Ploy (board game)

Ploy is an abstract strategy board game for two or four players, designed by Frank Thibault and commercially released by the 3M Company in 1970 as part of its 3M bookshelf game series, where it was marketed as a space-age strategy game. Each side controls a set of pieces, fifteen pieces per side in the two-player game and nine pieces per side in the four-player game, including a single piece called the Commander. Every piece carries its own movement direction indicators that restrict how far and which way it may travel: Shields move only one space, Probes move up to two spaces, Lances move up to three spaces, and the Commander moves one space in any of four directions. Pieces move along straight lines from vertex to vertex on the board, and the game uses displacement capture, meaning a captured piece is removed from the board entirely and the capturing piece occupies the square it just vacated. A player wins by capturing the opponent's Commander outright or by capturing every other piece the opponent controls, whichever comes first.