Fanorona
Fanorona () is a strategy board game for two players. The game is indigenous to Madagascar. Rules. Fanorona has three standard versions: Fanoron-Telo, Fanoron-Dimy, and Fanoron-Tsivy. The difference between these variants is the size of board played on. Fanoron-Telo is played on a 3×3 board and the difficulty of this game can be compared to the game of tic-tac-toe. Fanoron-Dimy is played on a 5×5 board and Fanoron-Tsivy is played on a 9×5 board—Tsivy being the most popular. The Tsivy board consists of lines and intersections that create a grid with  5 rows and 9 columns subdivided diagonally to form part of the tetrakis square tiling of the plane. A line represents the path along which a stone can move during the game. There are weak and strong intersections. At a weak intersection it is only possible to move a stone horizontally and vertically, while on a strong intersection it is also possible to move a stone diagonally. A stone can only move from one intersection to an adjacent intersection. Black and white pieces, twenty-two each, are arranged on all points but the center. The objective of the game is  to capture all the opponents pieces. The game is a draw if neither player succeeds in this. Players alternate turns, starting with White. History. Fanorona is very popular in Madagascar. According to one version of a popular legend, an astrologer had advised King Ralambo to choose his successor by, while his sons were away from the capital, feigning sickness and urging their return; his kingdom would be given to the first son who returned home to him. When the king's messenger reached Ralambo's elder son Prince Andriantompokoindrindra, he was playing fanorona and trying to win a "telo noho  dimy" (3 against 5) situation, one that is infamously difficult to resolve. As a result, his younger brother Prince Andrianjaka was the first to arrive and inherited the throne. Fanorona inspired Christian Freeling's draughts variant Bushka, which in turn inspired the game Dameo. Analysis. Using 10,000 games with Alpha-beta pruning players, the game-tree complexity and state-space complexity can be computed. Fanorona has a game-tree complexity of ~10 and a state-space complexity of ~10. In 2007, the game of Fanorona and smaller variants were solved weakly as a draw under perfect play. Both the moves  f2-e3A and d3-e3A lead to a draw.