Post by Shark a' Pult on Feb 12, 2013 11:37:07 GMT -5
Since the current game itself seems to not be working, I figured I'd make this thread where we can plan for the next game. Discuss ideas, address problems, or just talk about hopes to see or things that might be cool.
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For the large part, I think the formula we are using now for the game is for the most part, very good. Really, I would be all for keeping it and playing the way we have been, as it's a simple and effective system. All I would say, is that we make some simple changes and additions to the system where it is necessary, and where it might make things more fun or interesting.
As for changes to problems, I think we need a better way of dealing with attacking. As evidenced by the long-running spat between me and Kuro, and lately to an extent the conflict between Cdf, Hito and Me, it seems to me that conflicts take too long to resolve and often don't amount to anything. At least when you only get one action a turn, and you end up vying against someone for a single sector for 10 turns while everyone else expanded unbounded.
My possible changes to this could be;
1. Rather than just rolling some dice and hoping they match up, players roll their dice, and then allocate them to where they see fit. So lets say Hito attacks Kuro with a 4, 5, 1, and 3. Rather than Kuro just rolling and hoping he beats each of Hito's dice, he rolls the 4 times and gets 6, 4, 3, 3. Normally that second 4 would have meant that Kuro lost, but I propose that Kuro gets to allocate his rolls to where he sees fit. So he could put his 4 against Hito's 4, his 6 against Hito's 5, and his two 3's against Hito's 1 and 3. It's less based on individual roll luck, and more on the overall turn luck.
2. This change deals with the first, which is that, if the defender can allocate rolls, then technically they should have an advantage. My offer to counter this then, is one of two possible solutions;
A) The first way, is that a defending sector can never simply match the level of defense that multiple attackers can bypass. So if 5 different sectors attack, the defending sector shouldn't be able to defend against all 5. In this way I would say that, a single defending sector can never match multiple attacks, they just get one less defense die and have to hope to roll very well. So lets say that Kuro attacks one of Hito's sectors with five of his own. As it is now, each person rolls 5 dice. This change would make it that Kuro can roll one dice for each of his sectors (the 5 attacking), while Hito can only roll to the equal amount -1 dice. So in this case Kuro makes 5 attacks, Hito makes 4 defends. Hito can allocate his rolls as before, but he has to hope he can roll well, because one of his rolls is going to have to contend with 2 of Kuro's. In effect, it would be like a simple equation;
Attacker; Number of attack rolls = Number of attacking sectors
Defender; Number of defense rolls = Number of enemy attack rolls - 1
In this way, the defender still has the advantage of beating the attacker on matching rolls, and they still get to allocate their dice. However, overall they have to roll better than the attacker, because they have a higher overall number to beat. This method is less based on pure luck, and more on the strategy of the attacker in how they take sectors for attacking later.
B) The second way, is that a defending sector only gets as many rolls as adjacent friendly sectors, same as the attacker gets. So lets say Hito has a lone sector that gets attacked by three of Kuro's that border this lone sector. Well, Kuro gets his 3 attack dice as usual, but Hito only gets 1 because the sector is isolated. Now on the other hand, if Kuro's 3 attack Hito's 1, but Hito's 1 is bordered by 3 of his other sectors, then the bordering sectors can contribute to the defense. As such, Kuro attacks 1 with 3 bordering, Hito defends with the attacked, plus any of his other sectors that border the attacked sector. Similar to the concept before, this makes it less about luck, and more about strategic holding of sectors. No longer can just a lone line of sectors beeline straight for someone's capitol and through luck beat it. The player must have a most uniform expansion to allow for a more even attack or defense.
3. Another suggestion is to make attack actions have a broader effect than just a single sector, to make attacks not so petty and have broader effects. As such, we would do some sort of possible attacking system like those mentioned above, but we add a kind of stipulation. If the attacker beats the defender by more than some amount (perhaps simply the difference), then they get to take the targeted sector, but they also get to take a number of sectors that also border the one they just took. So lets say Hito attacks one of Kuro's sectors, and he beats Kuro's defense by a value of 2. Well, this allows him to not only take the sector he was aiming for, but it also lets him take 2 sectors that bordered the one he just took. In this way, attacking becomes a bit like expanding, and rather than just two people squabbling over a single sector, each of their actions change the map to a significant extent, and the lines and borders change quite a bit with each attack so things never stagnate.
