New Duel, Arresting Cows

[Hannibal]

Hi Saladin! Nice to see you looking in and chipping in. Really. Last time we spoke, when you were in charge of WOK, you were friendly, thanks.

I can think of a lot of situations where a player with only one colour will be stronger than a player with two or more colours. That is a viable strategy.

So can I. But surely that's where the skill comes in? In board-game design, at least, the days of the simple VC "conquer the whole map" (Risk, Shogun, Apocalypse etc. ) have given way to newer games where you have a VC you have to think about a bit more, eg Imperial, Wallenstein, Antike.

Why do you assume that if one player is "stronger overall", he should win? If the other guy is smart enough to grab victory from the jaws of defeat ... (and not by luck, but by clever play ....skill)... then he desrves it even more?

The "problem" with a lot of "conquer the map" games is that once you get the upper hand, the other guy stands very little chance of coming back ... not much interest for him in even trying? Now, before you shriek, let me say that this is NOT a problem with Standard WOK: there IS a balancing mechanism: people need to ally against the guy who is looking too strong (as I remember you saying! Just fun).

But it's different in TWO-Player games; no route back once you start to lose. Heck, even chess gives you a chance with a VC (checkmate) that is not just "wipe out the other guy". In two-player games, you need a mechanism, preferably a skill one, that avoids an early lead being a dull progression to an inevitable end, dull for both players, especially the one who is losing.

Sure, a player can win without being overall the stronger. Great!! If it comes from skill, not just from luck. Because then it's worth fighting on, you still have that chance.... Why should victory necessarily go to the currently-stronger rather than the guy who outsmarts? Who comes from behind to cleverly grab victory? Hey, I think he deserves victory MORE!

Every game design has to choose its balance. It would be wrong for WOK to make it that a strong lead counted for nothing, easily overturned by luck. But this isn't by luck. Usually the stronger guy will go on to win, but the weaker is still in with a chance, through skill.

And it adds a whole interesting dimension to your strategy. You can't just simply make one colour very strong ... you might have to decide between grabbing more easy neutrals for it ... versus using it to protect one or other of your weaker colours in case they both go under. A tough call; skill.

A case in point is Duel #06, trewqh v Hryll. GIVEN the VC, trewqh tried a new strategy in Duel: instead of concentrating two colours on the enemy's isolated colour (obvious ploy), he ignored it; he set all three of his against the TWO colours of Hryll's in the south; so the game ended with Hryll's single colour being way the strongest on the map, but trewqh winning because he'd balanced that risk against taking out the other 2 Hryll colours before Hryll could make that power count. Brilliant, I thought! Lots more skill angles to the game this way than the simple "kill 'em all". IMHO.

I think that in the vast majority of games players who have no change of winning will surrender. And in the very few cases that a player decides to not surrender even though he can't win well to be honest that's every players prerogative.

Well, it's a player's prerogative in Standard WOK to go M-3, but we try to discourage it! A prerogative can be bad for everybody else, so you try to avoid bad ones?

Now if you really do want to make the game end when it's no longer possible for one player to win why not make it so that if a players total score falls below a certain points total he loses. At least that takes in to account the total strength of the player.

That's inventive. But you know how much I prefer simplicity. It's just easier to get your head round "reduce him to one colour", than round "reduce him to a total of less than 1,350 points". You'd have to know the formulae and work it out? And a lot easier for watchers to see what's happening?

Sorry if it's a bit long. Discussing game-theory doesn't lend itself easily to one-liners!

Cheers,
Han

[Hannibal]

For those of us who've played it a bit, the VC of "Reduce opponent to one colour" adds a lot to strategic choices and skill. And makes it more complex, challenging and exciting, and keeps you in with a chance longer.

Sal, you'd be formidable at Duel, if you ever fancied playing it.

[trewqh]

I'm with Han on this one.

Try not to look at the Duel VC from the perspective of Standard WoK. Duel is a variant that is supposed to expose a new dimension of WoK, so don't argue that an experienced WoK player could win with a single strong colour against two or three weak, because that's not the point. Duels have a different VC that requires players to think differently than in Standard WoK and that's why I think it's great.

[korexus]

Reduce to lowest score can still be arbitrary, if we put the limit at 1000 and at the end of a turn, you have 999 points and I have 1001, have I won.

I know I'm not going to win this one, because there is stategy involved in aiming to reduce the enemy to 1 colour, it's just not the sort of game *I personally* prefer. So how about the GM (or the players before they start) decide the win condition. Annihilation, reduction to 1 spot. Ownership of 8 key provinces, whatever makes for a fun game between those players on that map. It will mean that Duel games won't be aboslutely comparable, but it will add to the variety and the fun.

Any other suggestions for victory conditions? We can have a list for people to choose from. I like lists!


korexus.

[Saladin]

Ah, ok. So the point here is not as you that it's about making sure the game ends when one of the players is so much weaker that his chances of winning are slim to none, because for that the one colour rule would not be a good way to achieve it.

Though when you want to have the 1 colour rule as way to add some more strategy to the game then it's a good rule.

Having said that i think the best way to set it up is to have all these VC available for the GM to set in agreeance with how the two players want to play the game. That way players will always get to play with VC that they both agreed to.

[trewqh]

And, going back to the topic...

This group finished after 5 turns with Korexus conceding to Hannibal. You can read a sum up of the last turn on the game's page:
http://www.kaomaris.com/phpNuke/modules ... 289#action

Congrats Han!

GM Mike

PS I guess it's a good time to update my Duel ranking thread.

[korexus]

Grrrr. Two seriously close battles going against me left me with virtually nothing. I'm sure Han is slightly out of position, and so I might be able to bluff a couple more turns out of this, but the game is 97% Han's now, at which point I feel I should bow out as coming back would be way more luck than strategy.

I had fun though, I should just get back into practice before playing masters like Han and trewqh!


korexus.