Description

Annihilation is a Battleship-style game for two players using pencil and paper. Each player receives an identical printed sheet from a game pad, featuring a circular overhead map of the northern hemisphere. The map is divided into boxes by longitudinal and latitudinal lines, which are labeled by numbers and by names of constellations. Some boxes are shaded, representing the oceans. Also present are boxes to track each player’s hits; in place of ships are (in order of most to least boxes) Capital, Trade and Industry, Air Base, Navy, and Peace. Each player “hides” each of these objectives on his own side of the map, vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The Navy must be in the ocean, Peace is a single box that may be anywhere, and the rest must be on land.

Each player then takes a turn firing volleys at the other side. A volley consists of 15 bombs, which can be any combination of airplane bombs, rockets, or atomics. Airplane bombs count for 1 bomb against the limit, rockets for 3, atomics for 5. Volleys are done all at once, with the opponent not announcing hits until the volley is over. Players track these developments by crossing off boxes on their paper. When a player sends a volley, if he has previously received any hits, those hits are subtracted from the 15 bombs he may fire on his current turn.

Airplane bombs strike only the square called by the player, rockets strike the first square and any two adjoining squares called immediately by the player, and atomics strike the initial square as well as the four adjoining squares along all four sides. Any target hit on one square by an atomic is immediately destroyed, any target hit by a rocket suffers an additional box hit after what the player targeted. Should any player strike the target of Peace, the game is immediately over, otherwise the game is won when all of a player’s other targets are destroyed.