Egbert wrote:I just finished playing my first game of WOK Duel, and it is a great game. Nice job, Mr. Roscow. No diplomacy, pure strategy, and controlling more than 1 army is a lot of fun.
I do have some comments, which you may want to consider:
2. I am not sure why there is a rule that you can win if you knock your opponent down to 1 color --- why don't you have to RIP him? Is it just to save time?
Big thumbs up!
I'm glad you enjoyed it, Eg, and thanks for the thumbs up.
I've been meaning to reply to this, sorry, both for you and others who wonder why the VC is "Reduce him to one colour". Time flies. But a case has just come up that helps me illustrate my answer.
No, it is not to save time. It's all about excitement and fun and still-a-chance, over what I call "inevitableness" ...
As a game designer, I'm very aware that any two-player game tends to suffer from "inevitableness": once someone has built up a lead, it's very difficult for the other to make a comeback ... his chances are very slim, if the two players are fairly well matched. With only two players, he can't turn to diplomacy with others to get redress. Think of chess when you go a piece down?
The obvious VC would have been: rip the other human's 3 colours, be the last man standing. But: that "inevitableness" thing: once one player has the upper hand, the odds just increase in his favour as the end nears. It might all be
effectively over too quickly. With neither side enjoying playing out the inevitable.
Some game designers tackle this by, effectively, finding a way to near- equalise chances for the endgame, regardless of who did well early on. You just give good play early on a scaled-down effect, and give achievements later in the game a scaled-up effect. I've always hated that approach, since it leans towards making what you do in the first half of the game irrelevant. eg multi-player game Die Macher. And others "hide" how well you are doing till a count-up, eg multi-player game Brass or Hamburgum ...
I digress. Anyway, my VC of "You win if he's reduced to one colour", is to avoid that "inevitableness", the slow attrition when one player gains the upper hand. The player doing well has to watch out for the sneak win by the underdog, has to preserve at least two colours, not just max his strength. And the player doing less well can look for "angles": he may be losing in strength overall, but he only has to rip TWO of the other guy's colours, so he could ignore his enemy's main strong colour and win anyway, ie he has hope! ie it is worth playing on, not just a play-out for both winner and loser.
A great example just from today (which prompted this reply) is the Full Duel I am fighting with Aussie Gaz right now, GM Yon. Last turn, the situation was that I had ripped one of his 3 colours; he had two colours of medium strength, I had a very powerful colour and two weakling colours. I was stronger over all, but AG had (has) still a hope, a chance, a plan. Worth playing on, thanks to the VC. I have the overall superiority (and would gradually win if it were "kill 'em all"), but I have to make that superiority count, and AG can see ways that he could win through, not needing to defeat my
strongest colour...just rip the
other two ...
See the commentary-area on the gamepage: it captures how I was forced to protect my two weaklings, not just max my power with the strong one that could easily get stronger. I have to make my superiority count, against ways for him to win (he still might!).
Early in Duel's history, Trewqh performed a brilliant example of it. On Monster Island (Or Skull Islands?), against Hryllantre. Trewqh's colours were strung across the middle, while Hryll had two in the south and one in the north. Trewqh brilliantly, in my view, chose a strategy to fit the VC. He ignored the north, and let Hryll's northern colour take neutrals at will and become super-powerful. While Trewqh sent 3 against two to the south. By the time Hryll's norther super-power was gobbling up any of Trewqh's three he chose, Trewqh was finishing off the second of Hryll's two in the south, using whichever two of them were not being killed by Hryll's superpower coming down from the north. Total armies etc, Hryll was winning; but Trewqh had the better strategy and it worked. 'Course, you have to get the timing right!
Duke did a similar thing against somebody, and came very close to doing the same against me - my strong colour had to spend all its energies going back the "wrong" way to defend my second colour, because if I had continued with its attack-options, Duke would have nicked the victory.
I think that's what Trewqh meant by it adding strategic depth. You have to be a bit smarter than just going for overall superiority ...
And I add that it makes it worth playing on, and still interesting, because both players still have (asymmetric) hopes, options and possibilities.
So, ironically, the VC of "kill two" instead of "kill all three" makes the game LONGER, or at least keeps the game interesting and alive for longer.
Hannibal