System for awarding armies, alternate freestyle mode

[mknewey]

Ok, so this is my first post, and I have no idea how programmable this idea is but I had an idea for a mode that would go faster than sequential but be a little more fair than freestyle (for those that can't hit refresh all day waiting for their turn to gain that slight advantage):

This is the rough idea: It would be like freestyle, everyone could play whenever they wanted... BUT, armies would be 'awarded' to each player every time a player took a turn. The armies might be awarded as V/N, where N is the number of players and V is the number of armies that a player would earn if they took their turn right then. They would be added into a pool which the player would get to place when they took their turn. This would just be V if they maintained the same territory and every other player had gone once. Fractions could be carried over for the next turn.

In other words, each time a player went, everone would earn the appropriate fraction of their armies to be distributed later.

For example, say I own 15 territories (no continents in this example) at the start of my turn, and we are playing with 5 players (n=5). After I finish playing my turn V=(15/3) and so I would recieve 5/5 or 1 armies into my 'pool'.

If the next guy took his turn and took 3 of my territories (down to 4/5), then I would get 0.8 more that turn. Another guy takes another 3 of my territories and its down to 0.6. Say I decided I'd better hurry and take my turn now before more was taken... well, then my current total is 2.4 armies... so I get 2 armies, and the 0.4 gets carried over.

But if everyone goes twice between my turns then I get those armies added up over all those extra turns... except now I have to wait until everybody goes again next turn to get a full set of armies.

So you would have to balance the benefits of taking your turn sooner with waiting until later...

I know its probably too complicated and involves recording fractional armies, but I was trying to think of a way to make a game as fair as sequential but faster.

[sully800]

Sorry this hasn't gotten any replies...I have read it a few times but I still dont understand

[mknewey]

hmm... I was a little worried that might happen...

I guess I will try again: its really not THAT complex

first though, define some terms... there is a round after every player has gone once and a 'turn that refers to each time a single player goes--so in a 5 player game there are 5 turns in a round. (I take my turn as opposed to increment to round 5).

So instead of calculating what armies a player gets when they take they're turn (or once a round), instead calculate it every time any player goes (once a 'turn') and devide by the number of players.

A very simple example, 2 player game: at the end of my turn, I have territories and continents that would give me 10 armies. Player 2 goes and takes my some territories so that I now only have stuff worth 6 armies. In a normal game, when I took my turn I would recieve 6 armies, under my suggestion I would recieve 6/2+10/2 or 8 armies.

Intead say I take my second turn right after the first. In a normal freestyle game I would recieve 10 armies, but in my system I would only recieve 10/2 or 5 armies.

Does that make any more sense?

[spiesr]

No offense, but...


THAT IS STUPID!!!



sorry if i was rude

[mknewey]

hmm.. no offense taken... but why do you say so?

[benbondu]

I think the real issue here is continent bonuses, and not so much territory bonuses. Sure territory bonuses count for something, but it's a lot easier to take a continent bonus from someone than to whittle away at their territories.

Having said that, I'm picturing the motivation for this system is to prevent gaming practices that are not in the spirit of traditional Risk rules. An example of what I mean: you take the next to last turn in a round, you notice the last person left to play is nowhere near you, you leave a continent unsecured and then jump in at the start of the next round to claim a bonus. (Note that I'm not at all against this tactic. It's clearly within the rules of freestyle Conquer Club. It's just not within the spirit of traditional Risk.)

Of course, you can also consider the situation where someone secures a continent early in the round but doesn't take another turn until late in the next round. Then many of his opponents would essentially get two turns to attempt to take away the bonus. I'm less concerned about this situation though for reasons I won't explain.

The system proposed above is good, but admittedly pretty complicated. If simplicity is the goal, why not make a rule that you have to hold a continent through everyone's turn before you can claim the bonus?

Example: You secure a continent on the last turn of round 6. In order to claim the bonus, you have to also be the last to take a turn in round 7. If you start your turn before someone else had the chance to take your bonus away, you cannot claim the bonus that round (you'd have to wait to round 8 ).