4. Another possible method is that the defender simply makes a flat roll. One dice of defense for one sector. The attacker still gets as many rolls per sector as they have attacking, but they have to beat the defenders 1 roll with each of theirs. So lets say Hito attacks Kuro with 5 sectors. Kuro rolls one dice, and gets a 5. Well Hito has 5 attack rolls and has to hope he can beat Kuro's one roll of 5. This sounds more plausible than the method we currently have, however I'm not sure of how statistically fair it is. It seems to be that the attacker with a high number of attack rolls has the distinct advantage, however the defender has the benefit of beating any attack rolls that actually tie with their value. In theory this seems to make sense to me, but I don't think we could say without actually trying it out in practice. Who knows, it might seem to make sense, but then in play turns out to be heavily in favor of one side.
5. One other addition to this, though it's probably harder to implement than the others, is that if someone successfully takes a sector, then that sector cannot immediately be attacked and possibly retaken by the defender that turn. So if Kuro takes a sector of Hito's, then Hito can't just turn around immediately after on his turn, and try to take it back. That sector cannot be targeted until the turn rotation reaches Kuro again. In a way, it makes attacking actions kind of like how we currently treat sea movement actions, you do something and then you wait a turn for it to actually take effect. Realistically this doesn't make much sense, but it provides a hard counter to that problem we had in the thread where it was two people fighting, and for like 20 of their turns it's just back and forth "I take X sector." "I retake X sector." "Rolling to take back X sector." "Moving to take X sector I just lost." "I take X sector.", repeat ad infinitum...
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That was probably the biggest problem I noticed with the game, though that is largely because that is what I have been doing for most of the game, just fighting with people. Kuro for the most part, but everyone to some extent.
I had some other ideas for changes and additions, but I'll let other people post a bit before talking about them.
---
For the large part, I think the formula we are using now for the game is for the most part, very good. Really, I would be all for keeping it and playing the way we have been, as it's a simple and effective system. All I would say, is that we make some simple changes and additions to the system where it is necessary, and where it might make things more fun or interesting.
As for changes to problems, I think we need a better way of dealing with attacking. As evidenced by the long-running spat between me and Kuro, and lately to an extent the conflict between Cdf, Hito and Me, it seems to me that conflicts take too long to resolve and often don't amount to anything. At least when you only get one action a turn, and you end up vying against someone for a single sector for 10 turns while everyone else expanded unbounded.
My possible changes to this could be;
1. Rather than just rolling some dice and hoping they match up, players roll their dice, and then allocate them to where they see fit. So lets say Hito attacks Kuro with a 4, 5, 1, and 3. Rather than Kuro just rolling and hoping he beats each of Hito's dice, he rolls the 4 times and gets 6, 4, 3, 3. Normally that second 4 would have meant that Kuro lost, but I propose that Kuro gets to allocate his rolls to where he sees fit. So he could put his 4 against Hito's 4, his 6 against Hito's 5, and his two 3's against Hito's 1 and 3. It's less based on individual roll luck, and more on the overall turn luck.
