Culica Basic Positions

Most of what follows about common themes in Culica games is intuitive, but its worth a quick read.

Basic Peg Positions

There are three kinds of places a peg can go on the Culica: a centre position, a corner position or an edge position.

A "centre" peg

A "corner" peg

An "edge" peg

Another example: here are all four "corner" pegs on a face

Here are all four "edge" pegs on a face

Pegs Next To Other Pegs

Some Culica games (games rules) have the notion of pegs being "next to" one or more other pegs. Two pegs are next to each other if there are no gaps (or slots) between them. Such pegs are neighbours.

Examples are shown below: green crosses show the neighbours positions. Try it out on a Culica.

A centre peg can have up to eight neighbouring pegs all on the same face

An edge peg can have up to eight neighbouring pegs: five o the same face and three on the adjoining face.

A corner peg is slightly more lonely. A corner peg can have up to only seven pegs:three on the same face and two pegs on two adjoining faces.

There are two different ways that pegs can be "next to" each other: either side-by-side, or diagonally.

Side-By-Side: Below, side-by-side neighbours are shown as green crosses:

A centre peg can have up to four side-by-side neighbours, all on the same face.

An edge peg can have up to four side-by-side neighbours: three on the same face, and an edge peg on an adjoining face.

A corner peg can have up to four side-by-side neighbours: two on the same face, and a corner peg on each of the two adjoining faces.

Diagonal: below, diagonal neighbours are shown as green crosses:

 

A centre peg can have up to four diagonal neighbours, all corners on the same face.

An edge peg can have up to four diagonal neighbours: two on the same face, and two corner pegs on an adjoining face.

A corner peg, however, can have up to only three diagonal neighbours: the centre peg on the same face, and an edge peg on each of the two adjoining faces.

Examples of Pegs Next To Other Pegs

The following are examples of side-by-side neighbour positions

A centre peg and edge peg

An edge peg and corner peg

Two edge pegs on adjoining faces

Two corner pegs on adjoining faces

 

The following are examples of diagonal neighbour positions

A centre peg and corner peg

Two edge pegs

These two pictures each show a corner and an edge peg.

Actually the pictures show the same position from different persepctives (rotate the Culica to see for yourself). The positions "match" each other.

 

Examples of Rows of Pegs

Some Culica games has a concept of straight or diagonal rows.

The following are examples of straight rows

A "straight row" is a row of side-by-side pegs in a straight line.

A row consisting of a centre peg and two edge pegs that are side-by-side

A row consisting of an edge peg and two corner pegs

A row can consist of three or more pegs and stretch over one or more sides, like in this five side-by-side peg row example

Here you can see six side-by-side pegs in a row. Note that the row is considered "straight" even though it wraps around the Culica

Here the "straight" row of twelve side-by-side pegs wraps all the way around the Culica.

The following are examples of diagonal rows

A "diagonal row" is a row of diagonal pegs in a straight line.

A centre peg and two corner pegs. This diagonal row is "straight", they form a straight line.

These two pictures each show a corner and two edge pegs. These diagonal rows are straight, they form a straight line.

Actually the above pictures show the same position from different persepctives (rotate the Culica to see for yourself). The positions "match" each other.

 

These two pictures each show a diagonal "row" of five pegs.

These two pictures do not show the same position, you can't rotate the Culica to make the left image into the right image!

The two positions above are actually "mirror" positions of each other, because they are like reflections in a mirror. (The fancy word for this is that the mirror positions are "chiral")

Do mirror positions "match"? Strictly speaking they do not match. But it is up to you if you want to think of mirror positions as matching.

More on Diagonal Rows

 

A diagonal row with five pegs (as shown above)

Returning to this diagonal row picture, is the row straight? No, because a corner peg prevents a straight row transition from one face to another. However the diagonal is as "straight" as it can be for a diagonal covering two faces that meet at a corner. So we can call it "pseudo-straight". In other words, we can kind of pretend it is straight, but it isn't really.

A diagonal row with six pegs, over three faces of the Culica.

Advanced Bit

In this picture the diagonal is extended from the top left yellow peg by adding three green pegs.

For a bit of fun, recreate the above picture on your Culica. Then continue to extend the green diagonal and the yellow diagonal rows over the base of the Culica and keep going. Soon the diagonals will cross over all six sides of the Culica and join up again with the corner pegs on the top face, from the other side.

You should end up with four pegs on the base, and 19 pegs in total on the Culica, in a very cool formation. Notice that if you keep the face with three pegs at the top (as in the picture) and rotate the culica, you get a mirror image about each vertical edge. You can see one such mirror image in the picture above, where the positiions of the pegs are symmetrical.

 

See Also

The games rules page