Now this obviously isn't perfect. It can possibly make it more difficult to hold a continent (even more than is the case in sequential games), but personally I'd rather see more difficulty in holding a continent than less.

Here's another example: You secure a continent by being the first person the play in round 6. Everyone takes a turn in round 6 and no one can break through. Now maybe you're not quick enough to be the first to take a turn on round 7 as well and someone is able to sneak in a 2nd turn to take away the bonus. One remedy for this would be to award the continent bonus as soon as all opponents have taken at least one turn; that is, in this case the bonus would be awarded as soon as round 7 started. If you ended up being the last person to play in round 7, and by that time someone broke through your continent, you would still get the bonus.

I don't think that would be too hard to implement. You could even write some script to show which people have yet to take a turn since your last so you would know if it's too premature to start your next turn. Maybe you could relax the restrictions a little: like in a 5 or 6 person game, only 4 or 5 opponents have to take a turn in order for you to claim the bonus.

Just an idea. Now go rip it apart.

[zip_disk]

Highly complicated solution for a problem that's not really there. Why bother playing a modified freestyle when your solution gives large penalties for not playing in a somewhat sequential order?

Plus why should you be rewarded for losing land you couldn't hold? The math also requires that you lose a minimum of a 2 army bonus in the transition, otherwise its identical to the current rules.

The lowest country situation where this new rule would come into effect is a 15 country (5 army) drops to <12 army (3 army) in which case you get 4 armies. If the situation only drops 1 army value then resulting bonus is identical to the current rules bonus since you can't get half armies.

[mknewey]

First, I like benbodu's idea. Probably a lot simpler and it would have the same effect.

Hmm... who were you quoting there in that last bit?

The problem that I see is that in sequential mode everyone is forced into a fixed order. And if the worlds align poorly, it can take forever (imagine a timezone situation where the possible play orders for the players was the reverse of the play order given in the game). So I think theres really something said for a rule that allows more flexibility in when you take you're turn but dosn't give such a huge advantage to going first each time.

This was one of the first things I noticed when i joined too weeks ago... how incredibly slow a sequential game could end up being...

Freestyle CAN reword you for taking land you can't hold... if you wait all day so you go as soon as the new round starts, you can get armies for a continent even if they're was no way you could have held it otherwise (even if you took the last turn). Anyway, my system dosn't award you very much at all for taking a continent that you immediately lose. Bendbondu's not one bit.

I explained that fractional armies might be carried over in the first message.

Alright guys comon, give me something here, whats wrong with these ideas?

[a2zsteve]

The only change I feel that freestyle needs is that once one player has started their turn other players cannot start their turn until the current turn has been completed.

[mknewey]

Well, that might help somewhat... at least for the very first turn. Another idea might be to extend the no consecutive turns to something like 2 players have to take a turn first (assuming there are 2 players in the game).

But I wasn't talking about replacing freestyle, just creating another option.

One more thing, I think this whole discussion applies most to "NO CARDS" games because the extra armies from the continents is very important and trying to take your turn first to get those 5 extra armies for some continent you can't really defend is almost like turning in a set of cards... it has a big effect on the game.

[benbondu]

The only change I feel that freestyle needs is that once one player has started their turn other players cannot start their turn until the current turn has been completed.

Oh, but simultaneous turns are part of what makes freestyle so crazy- whether it be teammates coordinating their moves or vulcher opponents swiping up the last country of a player you're about to eliminate.

Maybe we need two types of freestyle. Weak-sauce freestyle that doesn't allow simultaneous moves, and maybe implements another one of the ideas above to prevent continent squatting; and Xtreme freestyle which would basically be freestyle as it exists today.

Another possibility is to make a game freestyle for the first round and then lock into a sequence after that. That way if you have 6 people who take their turns at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 o'clock respectively, your game could potentially take 1/6th the time. That would be tricky for team games though.

[MonkeyRex]

The only change I feel that freestyle needs is that once one player has started their turn other players cannot start their turn until the current turn has been completed.

I strongly disagree. That is one of the most fun aspects of playing freestyle! That's what makes freestyle games special - as when I had to take the same country twice in one round to win