How to Play Goats & Tigers

Goats & Tigers, also known as Aadu Puli Aattam and Bagh-Chal, is a classic hunt game played in villages of India and Nepal. It contrasts the symmetrical battles of Chess, being instead an asymmetrical game in which Tigers represent the predatory elite and the Goats represent the masses who must work together in unity to achieve peace and safety for all.

Each player has a different objective. Tigers must try to kill and eat as many Goats as possible, while the Goats try to work together as a team to peacefully immobilise the Tigers and prevent them from killing any Goats.

To play you’ll need:

• 2 players
• A Goats & Tigers board (or draw your own on a big sheet of paper)
• 3 coins or player pieces to represent the Tigers
• 15 coins or player pieces to represent the Goats

You can use anything you like as the player pieces. Coins work well because they are a standard size, but you could also use counters from another game, stones, nuts, washers, or even make your own. Have fun with it and don’t be too precious.

Gameplay

General Rules

1. First of all you’ll need to agree who will play as the Goats and who will play as the Tigers. You can either do this through mutual agreement or simply toss a coin.
2. Each spot on the game board represents a position, and all Goats and Tigers must always be on one of these spots and never in between.
3. When moving pieces on the board, players must always follow the white lines.
4. Each piece can only ever move one step (to the next spot) at a time, with the exception that Tigers kill Goats by jumping over them, moving two steps in the process.
5. Tigers kill Goats by jumping over a single Goat to a free space on the other side of the Goat. Note that they cannot perform double jumps and over more than one Goat and cannot travel around corners while jumping.
6. Goats immobilise Tigers by blocking all positions for them to move to, without getting eaten in the process.
7. You cannot repeat the same board position over and over. So for example, you cannot shuttle the same animal back and forth between the two same positions on repeated turns. You must move that animal to a third position, or move another animal, before returning. This helps keep the game moving and prevents infinite loops. The only exception to this is when there are no other moves available.

To Play

1. Begin by placing the three Tiger player pieces on the positions marked with an orange spot on the board.
   Alternative starting positions are sometimes played, such as the placing the Tigers in the corners of the main triangle of the board, so feel free to play with your preferred variations.
2. The player representing the Goats keeps all of their Goats off the board initially, and begins the game by placing a single Goat anywhere on the board of their choosing.
3. During this phase of the game, on each turn , the Tiger player must move a Tiger on each turn, but the Goat player must add a new Goat to the board each turn and not move any Goats until all Goats are on the board.
4. Once all Goats are on the board, each player must then move one piece each turn while aiming to achieve their objectives. You cannot skip turns.

How to win

The game is won when one player meets their objective as follows:

• Goats win when they have immobilised all 3 Tigers.
• Tigers win by eating 5 Goats.

Have fun and contemplate the deeper learnings offered by the game.