| By Sam Benner (Nucaranlaeg) on Thursday, December 03, 2020 - 02:46 pm: Edit |
I mean, the issue with ending A34 is that the Alliance player can just play stupidly - self-kill half a dozen frigates to get a BATS, for instance - and gain from it. Or at least, that was my understanding.
So instead of knowing it in advance, just let the Coalition player decide whether A34 is the last turn. Then the Alliance can't be stupid, but you don't have the game continue for an arbitrary length (because the Coalition player is always going to say it ends after A34 - the situations where the Coalition want to continue the game are going to be extremely rare). If the Alliance does greatly overextend, you might see the Coalition choose to continue to turn 35, but the Coalition will then end the game after A35.
If you let the Alliance player end the game after C35 (which also will never happen) you get a pleasing symmetry, that's all.
| By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, December 03, 2020 - 04:24 pm: Edit |
We had a fixed game ending and I threw absolutely everything at Peter trying to kill as many BATS and SB as possible and take as much Coalition space as possible and he still won fairly easily.
A random roll after the fact guarantees a Coalition win in my view.
Unless the game is already ovee with the Alliance taking back their Capitals.
| By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 02:12 am: Edit |
Sam
Why would the Alliance end the game after C35?
Crucially they get an extra turn of production and would allow the Coalition (accepting it is less a mad land grab than the Alliance A34 one), the extra turn to capture more Alliance space.
The VP structure I don't believe is structured to give the Coalition such benefits - but does take the Alliance A34 land grab final turn benefit into account.
| By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 07:29 pm: Edit |
As for the land grab, simply have any OOS ships count as a double (or more) negative number - as a ship counts as 0.2 VP, then an OOS ship counts as -0.4 VP (or worse) ...
| By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 03:48 am: Edit |
Stewart
The problem with that is the VP rules assume the Alliance gains on the last turn.
If you make any last turn land grab a penalty, the VP conditions would need to be altered too (to make it easy for the Alliance to win, without a land grab).
| By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 07:08 pm: Edit |
Paul, the idea is to prevent the land grab (act like there's another turn coming) ...
| By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, August 02, 2021 - 09:07 am: Edit |
>>So instead of knowing it in advance, just let the Coalition player decide whether A34 is the last turn. Then the Alliance can't be stupid, but you don't have the game continue for an arbitrary length (because the Coalition player is always going to say it ends after A34 - the situations where the Coalition want to continue the game are going to be extremely rare).>>
If the Coalition gets to determine when the game ends, the Coalition will always end the game when they are winning if at all possible (i.e. if they are winning on T34, they end it there, even if the Alliance over extends).
That is why the game is supposed to end randomly (i.e. roll a die, on a "1", the game ends at the end of the turn, starting on T31). The problem is that the random system of "roll a 1" is a terrible system. As it provides for the opportunity to realistically see the game go another dozen turns, just by virtue of randomness.
We spent a lot of time tossing around better ways to make it end randomly, but in a reasonable number of turns, but no one has ever settled on one officially:
-Start rolling a die at the end of every turn on T33. On a 1-3, the game ends (this will result in the game ending on T33, T34, or T35 a huge amount of the time).
-Start rolling a die at the end of every turn on T32, but increase the target by 1 every turn, topping out at 5 (so game ends on a 1 on T32, 1-2 on T33, 1-3 on T34, 1-4 on T35, 1-5 T36+)
-Just do the same thing as in the rules, but on a 1-2 instead of just a 1.
-Various 2D6 bellcurve use systems.
-Etc.
That being said, I dunno that the "Alliance Go Last Land Grab" is actually that big of a deal; if the Alliance is already in the lead, it won't really matter. If the Alliance is already losing, the land grab isn't likely to make *that* big of a difference to the score (the margins in the scores are pretty wide).
As Jason mentioned, when we finished our game on T34, the Alliance went all land grabby, and all that probably did was change a Coalition Tactical Victory into a slightly smaller Coalition Tactical Victory. But as the game was going, if the game had gone another turn or two, the Alliance could have easily turned that into a draw or even an Alliance Tactical Victory. The difference wasn't going to be the last turn Alliance land grab, it was that the Alliance was finally picking up momentum, and one or two extra turns would have let them go on an offensive and kill some important Coalition targets.
| By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Monday, August 02, 2021 - 05:13 pm: Edit |
"The difference wasn't going to be the last turn Alliance land grab, it was that the Alliance was finally picking up momentum, and one or two extra turns would have let them go on an offensive and kill some important Coalition targets."
Which is why I think the current end-of-game rules are terrible. If things are about to go downhill for the Coalition, why would the Alliance accept a peace settlement?
If you want to suggest an end to the war that is similar to the end of WW1, perhaps you need to introduce some type of armistice or suing for peace rules.
For example, the Coalition gives up a certain number of victory points in order to influence the end of game roll. Not sure what the relative numbers should be, but say 10 VPs ("peace feelers") gives you a -1 shift to the roll, 30 VPs ("peace negotiations") gives you a -2 shift, 50 VPs ("suing for peace") gives you a -3 shift. The Alliance players can choose to accept the offer, and end the war. Or they can choose to roll the die, but get a reduced VP bonus if the war ends than if they had accepted the peace offer in the first place (say 5 instead of 10, 15 instead of 30, 25 instead of 50 using the above numbers). No VPs are awarded/lost if the die roll says the war continues. But the Coalition can try offering peace again next turn.
There should still be some chance (at least 1 out of 3) that the war continues for another turn (war hawks have taken control of the Alliance governments) even at the highest level (suing for peace).
I think this could create an end game dynamic that provides a certain level of uncertainty that enhances the last few turns of the game. Thoughts?
| By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Monday, August 02, 2021 - 05:56 pm: Edit |
Sounds like a good idea. It also should take into account the Fleet sizes and amount of space lost/controlled. Loss of Home world/devastated home world.
You could also do it by each Race. If say the Gorns and Feds have mangled the Romulans. They maybe can get them to peace. That ends that part of the War. Just as the Klingons and Lyrans could get teh Hydrans to sue for peace. As there home world is taken and so forth.
Just a thought
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 26, 2021 - 02:00 pm: Edit |
Deletion warning, get archive by 31 Dec, propose new VC rules somewhere else.
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