Agon

Overview

Agon (also known as Queen’s Guard) is a two-player abstract strategy board game played on a hexagonal board. It is notable as the oldest known board game played on a hexagonal grid, first published in France in 1842. Each player commands a queen and six guards, maneuvering them toward the center of the board. The objective is to place your queen on the center hexagon and surround her with all six of your guards.

Components

• Hexagonal board consisting of 91 hexagonal spaces arranged in 6 concentric rings plus a center space
• 7 pieces per player (1 queen and 6 guards), in two contrasting colors

Setup

Players sit on opposite sides of the board. Each player places their queen and six guards on designated starting positions along their edge of the board, following the standard starting arrangement. The queen begins in the center of the player’s back row, flanked by guards.

Turn Structure

Players alternate turns. On each turn, a player moves exactly one piece one space to an adjacent hexagon.

Actions

Movement Rules

• A piece may move to any adjacent hexagonal space, as long as the move does not take it to an outer ring (farther from the center). Pieces may move laterally within the same ring or inward toward the center, but never outward to a more distant ring.
• Only the queen may move into the center hexagon of the board.
• A piece cannot move to a space already occupied by any other piece (friendly or enemy).

Trapping (Capturing)

• An enemy piece is trapped when it is flanked on two adjacent sides by opposing pieces, and all three pieces are on the same ring of the board.
• When a guard is trapped, the defending player must use their next turn to move (reinstate) that guard to any empty space on the outermost ring of the board. The defending player chooses the placement.
• When a queen is trapped, the capturing player chooses where the queen is placed on the board (on any vacant space). The queen must still be reinstated on the defending player’s next turn.
• If multiple pieces are trapped simultaneously, they are resolved one at a time across successive turns.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

A player wins by occupying the center hexagon with their queen while simultaneously having all six guards adjacent to the center hexagon (surrounding the queen). Both conditions must be met at the same time.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Forfeit rule: If a player surrounds the center hexagon with all six of their guards without their queen being in the center, that player forfeits the game. This prevents a blocking strategy.
• Pieces can never move outward (to a ring farther from the center). This means a piece that reaches an inner ring can never go back out, and pieces trapped and sent to the outer ring must work their way inward again.
• The game has no captures in the traditional sense; trapped pieces are relocated, not removed from play.
• Stalemate is theoretically possible but extremely rare given the movement constraints.
• Some historical rule variants allow diagonal movement across rings, but the standard modern rules restrict movement to adjacent hexagons only.

Player Reference

Piece Summary

| Piece | Count per Player | Special Ability | |——-|—————–|—————–| | Queen | 1 | Only piece that can occupy the center hexagon | | Guard | 6 | Must surround the queen for victory |

Ring Structure

The board has 7 concentric layers:

• Ring 0 (Center): 1 hexagon — only queens may enter
• Ring 1: 6 hexagons — innermost ring around center
• Ring 2: 12 hexagons
• Ring 3: 18 hexagons
• Ring 4: 24 hexagons
• Ring 5: 18 hexagons
• Ring 6 (Outer): 12 hexagons — trapped guards are sent here

Key Rules Quick Reference

• Move 1 piece, 1 space per turn
• Never move outward (away from center)
• Only the queen enters the center
• Trapped pieces go to the outer ring (guards) or anywhere (queens)
• Surrounding center with guards but no queen = forfeit