Game Types.

Post by **korexus** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 8:51 pm

Technically we have four different types of game right now,

* Skirmish is pitched as a fast game between two players on a small map, strategy (and more than a little luck) is the key to winning, the last person standing wins.
* Domination is the traditional WoK game, with up to 10 players on a 60 province map. Diplomacy is at least as important as strategy and two players can share the game if they want.
* Duel has 10 slots on a 60 province map, but only two players. They take multiple spots each, with more slots being filled by automated players. It involves a huge amount of forward planning, and the most recent Duel game (between me and Arjuna, pretty dedicated players) stalled because we didn't have enough time to plan turns.
*Trinity is Duel but for three people. Some diplomacy returns here, but it's still mostly about the strategy.

More recently we've also played a few 5 player skirmishes. These fit very closely between the 2 player Skirmish and the 10 player Domination game. Some diplomacy is advisable, but there's not time to sit back and sleep. (The specially designed smaller map helps a lot with that too!)

I'm thinking that we should throw all of that away.

Duels and Trinities are too hard for casual play. If one day we have a thriving community again then they might fill a slot, but a 2-player skirmish fits the aim of letting people start a game quickly much more easily. I'd definitely like to keep the concept of robots around, perhaps even have them fill slots in normal games if they're not filling quickly or have them take over from M-3 players, but currently it's as easy for a new player to start a duel as it is a skirmish, and they are far more likely to be scared off by a duel.

Domination should not die. I definitely want us to be able to run 10 player games again, but I don't see a reason for them to be different from 2 or 5 player games.There's no real value to the distinction except that 10 player games have been around longer. I'd prefer it if they were all "WoK: Empires" games and we left it at that.

Now that I've got games running again I'm going to start looking at this. One benefit of losing the historical data is that I don't need to worry so much about changing how we structure things in the future...