Hey Tom.

I'm trying to get some of my boards up and running.  I once asked you about Token territories and you told me those would be complicated.  Another way for me to get that same board up and running would be if capital cities could be divvied up like regular territories are at the beginning of the game.  I could then make all the non token territories, all the actual on board spaces, capital cities, that would be divided equally amongst the players at the beginning of the game with three troops per territory, as is the default, with a few extra troops being thrown down randomly onto a few of those territories for those who were given one less due to the divisibility of the territory count.  Lose your last on-board territory and elimination would be the result because you'd be losing your last capital city.  So, would it be possible without too much work to make randomly assignable capital cities an option for board developers?  With the increased use of factories and off-board territories to achieve certain effects/bonuses, tokens are the obvious solution, but, in many cases randomly assigned capital cities and making the entire on-board territories to be these capital cities (with neutral capital cities for neutrally assigned space) could also mostly achieve the desired effect.  Really the only thing that randomly assigned capital cities falls short at reaching is a proper per territory bonus as off-screen territories would still be added into that count and the board designer would need to take that into consideration.  Still, if it's possible and easy to allow for randomly assigned capitals, I would greatly appreciate that addition to the designer's tool set.  Basically the designer would just need to give the option for "unallocated" under "seat number" when the designer chooses capital city and such unallocated capital cities would then be divvied up randomly at the beginning as normal territories are.

Thanks a lot,

Erick

How about if you had an off board non-capital territory assigned to each player. They would be assigned by color.  As long as payers don't choose their color, these territories would essentially be randomly assigned. Each territories would then be enrolled as the single 'member' of a continent, to which a capital is assigned as an auto-capture factory.

If it important that these off-board territories don't constantly re-capture the object territory, make them self-destructing auto-neutral factories.

M57 wrote:

How about if you had an off board non-capital territory assigned to each player. They would be assigned by color.  As long as payers don't choose their color, these territories would essentially be randomly assigned. Each territories would then be enrolled as the single 'member' of a continent, to which a capital is assigned as an auto-capture factory.

Hey M57,

I don't follow the mechanism you are creating here.

As far as I'm getting it is that you are setting each player up to attain a randomly assigned non-capital territory.  I don't follow which capital these territories are then autocapturing and how that capital would help though?

At first I was thinking that you were suggesting that the entire board would be recreated off-board to autocapture the entire board of capitals, but, that would be an extremely messy and unsatisfactory solution with a myriad of consequences unexplainable in the board description and deleterious to game play.  It would make for a really awkward start waiting for the capital territories to be autocaptured on board.  Plus, since the number of territories is not always evenly divisible by the number of players in the game, the autocapture would not allow extra troops to be placed for those with less territory.  Also, the player going first would be restricted in what they could do because the rest of the players would not yet have autocaptured their territories so if they attack anything yet to be autocaptured then they would lose it to the following player who autocaptures what they took.  Players later in the order will be able to attack the players who have already autocaptured their territories and will gain advantages by it.  Also, by having the board territories autocaptured in the first round it would delay other board effects that are dependent on your real board territories autocapturing off board territories.

But, that's not what you were saying was it, or is it?  Could you please explain the mechanism you are describing?

I think as developers do more off-board work, however, that the implementation of tokens, or a reasonable substitute, are crucial moving forward here.  Randomly assigned capital cities is probably the easiest solution in the short run so as to be able to create a clear separation between on-board and off-board territories without writing a lot of new code.

That said, I look forward to reading your idea more in-depth so I can understand it better!

Thanks,

Erick

Create the territories you want on the board as Unallocated Capitals.  Say you have 12  capitals that you want randomly assigned in a game for 4 players.  Create  12 off-board territories and assign them to the 4 colors that are available.  Does that make any sense or am I just reinventing the wheel?

You could go as far as having an off board territory for every territory on the board. The problem with this is the delayed start for the game. You would have to wait a full round before the board was properly populated.

Randomly Assigned Capitals would be a much more elegant solution.

Combine that with unabandonable territories (aka territory min of 1) would give a lot of nice new options for designers.

Korrun wrote:

Combine that with unabandonable territories (aka territory min of 1) would give a lot of nice new options for designers.

Speaking of which, last time we talked about this I think the conclusion was that territory mins would be difficult to add, but I had an idea about that.

I was playing the Gates of Hell the other day (which makes an awesome 2v2 map), and noticed that when you try attacking from your last capital that it makes you leave 1 unit on it (abandon is on) since if you didn't you would eliminate yourself. Perhaps the code for the capitals could be reused to make a territory min of 1.

Basically, each territory with the NonAbandon feature would consider itself to be the "last capital" and require a unit to be left.

M57 wrote:

Create the territories you want on the board as Unallocated Capitals.  Say you have 12  capitals that you want randomly assigned in a game for 4 players.  Create  12 off-board territories and assign them to the 4 colors that are available.  Does that make any sense or am I just reinventing the wheel?

Oh, so it is what I thought you might have meant.  No reason to have them assigned by colour and not have players select colours for that though, as far as I can tell, so, I think it was that part that was throwing me off...  Maybe you meant that they don't choose seats as seats usually work with pre allocated territories, I think?  The idea of having offscreen territories autocapture onscreen capitals, however, doesn't work for the reasons I stated previously.  I mean, theoretically it works, but, creates a very messy start to the game that would ruin it and make it overly complicated to get going for most.  Also, you know me, I like big epic boards and in this case I'm talking >300 territories and max 16 players.  Not that I'm afraid to do the work, just that I can tell the end product would end up playing quite dirty and rob the board of starting off with a crisp, fair and enjoyable experience.  So, to do the work only to end up with something that most wouldn't enjoy doesn't seem very time economical.