2. This change deals with the first, which is that, if the defender can allocate rolls, then technically they should have an advantage. My offer to counter this then, is one of two possible solutions;
A) The first way, is that a defending sector can never simply match the level of defense that multiple attackers can bypass. So if 5 different sectors attack, the defending sector shouldn't be able to defend against all 5. In this way I would say that, a single defending sector can never match multiple attacks, they just get one less defense die and have to hope to roll very well. So lets say that Kuro attacks one of Hito's sectors with five of his own. As it is now, each person rolls 5 dice. This change would make it that Kuro can roll one dice for each of his sectors (the 5 attacking), while Hito can only roll to the equal amount -1 dice. So in this case Kuro makes 5 attacks, Hito makes 4 defends. Hito can allocate his rolls as before, but he has to hope he can roll well, because one of his rolls is going to have to contend with 2 of Kuro's. In effect, it would be like a simple equation;
Attacker; Number of attack rolls = Number of attacking sectors
Defender; Number of defense rolls = Number of enemy attack rolls - 1
In this way, the defender still has the advantage of beating the attacker on matching rolls, and they still get to allocate their dice. However, overall they have to roll better than the attacker, because they have a higher overall number to beat. This method is less based on pure luck, and more on the strategy of the attacker in how they take sectors for attacking later.
B) The second way, is that a defending sector only gets as many rolls as adjacent friendly sectors, same as the attacker gets. So lets say Hito has a lone sector that gets attacked by three of Kuro's that border this lone sector. Well, Kuro gets his 3 attack dice as usual, but Hito only gets 1 because the sector is isolated. Now on the other hand, if Kuro's 3 attack Hito's 1, but Hito's 1 is bordered by 3 of his other sectors, then the bordering sectors can contribute to the defense. As such, Kuro attacks 1 with 3 bordering, Hito defends with the attacked, plus any of his other sectors that border the attacked sector. Similar to the concept before, this makes it less about luck, and more about strategic holding of sectors. No longer can just a lone line of sectors beeline straight for someone's capitol and through luck beat it. The player must have a most uniform expansion to allow for a more even attack or defense.
3. Another suggestion is to make attack actions have a broader effect than just a single sector, to make attacks not so petty and have broader effects. As such, we would do some sort of possible attacking system like those mentioned above, but we add a kind of stipulation. If the attacker beats the defender by more than some amount (perhaps simply the difference), then they get to take the targeted sector, but they also get to take a number of sectors that also border the one they just took. So lets say Hito attacks one of Kuro's sectors, and he beats Kuro's defense by a value of 2. Well, this allows him to not only take the sector he was aiming for, but it also lets him take 2 sectors that bordered the one he just took. In this way, attacking becomes a bit like expanding, and rather than just two people squabbling over a single sector, each of their actions change the map to a significant extent, and the lines and borders change quite a bit with each attack so things never stagnate.
4. Another possible method is that the defender simply makes a flat roll. One dice of defense for one sector. The attacker still gets as many rolls per sector as they have attacking, but they have to beat the defenders 1 roll with each of theirs. So lets say Hito attacks Kuro with 5 sectors. Kuro rolls one dice, and gets a 5. Well Hito has 5 attack rolls and has to hope he can beat Kuro's one roll of 5. This sounds more plausible than the method we currently have, however I'm not sure of how statistically fair it is. It seems to be that the attacker with a high number of attack rolls has the distinct advantage, however the defender has the benefit of beating any attack rolls that actually tie with their value. In theory this seems to make sense to me, but I don't think we could say without actually trying it out in practice. Who knows, it might seem to make sense, but then in play turns out to be heavily in favor of one side.
5. One other addition to this, though it's probably harder to implement than the others, is that if someone successfully takes a sector, then that sector cannot immediately be attacked and possibly retaken by the defender that turn. So if Kuro takes a sector of Hito's, then Hito can't just turn around immediately after on his turn, and try to take it back. That sector cannot be targeted until the turn rotation reaches Kuro again. In a way, it makes attacking actions kind of like how we currently treat sea movement actions, you do something and then you wait a turn for it to actually take effect. Realistically this doesn't make much sense, but it provides a hard counter to that problem we had in the thread where it was two people fighting, and for like 20 of their turns it's just back and forth "I take X sector." "I retake X sector." "Rolling to take back X sector." "Moving to take X sector I just lost." "I take X sector.", repeat ad infinitum...
---
That was probably the biggest problem I noticed with the game, though that is largely because that is what I have been doing for most of the game, just fighting with people. Kuro for the most part, but everyone to some extent.
I had some other ideas for changes and additions, but I'll let other people post a bit before talking about them.
