Hugh wrote:

I like these ideas. To expand on what Amidon said - it is essentially an increasing elimination bonus. So, a similar idea would be to have the elimination bonus increase every x turns or increase in tune with the cards, or be a straight % of the number of armies on the board. The whole attempt is to have the bonus related to armies on the board, so % of armies relates it very directly! I've always liked that elimination bonuses are independent of the cards. 

I thought of a more twisted idea the other day: Have the elimination bonus be the number of armies of the person you eliminated  (or a multiple of this #), the number being taken from the beginning of your turn. It would reward big kills and not reward being the lucky person who gets to kill the weak guy at the right time. 

(I'm not too attached to these ideas - they all complicate the options, but I thought I'd throw them out there while we're on the topic...)

These would all be wonderful.  

I would really like a possible elimination bonus in the form of more attacks in a limited attack game...

Edward Nygma wrote:

I would really like a possible elimination bonus in the form of more attacks in a limited attack game...

..or the bonus could be that you get another turn. The difference being that you don't receive any of your "normal" bonuses.  This wouldn't be too different.

Selecting the number of attacks would be nice though.

Edward Nygma wrote:

I would really like a possible elimination bonus in the form of more attacks in a limited attack game...

yes. for things like Space Lines, Connect 4, my Sequence game, etc...

To expand this conversation even more -

Something that could help the ending of the Sequence game would be a "goal" territory - first person to take it wins the game.

Amidon37 wrote:

Something that could help the ending of the Sequence game would be a "goal" territory - first person to take it wins the game.

This is a win condition on the feature list (Feature ID 87).

Amidon37 wrote:

Edward Nygma wrote:

Is it possible to play a game with no cards and start player with cards?  So your elimination bonus is a set number of cards, and you only get a turn in once you've eliminated a player? 

I just tried this with our current set-up:

I gave each player AA (easy enough), left cards "on", and made the deck 0, 0, 0, 0.

But when I took a territory I still got a wild card.  Tom must have it set that if there is nothing to give you get a wild.

That sounds like a bug in the card drawing code. Which Hugh wrote funnily enough :)

tom wrote:

Amidon37 wrote:

Edward Nygma wrote:

Is it possible to play a game with no cards and start player with cards?  So your elimination bonus is a set number of cards, and you only get a turn in once you've eliminated a player? 

I just tried this with our current set-up:

I gave each player AA (easy enough), left cards "on", and made the deck 0, 0, 0, 0.

But when I took a territory I still got a wild card.  Tom must have it set that if there is nothing to give you get a wild.

That sounds like a bug in the card drawing code. Which Hugh wrote funnily enough :)

Aye! Classic boundary condition assumption error! My code does have an if-then-else ending in wild. It would not erroneously default to wild under the assumption of a non-empty deck. The idea of cards "on" and a deck of 0,0,0,0 itself poses a problem ;)

Within the code you could put in an "if total = 0 then return an error code", but I have a feeling that the more meaningful thing to do is to make it so that cards "on" and 0,0,0,0 should be disallowed in the design. Note that "if total = 0 then initialize deck and try again" fails because the deck is 0,0,0,0, and this would cause the universe to collapse.

If attempting to get something more like an even distribution to each card type at all times, you'd need a separate routine. 

Yertle wrote:

Amidon37 wrote:

Something that could help the ending of the Sequence game would be a "goal" territory - first person to take it wins the game.

This is a win condition on the feature list (Feature ID 87).

It is possible to effectively do this with the existing system. I can think of two ways.  My Appomattox board is one example.

Space lines in another, do you have a third?

Well, I qualified my second with "effectively", and there is one caveat - You have to hold it for one round.  Basically, give it an off the charts continental bonus.

There certainly are work-arounds available, but as the number of players increases and the number of available attacks decreases it gets harder to do.  The Sequence board currently has 4 players and 1 attack per turn - so it gets trickier.

Ah, Yes. I remember the good old days ..even before WG.  We didn't have all these new-fangled features and we didn't want 'em.  Sure, life was tough; most of us board designers had to walk uphill 5 miles to school, both ways ..and we took a sense of pride in creating boards that achieved desired mechanics of play using the simple and classic set of tools afforded us.

Then tom came on the scene and actually started to care about the plight of the poor board designer.  Partly out of respect for tom's time, but mostly in deference to the old ways, we stuck to our principles. We knew we were changing the face of the game, a game that is still capable of captivating our imaginations even in its simplest forms.

But things have changed and now these young'uns expect tom to enable their creative desires, granting just about any feature imaginable without delay or complaint.  Let's just come out and say it.  They're an entitled generation and spoiled to the core. I'm even noticing that some of old-timers are softening as they become accustomed to and comfortable with the wealth of features and options that WarGear offers.

And so it is I find myself standing here, alone on this island, a hermitage dedicated to the values that accompany the decent and simple ways of the past.  A solitary voice crying out for authenticity and accessibility.  I humbly beg you all to carefully weigh the consequences of traveling down some of the easy and seductive roads that tom is capable of paving.