As you can tell by the way I started this thread, it's more a letter to Tom.  I don't think that there is a suitable workaround in this case. I'm really hoping that it's a small task for Tom to add "unallocated" to the seat number drop down menu and then to just make all unallocated territories be part of the initial territory random selection process to be shared between all players in the game.  Obviously this would only be for capital cities as, by definition, allocated territories are allocated, and neutral territories and neutral capitals are not shared at start up as they are forced to be neutral.  So, if these small modifications were possible then it should be possible for the unallocated capital cities to be divvied up at the start and the game would launch cleanly.  Since unallocated would be shared at start, the unit number should be locked, however, as the unit number would be generated according to the setup rules for shared territories. It doesn't look like it should be too much a stretch from the existing code, so, my fingers are crossed x! 

Unallocated capital cities would potentially be a quick fix to make the use of off-screen mechanisms less detrimental to end game dynamics, as they sometimes can be, and, while I do realize that Tom already added some win conditions to handle the way board making is going in this regard to the increased use of off screen mechanisms, this could be another equally as useful way for many boards to execute behind the curtains magic without effecting on the board game play.  A stepping stone before tokens, so to speak.  I don't actually think that there is a workaround for this that will still leave a board playing in a clean and elegant way.  Basically most workaround options that I have imagined up, like the one we are talking about here, are just trading the existing messy or impossible finish for an even more messy start...  Enjoyment of a board is all about first impressions and with the off screen territory autocapture on board capitals mechanism, I'd lose all my player's enthusiasm before the first round is over!

Korrun wrote:

You could go as far as having an off board territory for every territory on the board. The problem with this is the delayed start for the game. You would have to wait a full round before the board was properly populated.

Also, many players would unknowingly attack the neutral around them and potentially leave a big stack of troops somewhere unwittingly unaware that it's about to be autocaptured by another player and used against them.  That solution is a recipe for disaster as many players would be in games with wildly skewed dynamics after the first round.

berickf wrote:

As you can tell by the way I started this thread, it's more a letter to Tom.  I don't think that there is a suitable workaround in this case. 

Ya never know..  I've assumed on similar matters.  I'm not saying you're wrong, but if there's a workable albeit cumbersome workaround, I would rather tom work on something for which there is no workaround.

That said, as I recall there seems to be agreement in the designer community that token territories and territory minimums (on an abandon enabled board) would be game changers.  I can't remember what the others are off the top of my head, or which are the top vote-getters; I'm not trying to push anything I personally want to the top of our wish list with this comment.

M57 wrote:

berickf wrote:

As you can tell by the way I started this thread, it's more a letter to Tom.  I don't think that there is a suitable workaround in this case. 

Ya never know..  I've assumed on similar matters.  I'm not saying you're wrong, but if there's a workable albeit cumbersome workaround, I would rather tom work on something for which there is no workaround.

That said, as I recall there seems to be agreement in the designer community that token territories and territory minimums (on an abandon enabled board) would be game changers.  I can't remember what the others are off the top of my head, or which are the top vote-getters; I'm not trying to push anything I personally want to the top of our wish list with this comment.

I hear you and completely agree with you, the reason I'm putting this forward is because it is potentially easier to program and acts as quasi token territories.  If token territories were an easy make, I'd be endorsing that alone as it would accomplish everything I'm asking for and more, but, since so many boards get stalled, or don't even get started because the designer has experienced or knows that utilizing off-screen mechanisms will have a messy or impossible end game situation, or, if they know that the use of off-screen mechanisms will mess up the game play by making eliminations impossible, then, this is a way to greatly increase the potential for new boards simply because it is a partial way of achieving what tokens would accomplish, and, like you say, tokens would be a game changer for designers, so, this is mostly a game changer as well.  Simply by being able to assign everything on board as capitals and everything off board as not, with this solution, a situation is created where a board can operate normally no matter what the designer does behind the curtains.  The only thing it really doesn't solve, that tokens would, is the calculation of per territory bonuses and the ability to have a board that has both tokens and selective capitals.  Usually a board with selective capitals shouldn't need tokens anyways as far as game play is concerned (tokens would still sort out per territory bonuses properly on such boards), though, there are most likely circumstances where both could be used regardless simply because some people just like to push the limits of what is possible!

Essentially what I'm saying is, yes, Tokens would be a game changer, and so would this since this is replicating 85% of what we want tokens for anyways.  The only question I really want to know is, would it be easy to implement from a programming standpoint?  If so, then, having a programming workaround that adds a tool to the designer that provides 85% of a game changer like tokens is a heck of a lot better then having messy boards that don't play properly because less then effective territory/factory workarounds, and/or stalled boards that are waiting on something that would be difficult for Tom to implement.  I'm really hoping that this is something that Tom could do in an afternoon without much sweat on his brow, and then voila, we have quasi-tokens... A game changer without tying him down in endless hours of programming to get real tokens territories.

Also, I know you're just being frank and not pushing any agenda.  I'm pretty sure real time factories is at the top of your designer's dream tool list and that wasn't even mentioned ;-)

berickf wrote:

the use of off-screen mechanisms will mess up the game play by making eliminations impossible, then, 

..one awkward and cumbersome workaround there is to enable an (off=board) territory win condition, which could in turn be tied to a continent, factory, etc.  Quantum Entanglement uses such a mechanism, albeit in a very simple way to accommodate multiple win conditions (in this case, just two).  As we all know, often the cost of using work-arounds like these is untenable because it ruins the functionality of some other important mechanism.

Also, I know you're just being frank and not pushing any agenda.  I'm pretty sure real time factories is at the top of your designer's dream tool list and that wasn't even mentioned ;-)

I do have my favorites ;) but the consensus favorites are more important for the site moving forward. That, and most of them are at, or near the top of my list anyway.