TRINITY Test Game #1

Discussion on the duel-like Trinity variant.

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Hannibal
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TRINITY Test Game #1

Post by Hannibal » Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:18 am

The other Trinity game, #01, has just finished. It was a knife-edge climax, with out-gunned Hryllantre going for his third rip for the win, and the more powerful Duke trying to stop him. Hryll took the rip, held it against counter-attack by Duke, and Hryll won the game. Brilliant play.

For me, it underlines what I like about the rules, ie that it is to get 3 rips, not to own 60 provinces.

Hryll focussed on the victory conditions, and went for them. Duke looks like he focussed more on being stronger than the other guy(s) [Yond was knocked out earlier]. Maybe Duke wouldn't "look" so much stronger at the end if Hryll had concentrated on fighting back, instead of sacrificing armies and position for the rips required ... Which worked out brilliantly for him, sacrificing power in order to get rips ...

The rules produced a really exciting climax: Could the powerful one stop the weaker one from grabbing a third rip? Bearing in mind that the weaker one is maybe weaker only because he went for his first two rips instead of building up, while his opponent went for build-up rather than rips ...

When Yond asked me to set-up a three-player variant of Duel, I spent quite a while designing it. I DID consider the "obvious" Victory Condition of "kill 'em all". But, as a designer, I know that 2-player games [or two left after the demise of the third player] tend to suffer from inevitableness: once one player is in the lead, it is TOO hard for the other to come back. But you can't make it self-correcting to a 50/50 in the climax [as some games do]. I wanted the right balance: If you are the stronger, you have more power to win or stop the other guy; but the weaker still has options and hopes that might work if he can pull it off. Makes it more skilful; you can make your superiority count; or you can come through from outnumbered to a win. The odds favour the stronger, if he plays it right, but the weaker has hope if he's clever, rather than merely death-by-attrition.

Anyway ... I ought to put these thoughts onto a discussion thread, to ask for views. So I'll open one.

Meanwhile:
Hryllantre, congrats, brilliant.
Duke, you took the map by storm and nearly won.
Yondallus .... er, thanks for suggesting such a format!

Ecerybody enjoyed themselves? It was certainly fun to watch, thanks.

Han
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Post by Duke » Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:55 am

I have been joking around in the game comments but I honestly liked the setup. Sure it sucked when I realized I missed that angle and noticed I had crappy troops to stop it from happening but if I look at it all from a neutral standpoint I have to say that it was exiting from beginning to end.

Normally this last and the next one or two turns would have been nearly pointless since I had what I needed to win and all I had to do was to decide if I wanted to be on the safe side and drag it out a bit or just go for it and take a minor risk.

Now I even lost and even though I dont like that part one bit I have to say that it kept the game alive.

A question:

If I take out one of my own players with the other of my own players. Does it count? It shouldnt but I just wanted to make that clear since we have some wiseheads in our community. :roll:
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Post by Hannibal » Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:01 am

Duke wrote:
A question:

If I take out one of my own players with the other of my own players. Does it count? It shouldnt but I just wanted to make that clear since we have some wiseheads in our community. :roll:
I covered that in the original rules, but maybe not clearly enough:

3) The Victory Condition is: victory goes to the human player who first rips any 3 colours excluding his own. So, this can be 3 Robos, or 2 human colours and 1 Robo, or any combination of three. [We might find we need to make it FOUR rips, but we'll try it with three first]. RIPs are defined exactly as in Duel-Lite, ie the rip goes to the player, human or Robo, that ENDS the turn owning the last-to-be-lost province of the ripped player, ie it is possible to "steal" a rip from the first player to finish off a colour, later in the same turn. (It feels great when you do it!). If 2 humans achieve this at the end of the SAME turn, then the VC switches to first-to-four-rips, etc.

Note the " ... rips any 3 colours excluding his own."

Han
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Post by korexus » Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:27 am

Although, of course. You can RIP your other player to deny or steal the RIP from another player.

Question: If all the players do this and the robos collide obliterating each other and the one remaining robot finished off a player, it would become impossible for any player to gain three RIPs. What happens then? :crazy:


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Post by Brykovian » Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:34 pm

korexus wrote:What happens then?
Call a draw and start over?

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Post by Duke » Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:52 pm

I think the world might end... either way dont try it. Look what happend in the Terminator-series.
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Post by Hannibal » Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:52 pm

Good question. Somehow that contingency eluded my thinking when I was devising the rules ...

OK, in that case, the clan of Robos (Robo Co-op?), gets 50 VP's. Each Robo. And top all the charts. Just watch those servo-arms do high fives!

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Post by Hryllantre » Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:53 pm

Imho; The Trintiy format is great. Three players two colours and three required RIP's is perfect... The four Robo's proved a huge barrier on many an occasion in Trinity I and we even had RoboRED released from it's dead-end to reap more damage. Ofc there may be a need for some minor tweaking especially allowing the Robo's a chance of victory...
Duke wrote:A question:

If I take out one of my own players with the other of my own players. Does it count? It shouldnt but I just wanted to make that clear since we have some wiseheads in our community. :roll:
I asked that very same question (therefore it must be well hidden within the game rules). Having already secured two RIP's it would make your opponents task momumentally difficult, especially if you gathered all your resources into one or two provinces and left the remainder barren (cept for that lonesome army)...

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