Here's an idea I've had for a while, but I've been hesitant to throw it out there for fear it would be too much work to implement.  I'll let tom weigh in on the difficulty.

This would ONLY apply to tournaments consisting of two player games (and would be an optional setup for the tournament).  I suppose this could also be applied outside of tournaments in regular two player games.

Paired games.  Mirrored games.  Not sure of the right name.

Player A and B start a paired game.  The system creates an initial board (board 1) and seats player A in seat X and player B in seat Y.  A copy of the same initial board is created (board 2) but player A takes seat Y and player B takes seat X.  Player A completes his turn on board 1 and player B completes his turn on board 2.  The moves and their results are hidden until both players complete their turns (a la Simulgear).  Once both complete their turns on their respective boards, the results become public and it switches turns on each board.  Play continues on both boards until there is a winner for each board.  (Naturally, once one board is won, the simultaneous requirement would go away.)

Two games will have been played and scored.

The motivation for this system is clear for those who have played a lot of two player games: fairness.  Some two player maps are quite well balanced while others can be give a huge advantage to the first (usually) or second player.  If one of the players doesn't really understand the board but gets a great setup, he may win.  With the paired game, he may win his favorably setup board but his opponent would also win on the other board, thus balancing the overall result.  Players who really understand the board would tend to win both their games, even if Seat A or B is better.

It would be very interesting (especially on the strategy type boards) to see how each player handles the initial setup (I'm thinking of Octagons, Hugh!!).  It's conceivable that the players could make the same moves on the two boards at the beginning and then diverge at some point (which could generate some nice analysis discussion from the players).

If one player wins on both boards its like a win for the encounter and if they split the games its like a draw.  Though for scoring simplicity I would just count each game won as a full point as it's done now.

Conan wrote:

Here's an idea I've had for a while, but I've been hesitant to throw it out there for fear it would be too much work to implement.  I'll let tom weigh in on the difficulty.

This would ONLY apply to tournaments consisting of two player games (and would be an optional setup for the tournament).  I suppose this could also be applied outside of tournaments in regular two player games.

Paired games.  Mirrored games.  Not sure of the right name.

Player A and B start a paired game.  The system creates an initial board (board 1) and seats player A in seat X and player B in seat Y.  A copy of the same initial board is created (board 2) but player A takes seat Y and player B takes seat X.  Player A completes his turn on board 1 and player B completes his turn on board 2.  The moves and their results are hidden until both players complete their turns (a la Simulgear).  Once both complete their turns on their respective boards, the results become public and it switches turns on each board.  Play continues on both boards until there is a winner for each board.  (Naturally, once one board is won, the simultaneous requirement would go away.)

Two games will have been played and scored.

The motivation for this system is clear for those who have played a lot of two player games: fairness.  Some two player maps are quite well balanced while others can be give a huge advantage to the first (usually) or second player.  If one of the players doesn't really understand the board but gets a great setup, he may win.  With the paired game, he may win his favorably setup board but his opponent would also win on the other board, thus balancing the overall result.  Players who really understand the board would tend to win both their games, even if Seat A or B is better.

It would be very interesting (especially on the strategy type boards) to see how each player handles the initial setup (I'm thinking of Octagons, Hugh!!).  It's conceivable that the players could make the same moves on the two boards at the beginning and then diverge at some point (which could generate some nice analysis discussion from the players).

If one player wins on both boards its like a win for the encounter and if they split the games its like a draw.  Though for scoring simplicity I would just count each game won as a full point as it's done now.

+1

Would love this for A&A FFA

Interesting idea

This is not dissimilar from the concept of "duplicate" boards, which are used for the game of Bridge.  I have given thought to this before because I'm a bridge player.  Duplicate boards in bridge work really well because play and bidding, even towards the end game, can be quite similar.  In fact, sometimes duplicate boards are bid and played all but identically.

Re: WarGear boards, one of the primary criticisms of duplicate play that I have grappled with is the impact of the dice.  Even if the swap does mitigate some unfairness, the luck of the dice are likely to trump it all.  I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done, but I'm pointing out one of its flaws

One of my solutions to the problem involves the concept of "similar" dice ..or even "similar" luck.  The problem with "identical" dice and luck is that it can be gamed.

On the other hand, if an algorithm could be developed that could force the luck stats of game #2 to have a tendency to mimic those of game #1, but with a built-in degree of unpredictability, that could be cool.

Very cool idea. True, the duplicate nature is somewhat minimized with dice-heavy (or fog-heavy) games. A lot of simulgear games are decision-heavy, so something like this would still be fun, even if luck could kill the effect.