http://www.wargear.net/games/view/295425

Has a game like this happened to you guys before?

Basically, Snoochie dominated the board and myself and LandoSky were scrambling for survival. Then, Snoochie surrenders leaving me and Lando with a few territories in a sea of neutrals. We had to hunt each other out for elimination and eventually I did win, but after the surrender, the game felt really unique. I think a whole, hunt each other out after the apocalypse idea would be a good board idea, but I just want to show this really odd game. 

Funny game indeed. 

It remains a mistery why Snoochie surrendered despite he was so close to victory.

Bizzaro. "I could win next round, but you guys play it out."

It'd be a cool scenario if everything was neutral except for 1 or 2 spots which would random place for players each game.

That would be an awesome board idea...

TheIronRelic wrote:

That would be an awesome board idea...

A lot of players are not fond of boards that require a lot of neutral wall bashing.   That said, a more precise designer option for controlling the neutral count would be nice.  Something like a neutral percentage menu would do the trick.

I think you'd be surprised.  I believe if done well a mostly neutral exploration or post apocalyptic map could be quite popular.

I call it the "screwed by neutral" effect and I'm in camp with M57 on this one.  Luck starts to be the biggest factor unless you can design that out of your maps (which I think is possible, but difficult)

Might be better to get everyone setup, play a through a few turns then find a way to "nuke the map" (even better if you could do this is a random way)

Toto wrote:

Funny game indeed. 

It remains a mistery why Snoochie surrendered despite he was so close to victory.

Thinking about it again, I don't find it's a funny game. It's a weird game. I really can't understand that, and I can't even blame Mine for once.

ratsy wrote:

I call it the "screwed by neutral" effect and I'm in camp with M57 on this one.  Luck starts to be the biggest factor unless you can design that out of your maps (which I think is possible, but difficult)

Might be better to get everyone setup, play a through a few turns then find a way to "nuke the map" (even better if you could do this is a random way)

 

Hate to be the one to tell you ratsy, but Risk and Risk emulators like WarGear are played with dice ;-)  "luck" is therefore inherent, unavoidable and, over many rolls, usually works out to be within a predictable variance, be it against your opponents or neutral.  The trick is not to design the luck out but to make certain strategies more influential then luck alone, and also to try and increase the number of rolls taken by providing a decent starting deployment and providing opportunities for attaining bonuses.

@berickf, Ratsy is not saying that it's a bad idea, or shouldn't be done, but he is suggesting that it's extremely difficult to do well.  There are very few if any standard Risk-like boards on this site that start with more than 50% neutrals that are any good in my opinion.  I haven't done a count, but Fall of Rome (one of my boards) may fall into that category, but I don't doubt there are a number of players who don't like it precisely because of the neutral wall.

One of the problems with making it work is the current inability to set high random neutral counts in the designer.  With nothing but prescribed high-count neutral positions available to designers, strategies for neutral wall games become limited and predictable.

Certainly, once we're talking about non-Risk-like boards (e.g. Go-Geared, Hex, Waterloo), all bets are off.

We have play tested many, many boards here over the years.  Many never make it past the development stage and many are significantly changed in the process.  A common concern is the degree of "neutral bashing" that has to occur.  Too much ruins a board.

There are many boards on the site that have some neutral bashing at the beginning - In my first board Bowling I remember significant reducing the number of neutrals on the pins in the beginning.  Gunslinger has more neutrals, and it ruins the board for some people.  Other boards like Merge Sort and Balance and Bloom have neutrals that you can choose to attack at the right time.

A large board that stats mostly neutral may work if designed well- but if the start is just "I hope I get lucky with these rolls" it will tire quickly.  Mall of the Dead would be an inspiration for any would be designers along this path.

Interesting discussion. Shouldn't it take place on a proper thread ? 

M57 wrote:

@berickf, Ratsy is not saying that it's a bad idea, or shouldn't be done

That was said tongue in cheek ;-) (the part about dice and luck)

But I do stand by the premise that the board designer needs to focus more on how strategies should be implemented to excel on such a board over limiting "luck".  BA 1v1's have a heck a lot of neutral interspersed and I am sure I have won some of them with a > -20 luck and a > 40 luck differential (+20 & -20) because playing that one with the correct strategy is more important then just getting lucky dice (against players with less strategical knowledge).  I think that the same principle applies to a primarily neutral board, in that creating it with such strategies in mind is the most important step.