on Neutral Territory If all the pieces in the area are on the same color territory and the "home" player does not have the most pieces, then the moving player will capture all the pieces in the area AS LONG AS the moving player is involved in the tie in the area.

See also

Detailed Examples
Cintos