Hive (game)

Gen42 Games released a "Carbon" edition of Hive in 2011, which features a monochrome design of black creatures on white pieces, and white creatures on black pieces. Tiles for the Mosquito and Ladybug expansions are included in this set. The following year, they released a lower-priced "Pocket" edition of Hive. The pieces are smaller versions of the colored Bakelite tiles, and include the Mosquito and Ladybug expansions. The game is sold with an orange drawstring bag for storage.

The game starts with an empty layout,^[3] with all of both players' pieces in stacks or otherwise arranged as each player prefers. It confers little or no advantage to conceal the faces of unplaced pieces; both players have "perfect information" about the state of the game, and thus by process of elimination any piece not on the board is yet to be played. The official rules do not specify that a specific player color begins; either white (similar to Chess) or black (similar to Go) may play first and players may alternate first turn between games without swapping pieces.

On each turn, a player may place a new piece from their supply, or, if their Queen Bee has been placed, move a piece according to its function.^[2] A new piece, when placed, must be adjacent to only the player's pieces; it cannot touch any of the opposing player's pieces. The only exception to this rule is the first piece played by each player; the first played piece by definition cannot be adjacent to anything, and the other player's first piece must be adjacent to the first player's piece (see the "one hive rule" in the Movement section below). Once placed, a piece may be moved to a new space regardless of what pieces it will touch, except that it must be adjacent to at least one other piece.^[3]

After the Queen Bee has been placed, a player is at liberty to place or move at will; as pieces are placed, the layout, known colloquially as the "hive", gets larger, and pieces become surrounded by others. The strategy in placing tiles is thus usually to wait to place stronger tiles until they have a strong chance of not being immediately trapped.

The Queen Bee must be placed in one of the first four turns.^[2] It can be preferable to place the Bee before being forced on the fourth turn because the player cannot move any pieces until after the Queen Bee is placed. In an effort to reduce the number of drawn games, Tournament rules (but not the official Hive rules) disallow placement of the Queen Bee on the first turn.

Movement of pieces in Hive is governed by the hexagonal shape of the tiles. Tiles must be situated such that one face of a tile contacts the face of an adjacent tile, and a movement of one "space" equates to a shift to a different (imaginary) hex-shaped area that is adjacent to both the current space and to one other piece. The game has no actual board, however it can be thought of as being played on an infinite plane of tessellated hexagons.

A major rule in Hive is the One-Hive Rule;^[4][2] a piece may never be moved such that during or after its movement, there are two separate groups of pieces in play. Even if as a result of the piece's move, the layout remains one group, if the hive becomes disconnected while the piece is in transit the move is illegal.^[5]

With two exceptions, moves are made around the circumference of all pieces of the layout, and a piece may never move into or out of a hex that is almost completely or completely surrounded (known as the Freedom to Move Rule). The two exceptions to both are noted below.^[3]

The movement of the pieces is as follows (number in parentheses indicates number of each piece type per player):

• The Queen Bee (1) is the most limited in movement; she can only move one space at a time in any direction.^[2]
• The Beetle (2), like the Bee, can move only one space at a time. However, unlike the Bee, a Beetle can also climb on top of any adjacent piece,^[2] and then if the player so wishes can move one space at a time over the top of the layout. The piece under the Beetle cannot move as long as the Beetle remains on top,^[2] and for the purpose of placing new tiles, that space is the color of the Beetle's tile, not the underlying tile. Beetles can move on top of other Beetles even when that Beetle is atop another piece; theoretically a stack 5 tiles high can be constructed, with all four Beetles atop some other tile. A Beetle on top of the layout can crawl back down onto the edge of the board, or into any surrounded space.
  • The Beetle does have an often-overlooked movement restriction, a variation of the Freedom to Move Rule; a Beetle may not move directly between two adjacent hexes if doing so would require passing through a gap between two stacks of pieces that are both higher than the origin hex (without the Beetle on it) and the destination hex.
• The Spider (2) can move exactly three spaces around the circumference of the layout.^[2][6] Even when the layout becomes larger, the Spider, when positioned correctly, can still affect the game significantly.
• The Grasshopper (3) is, like its namesake, a jumping piece; it moves by jumping over any number of pieces in a straight line to the first adjacent space on the opposite side of the line of pieces.^[2] It always jumps in the direction of one of its faces, never one of its corners. Because of this mode of movement, it can quickly traverse from one side of the layout to the other, and like the Beetle it can move into a surrounded space.
• The Soldier Ant (3) may move only around the edge of the layout, like the Bee or Spider, but unlike the two, it may move any number of spaces, i.e. as many spaces as the player wishes.^[2]
• The Mosquito (1) is a piece that acquires the power of any piece (allied or opponent) adjacent to it.^[2] If the Mosquito is adjacent to a Grasshopper, for example, the Mosquito can move like a Grasshopper. If the Mosquito climbs atop the Hive using Beetle powers, the Mosquito can only move as a Beetle until climbing down onto the main level of play. If a Mosquito is touching another Mosquito, each Mosquito only gets the powers of the pieces immediately adjacent to itself; a Mosquito can't inherit powers through another Mosquito.
• The Ladybug (1) is a piece that moves by temporarily climbing on top of the board and climbing back down to the main layer of the board.^[2] The Ladybug moves exactly three spaces; first atop an adjacent piece, then onto another piece, and finally down to an empty space next to the second piece it was on.
• The Pillbug (1) can move a piece next to itself to a free space that is also next to itself. The action happens in two steps. Step 1: The Pillbug lifts the piece out of the Hive. Step 2: The Pillbug places the piece into a free space next to itself. These two steps are important to understand because the Pillbug cannot break the one-Hive rule. That is to say, it cannot move a piece essential to the Hive. There are a few other restrictions for the Pillbug as well: the Pillbug cannot move a piece if either the Pillbug or that other piece is covered; the Pillbug cannot move a piece if that piece was moved in the most recent turn; the Pillbug cannot move a piece if the Pillbug itself was moved in the most recent turn; the Pillbug cannot move a piece through a Beetle gate (if there are two Beetles creating a gate on the second layer of the Hive).

In the official online version of the game, if a player cannot make any legal move then their turn passes and the other player moves twice (or more) in a row.^[7]

The game ends when a Queen Bee is captured by surrounding it on all 6 sides by either player's pieces, and the player whose Queen Bee is surrounded loses the game.^[8] The game is a draw if a move results in the simultaneous surrounding of both Queen Bees, or in a situation where each player's best move for a turn leads to an endless cyclical repetition of a series of moves (this situation is known as stalemate).^[9]

In 2009, the Tournament Opening Rule was introduced in response to the high number of draws in the 2008 World Championship. This rule forbids the placement of the Queen on either player's first turn. It has been implemented as standard on BoardSpace.net and HiveGame.com, and as an option on BoardGameArena.com.

With the introduction of Hive Ultimate in 2024, The Tournament Opening Rule has become official.

In 2024, Gen42 games introduced Hive Ultimate, which includes all three expansions and officially implements the Tournament Opening Rule. .

John Yianni, designer of Hive, has recognized the annual tournament held at first at www.BoardSpace.net, and then beginning in 2025 at www.hivegame.com as the Online Hive World Championship. Here is a list of winners: