Note that this information has been copied directly from the T2 wiki, and lightly edited. If you find information that is false or innacurate, please update it!
Tug is a two-player game played at a tug desk.
The tug board is composed of seven squares in a line. The sole playing piece is an ore cart, which starts on the center square. Each player starts the game with 50 points. On every turn, each player secretly bids from 0 to 50 points. When both players have made their bids, the bids are revealed and the winner moves the cart one square towards his side of the board. In the case of a tie, the cart does not move.
The game ends when one player pulls the cart off one end of the board (four squares from the center) and wins the game, or when neither player has any points remaining. In the latter case, the winner is the player on whose side of the board the cart stands. If both players run out of points while the cart is in the center of the board, the game is tied.
Tug is a game of bluffing and deception. The key to victory is to waste as few points as possible (by bidding only slightly higher than your opponent), while encouraging your opponent to waste as many as possible (by bidding low when they bid high).
You win a match if you have won two more games than the other player. You can see matches in progress under the Tournament option.
To advance in rank, you must play against people of your own rank. You may play people of other ranks, but the matches will not count for either player toward ranking progress. You advance when you have won 2 more matches at that rank than you have lost. If you lose 4 more matches than you win, you must reset back to rank 1 before any future matches will count.
Encouraging thought:
Against players of the same skill you have a better than 50% chance to reach rank 2.0 in just three ranked matches, and rank 3.0 in just seven ranked matches.
The game is based on, or nearly identical to, the traditional paper and pencil game Footsteps which was marketed as the game Quo Vadis by Invicta Games, makers of Mastermind. (Not to be confused with the more recently popular Quo Vadis by Mayfair Games, a game centered on the motif of the Roman Senate).