As for me, my needs are few.  A crust of bread, a corner to sleep in, a fast connection and a decent amount of RAM are all I need to get by.  Barren and Fertile designer features and a Boot Bot would also be nice.

M57 wrote:

I'm even noticing that some of old-timers are softening as they become accustomed to and comfortable with the wealth of features and options that WarGear offers.

Yes and no. :^)

and you know you like it too...

M57 wrote: Barren and Fertile designer features and a Boot Bot would also be nice.

Lol, IMO, those types of features are farther from the basic mechanics than a new elimination bonus (although I haven't actually commented on this feature really).

They're an entitled generation and spoiled to the core. I'm even noticing that some of old-timers are softening as they become accustomed to and comfortable with the wealth of features and options that WarGear offers.

I wouldn't say that this is true.  People that are asking for "edge features" have just seen what tom can do and are asking for things that normally just make it easier for things (usually which people have already found ways of doing).  Not too sure who you meant by "old-timers", but I know I still chip in my opinion against over-complicating features.  From what I've seen, tom does a good job of implementing features from a wide crowd of players, and he executes the implementation great.

/unhijack

lol!  That rant was too stylized to be more than half serious.

I do worry that every new feature makes the site a bit more complicated and harder for new comers.  But these same new features keep things fresh and exciting for the people who have 1000 games under their belts.  I think it is up to the map makers to clearly explain their intent, and keep things relatively simple.  In addition some sort of introductory path or gentle introduction to the site needs to be available to complete newbs so they are not scared away. 

There are a lot of ways to do this, and we've discussed many of them.  Everything from a better board search to allow players to find simple boards/exclude complicated boards,  player mentors who invite a new player to some games and make sure they understand the interface & some of the advanced features, a wargear level system where more complicated content becomes available as players master the simpler stuff, etc.   But I think as new features are added (and probably none are ever removed), something that addresses this need is going to be more and more necessary.

Ozyman wrote:

lol!  That rant was too stylized to be more than half serious.

Thanks Ozy.  Yes, I was definitely being quite a bit less than half serious.  I should have thrown an emoticon or two in there to indicate that I was spoofing on myself.

But there was a point to my brief foray into humorous writing, and you are right. This is an ongoing issue that luckily hasn't been a problem ..yet. The good news is that tom is the one and final arbiter where all decisions are concerned.  The potentially bad news is that tom is micro-managing, micro-developing, and micro-maintaining the site.  It's got to be hard for him to see the big picture.  In a lot of ways, he relies on us for this.  After all, we are the users, the board designers, players, etc.

The process seems reasonable enough. Sometimes as individuals and other times with a certain amount of consensus we come up with a bunch of good ideas and if he's able (and he likes them), he codes them and poof!, they become virtual reality.  Personally, I think the issues of accessibility and authenticity have been somehow honored quite impressively using this method, but I think it's fair to say that WarGear has been exploring quite a bit of serious uncharted territory in the last year, and tom's output has been phenomenal to say the least.  I don't know ..this may work out OK for a long time to come, but I think it's important that we always keep it in the back of our minds ..if not explicitly in our posts.

Ozyman wrote:

 I think it is up to the map makers to clearly explain their intent, and keep things relatively simple.  In addition some sort of introductory path or gentle introduction to the site needs to be available to complete newbs so they are not scared away. 

There are a lot of ways to do this, and we've discussed many of them.  Everything from a better board search to allow players to find simple boards/exclude complicated boards,  player mentors who invite a new player to some games and make sure they understand the interface & some of the advanced features, a wargear level system where more complicated content becomes available as players master the simpler stuff, etc.   But I think as new features are added (and probably none are ever removed), something that addresses this need is going to be more and more necessary.

Perhaps not as important:  Designer features can be confusing to designers.  It's not uncommon for veteran designers to post a question or comment on these boards looking for clarification about how a feature works.  For instance, the recent player-color-#-seat feature addition/changes sent a number of folks to the boards with questions. I haven't checked in a while but are new designer features well documented with clear explanations regarding how to use them as they come on-line?

I haven't made a map in a while.  I might try my hand at another come summer; No time right now. I'm definitely on the lower end of geekdom so my attempt will be telling.

Last time I tried uploading a map from my imac I had no joy (I'm a recent convert to the "other" dark side).  Tom tried to get it working a couple times (this was a month or two ago) and I'm pretty sure it's not fixed yet. 

M57 wrote:I haven't checked in a while but are new designer features well documented with clear explanations regarding how to use them as they come on-line?

I believe the Help pages are completely up to date.  The draw back though is that some info may be slightly spread out in the Help, for example the Rules page contains all the Rules but it would be good to read the FAQ and Board Design FAQ at a minimum to really understand the Rules.  But I believe all or most all features are somewhat covered in the Help (if not let me know and I'll update it, I just don't have anything else that I've procrastinated in doing for the pages ).