Chaos: The Battle of Wizards

In Chaos, players embody wizards who strive to outsmart and outlast each other. The goal is to be the last wizard standing, achieved by eliminating all opponents. The game can include two to eight wizards, and these can be either human players or computer-controlled entities. The skill level for computer-controlled wizards can range from 1 to 8, affecting combat statistics but not their AI. Notably, these AI wizards do not cooperate with each other; their sole objective is to eliminate both human and computer-controlled adversaries.

Each wizard starts with a random array of spells for battle. Spells can be categorized as Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic, with their success rate during casting represented as a percentage. Spells can only be cast once, except for the "Disbelieve" spell that remains at a wizard's disposal throughout. New spells can be obtained solely through the "Magic Wood" spell.

The nature of spells cast during the game can affect the success rate of subsequent spells. Casting multiple lawful spells cultivates a lawful environment, consequently making other lawful spells easier to cast. The same principle applies to chaotic spells. Interestingly, casting spells of opposing alignment doesn't make them more challenging. Neutral spells remain unaffected by the environment, and their difficulty remains constant. This dynamic plays a significant role in the game's strategy, prompting players to cast multiple easy spells of a certain alignment to make casting more potent spells of the same alignment easier.

Wizards have attributes such as attack and defense ratings, move ratings, maneuver ratings, and magic resistance, governing their effectiveness, movement capability, combat exit ease, and defense against magic, respectively. They also have a magic rating determining the number of initial spells.

Creature spells can summon a creature next to the wizard. These creatures vary in difficulty to summon and power, with the most formidable ones being hardest to summon. Like wizards, creatures also have attack, defense, move, and maneuver ratings, along with magic resistance.

In each turn, human wizards can examine the board and their spells, and choose a spell to cast in the next turn. To prevent unfair advantage, other human players typically look away during a player's spell choice. After all players have chosen their spells, they try to cast them in sequence. Interestingly, computer-controlled wizards select their spells during each turn's play stage, often leading to actions seemingly requiring foreknowledge of other players' actions.

After casting spells, surviving wizards take turns to move their characters and any creatures they control, unless they are engaged in combat. They can attack other wizards or creatures by moving or flying into them, which also engages the enemy for immediate combat. Successful attacks eliminate the enemy, and the victorious entity moves onto its square. The success of an attack depends on the attacker's combat rating, defender's defense rating, and a degree of randomness. Some creatures can execute ranged attacks if they have a clear line of sight.

All computer-controlled entities always attempt to move each turn, even when it might not be beneficial, unless they are in a Magic Wood, Castle, or Citadel. All creatures or spells created by a wizard vanish immediately if that wizard is destroyed. For human players, none of the actions are compulsory; they can skip any actions they wish to. The turn sequence restarts after all wizards have taken their turn to move and fight.