TABLETOP TIME MACHINE
Returning to Agon
The most mysterious thing about this intriguing game is whether it’s supposed to rhyme with flagon, argon, or pagan, a point that nobody else seems to have remarked upon. As it’s Greek for ‘contest’ I suppose flagon would be the nearest. What makes it intriguing is the fact that it’s the first ever modern game to be played on a grid of hexagons. Squared grids had always hitherto held sway, being much easier to draw or carve.
Polygonal cells came into fashion in 18th-century games more literally representing warfare, probably inspired by the Fortifications of Vauban, consisting of 12 groups of fortified buildings and sites along the borders of France. But Agon, despite its title and vocabulary, is not technically a wargame; rather, it’s a two-dimensional configuration game, perhaps the first of this family.
Configuration games, an extension of race games whereby the aim is to be the first to get your pieces into a specified pattern, didn’t really come into their own until the 20th century, another example being Pagoda (see this column of December 2020).
Agon is played on a hexagonal grid on which each player initially places a ‘queen’ and six guards in an array illustrated in figure 1, the queen shown as a hexagon and the guards as circles. The aim is to be the first to get your queen into the central hex and symmetrically surrounded by all six of your guards (figure 2). At each turn you move a piece either sideways (orbitally) or inwards (radially) to an unoccupied adjacent hex, but not backwards into the next outer circuit. Only the queen may ever enter the central hex, and no piece can be moved into custodianship. You may not surround the central hex with your six guards if it is vacant, otherwise you lose immediately.
You can oust an enemy piece by sandwiching it between two of your own in a line of three (custodianship). Your opponent must then use their next turn to take and replace the ousted piece on any vacant hex, if the queen, or, if a guard, on any vacant hex on the outermost circuit. It follows that if you make more than one capture in a single turn you gain a tempo for each one, as an ousted piece can only be replaced, not moved.
The game is first described in a pamphlet entitled ‘Agon, or the Queen’s Guards: a new game of skill, possessing greater interest and more scientific combinations than Draughts with less intricacy than chess’, first published by T Sherman [sic, actually Sherwin], London, in 1842. No inventor is named, but a small postscript reads ’Persons desirous of instruction in the game, or of any further information, will receive prompt attention by addressing a letter (post paid) to Agon, in care of Mr Peacock’,followedby his address.Games researcher Edward Copisarow identifies this gentleman as Anthony Peacock, ‘Teacher of the Mathematics at the East London Mechanics Institution’, and author of various publications showing a distinctly creative bent.
What gave him the idea? L’hôte, in Histoire des jeux de société (1994), references a gaming table incorporating an Agon board made by the Parisian firm of Adam Vaugeois supposedly made in 1780. Historian Adrian Seville, who owns such a table, dates it to 1812 at the earliest. But even that is 30 years prior to any account of the game itself, suggesting to me that Peacock may have seen such a pattern and could see it as the basis for a new game. It’s happened before.