"Go-Geared" shows up on the Home page, but not in the Boards page.  Is this a case where it will eventually show up when the system re-boots, re-initializes, re-caches, and finally re-alizes that it's there?

I think Yertle has to assign it a difficulty before it will show up on the boards page.

Ozyman wrote:

I think Yertle has to assign it a difficulty before it will show up on the boards page.

Yep, done and added some quick tags to it.  Let me know if anything needs updating!

Waddya think?  Medium?  It's not hard to play.  It's just difficult to master.

M57 wrote:

Waddya think?  Medium?  It's not hard to play.  It's just difficult to master.

That's what I went with, comparing to 5, 7, and 10?

Sounds right for now..

What's the difference between Go-Geared and Go-Diced?  Why not just use Scenarios?

Completely different games.  One involves no luck at all.  It would be inappropriate to bunch them together.

I could try and make the boards look even more different.. But I actually think there is value in having them look similar.  The basic mechanics of game-play are the same with both boards, so the similar look makes it such that players don't feel that they have to "re-learn" the rules (and there is a learning curve to the basic game).

The "standard" dice on the left hand side of the board serve to remind players that they can now attack to territories that are essentially off-limits in Go-Geared.

If you think it's an issue that needs to be looked into further - perhaps polling the community could help -- It's not my preference, but I suppose I'd be OK with retiring the board and moving all the "Diced" scenarios over, and renaming the whole thing "Go". 

Does anyone else have an opinion?...

Yes, I do.

I'd prefer it not be named "Go", because it is definitely not Go.

Dice vs no-dice are very different qualitatively. So, I know why you made it two boards.

Yet, the mechanics are very similar. Two different Seven variations might seem more different than Dice versus No-Dice. So..... it's not a huge stretch to scenario the whole thing.

I think this is an important discussion.  I don't mind my board(s) being a test case. 

The mechanics of "WarGear Warfare" and "War" are identical --and other than a one or two border differences (I assume), so are the maps.  The only thing that is different about them is the authorship. Hence ..two boards.

Compare and contrast with Anarchy .. pretty much same as above with its very different looking maps.. but yet it is (appropriately) released as one board.

I could add a Civil War map scenario to Fall of Rome and rename the whole thing Historical Battles.   The mechanics would be the same.  I could even have "neutral" territories on the CW map that would emulate how "barbarian" territories (don't) count for bonuses in FOR.

I would argue that the "mechanics" of the two Go boards are more different than almost any two "standard" boards on this site that you can name.  One is 100% skill and strategy.  And the other clearly involves a mix of skill/strategy AND luck.   Yes, the borders are the same.  I'd speculate that if I made the boards look very different stylistically, called one Go-Geared and the other "Roll for Gold", released one as a 9x9 board only, and the other an 11x11, and introduced them 6 months apart from each other, we  probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

As for the Name of the game, I hear ya, Hugh.  Obviously, the game is inspired by the territory capture paradigm of Go, but from there it departs radically. -- If anyone can suggest a better name for both/either (that I like), I'd be happy to update the graphics and change their name(s).

I would have them be the same scenario, if they were my boards, but that is just the way I prefer to setup things.  Maybe I shouldn't be doing it like that.  Take for example my Invention board.  One scenario removes all the tech stuff and is basically just a big world map board.   Should that be a separate board?  Maybe it should be...  Right now Invention is a 'red' difficulty, but the 'tech-less' scenario is green or yellow at worst.   I dunno.

Here's an additional theoretical litmus test for merging -- If the the boards are kept separate, is it likely that different top players will emerge from them?  This could happen for a number of reasons..

1. Different groups like the look of one board over the other.
2. Different groups prefer one style of game-play over the other.
3. Good play on each board requires a different or differently balanced set of skills. 

For Go-x, case 1 is unlikely to be true, but I would argue that cases 2 and 3 are likely if not very likely.  

Consider this corollary question to case 3..  If  players perceive themselves to be expert/top players on one of the board styles, might they resent having to compete against players of the other style of play for stats?

I generally think of graphic difference separating above mechanic differences (as in my Mario boards which have very similar mechanics, but are on different maps). I would have put the Go games together probably.

Also i think they should be red, not yellow (As should Seven, Five, and Ten). This is because i know if i enter with a seasoned player, i'll get dominated. 

I know what you are saying M, and if this was a site based off strategy games where we had 100's of people interested in such things then your points would have more merit.

But really, the market for the GO boards is 10-15 people at any time.  It's not very likely a player will be #1 on one of them and not able to be in the top 10 in the other. 

By having two of them your just giving someone like Hugh the chance to double his CP points on Go-like boards.

PS I wrote this post before reading the new ones in the "Mods" discussion.   We should probably keep discussions to one thread.

Good points A, ..and it's always a good idea to try and keep Hugh in check.

I'd feel a bit sleezy grabbing major points from both boards.

but you'd still do it, right?  ;)