Can't Stop (board game)
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| Can't Stop | |
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 Sample "game in play" |
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| Designer | Sid Sackson |
| Players | 2-4 |
| Age range | 10 to adult |
| Setup time | < 1 minute |
| Playing time | 30-45 minutes |
| Random chance | medium |
| Skills required | strategy |
Can't Stop is a board game designed by Sid Sackson. The game was published by Parker Brothers in 1980, and was long out of print in the United States. It was reprinted by Face 2 Face Games in 2007. The goal of the game is to "claim" (get to the top of) three of the columns before any of the other players can. But the more that the player risks rolling the dice during a turn, the greater the risk of losing the advances made during that turn.
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[edit] Equipment
The game equipment consists of four dice, a board, a set of eleven markers for each player, and three neutral-colored markers.
The board consists of eleven columns of spaces, one column for each of the numbers 2 through 12. The columns (respectively) have 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5 and 3 spaces each. The number of spaces in each column roughly corresponds to the likelihood of rolling them on two dice.
[edit] Rules
On each turn, the player rolls the four dice, then divides them into two pairs, adding up each pair. (For example, a player rolling 1 - 3 - 3 - 4 could make a 4 and a 7, or a 5 and a 6.) If the neutral markers are off the board, they are brought onto the board on the columns corresponding to these totals. If the neutral markers are already on the board in one or both of these columns, they are advanced one space upward. If the neutral markers are on the board, but only in columns that cannot be made with any pair of the current four dice, the turn is over and the player gains nothing.
After moving the markers, the player chooses whether or not to roll again. If the player stops, they put markers of their color in the location of the current neutral markers. If the player restarts this column on a later turn, they start building from the place where they previously placed their markers. If the player does not stop, they must be able to advance one of the neutral markers on their next turn, or lose any advancement made this turn.
When a player reaches the top space of a column and claims it then this column is won, and no further play in that column is allowed. A player claims three columns to win the game.
The official rules merely say "If you can place a marker, you must...", not stating if that applies before or after a player decides how to subdivide the four dice. This rule is potentially confusing because, suppose the player has a neutral marker in the 7-column, with two unplayed. The player now rolls 2-2-5-5. Of course, the player wants to declare two sevens. The player still has an unplayed neutral marker, so is the rule interpreted such that the player must place their remaining two neutral markers, playing on 4 and 10? The rule may have only been intended to apply to requiring that all die-pairs be played, if possible. For instance, if the player rolls 3-4-1-2, they may choose to make a 7 and a 3, advancing their 7 marker, and they must also place their 3 marker even though they would prefer to hold it in reserve.
[edit] Strategy
Since this is a dice-based game, success does depend significantly on luck. That being said, a good player will consistently beat a poor player, so there is some tactical and strategic opportunity.
Both choices (which markers to advance, and whether to roll again or not) offer difficult decisions. You can focus on the easy-to-roll but tall columns, such as 6, 7 and 8; or you can focus on the short, but difficult-to-roll columns such as 2 and 12. If your markers are in the shorter columns, you should choose to reroll less frequently, since there is much lower chance of matching your chosen numbers. If another player is close to claiming a column, then you should probably push your luck longer, hoping to steal this column away.
There is significant benefit to keeping the neutral markers off the board for as long as possible. There are typically very few rolls that cause your turn to end when you have off-board neutral markers left.
Having markers on 6, 7, and 8 gives the highest chance of making another successful roll, 91.97%, 1192 rolls out of 1296 (64). Some other combinations have surprisingly high hit rates, e.g. 4,6,8 (and so, 6,8,10) match 91.13%. This match rate is higher than, for example, 5,6,8, at 89.51%, or 5,6,7, at 88.66%. This difference occurs because having a marker on 4 catches the cases where three of four dice are 1's or 2's and the fourth die is a 3 (32 rolls out of 1296). The lowest probability of matching on a reroll is for the set 2,3,12 (or 2,11,12), at 43.83%.
The chance of being able to roll again is often balanced by the relatively low progress gains from rolling common numbers. So, although the match rate for 4,6,8 is just slightly lower than for 6,7,8, you need only seven 4's to capture that column, versus thirteen 7's. This makes 4,6,8 superior to 6,7,8 in a benefit/risk analysis. Choosing markers that are not all 8 or below, or all 6 or above, gives more benefit to risk overall. Also, choosing sets of all even numbers and also avoiding sets of all odd numbers is beneficial. In some combinations, a slightly wider distribution is better. For example, if a player already has markers on the 4 and 6 columns, then placing the third marker on the 10 column is better (88% chance of matching) than on the 9 column (86% chance).
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