A new twist on an old classic. Keep a close eye on all angles, you never know when your foe might be sneaking in a diagonal on you!

Enjoy!

Pretty sneaky sis!

I sent you a PM on the discrepancy in the About.

Also, I think there is a huge advantage to going first. Somehow I never felt that way in the old version; not sure what's different... perhaps the lack of return to Placement favors the first person to load up and go all-out to one column?

I just finished my first turn with 5 in a row horizontal, another 5 below it, one column with 4 in a row, another column with all 5 guarded by a 7 and a 3 in the top 2 spots. I really don't think I can lose - and I didn't roll particularly well.

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/5252 for reference

Yeah, I cleared up the about issue. Thanks for the catch. My first try with the map here I did turn based selection, but it was horribly slow so it went away in favor of a scenario setup. I guess I never fixed the About.

I can't speak to the going first or not thing. It should be pretty darn similar. This board is one row narrower and shorter, but that actually makes the thing more symmetrical. Perhaps the neutrals now missing from the odd middle row had more effect than expected...

I noticed the added symmetry in a 6 x 5 board. Maybe that's it. But that could have that effect; smaller board concentrates the first player's armies? Missing neutrals could do it too, making it easier to get horizontal connections?

I dunno. Let's playtest. Is it possible to play dev games on a board that's already live? 6 or 7 quick games should prove the point I think.

No real need to play test. I can only see the most recent 15 finished games right now, but of those 15 the first player won 8 and the second player won 7. Until I can see the rest of the games played (bug reported in support forum), I'm gonna go ahead and say no problem exists.

Huh. Alright.

http://www.wargear.net/games/view/4849
http://www.wargear.net/games/view/4654

An interesting programming project would be to simulate offensive strategies on your latest Connect Some and see how likely it is that 1st player wins without 2nd player getting to move. While it is likely below 50%, 1st player can wait to see if rolling is good enough to justify using the questionable attack w/ 2 and attack w/ 1. If not, try to build a solid 4 or leave defense solid.

I disagree slightly with asm about the old version: I suspect 1st player has a 55/45 edge if he follows a certain strategy (Andernut's histories provide the main secrets to that strategy - they are little less well known than Cannon's strategies and I think more effective).

With the version here, I'm with asm - I think there exist strategies that give 1st player a higher edge, maybe as high as 70/30. It should be noted that 1st player starts with +5 bonus and at will can get 2nd player down to +3.

The missing neutrals change a lot - there at least was a penalty for accessing _some_ of the 2nd player's units. In a sense, they provide extra fog tactics as well. That said, I always thought the neutrals structure could use tweaking.

I don't mean to turn this into a review - my opinions aren't fully formed - I want more objective data than I currently have. Potential suggestions (that easily could be flawed):

Wargear version: Use 4-sided dice. These give defender a slight edge (slighter than attacker's usual edge). This could result in more jockeying and holding of connected 4's. Aggressive moves can still occur with the dice odds, but there will be no blowouts.

Adding neutrals: Original played well - I thought the center could use weaker neutrals for more interesting play. You could give the 1st player 3-6 fewer units to start to balance the play. Also, original setup with 4-sided die I think has the potential to be extremely interesting.

-Hugh

nerd

I jest, of course. Just like on Warfish, this map was more of a proof-of-concept for me to give the board design tools a first through. It is pretty simple to make both graphically and in the tool. It turned out to be playable and popular in the old world, so I left it; and then decided to use it for the same end here. I thought the symmetry would help a bit, but perhaps its actually made the situation a little worse. I'll definitely fix it if it turns out to be very skewed. Even just tossing in some neutrals could help.

Since the current build seems to be, for the most part, resulting in a pretty even split between 1st and 2nd seat amongst the general population, I'll leave it up while we experiment. But I'll get to work on some new version tweaks behind the scenes.

Cramchakle wrote: nerd

I know!  Sometimes I reread my posts and think the same thing :)  with pride, of course.

I'll just play a dozen games on my own time, then. Fairly confident I'll win most if not all the games where I go first, and at least some of those where I don't (assuming I get to play against G.P. players and don't have any nerds try to mess me up).

Due to the ability to transfer before playing your first turn it grants a larger advantage to going first than in the original.  Unless the first person to go doesn't follow my strategy. Which is win before the other person gets a turn.

 http://www.wargear.net/games/view/4838
http://www.wargear.net/games/view/5051

Statistically attacker wins > 50% of the time.  Couple that with a lot of "3"s on the board, you're likely to get a lot of 3v1 opportunities.  Throw in cycling your bad rolls out from along the top of the board to an empty column and you're golden. 

Two transfers + return to attack nets a much larger advantage than choosing when to place your 3 armies as far as I'm concerned. 

Instead of choosing when to place those 3 armies, you're getting to fortify an extra 3 armies into any spot of your choosing - Twice!

This map is easily won on the first turn. I beg you to fix it.

I dunno, I'm having some trouble in our game right now. I lost 2 armies attacking the chip tray for Pete's sake.

Right, but bad rolls shouldn't be the only thing stopping you from winning before I have a turn. With okay rolls, not even great ones, its simple to win.

Even though i won that game as second player, i stand by my point that winning first turn is very possible.

I think it could be as simple as adjusting the first turn bonus. The fact is that player 1 gets 5 reinforcements and unless he goes completely bonkers, player 2 shouldn't get more than 3. That together with the attacker advantage gives player 1 the edge.

I'd suggest one of two things:
1: reduce the first turn bonus. i know there was a way to do this in the Old World.
2: change the game to 5-sided dice.

asm wrote:
1: reduce the first turn bonus. i know there was a way to do this in the Old World.

I'm not entirely sure that is possible here yet, at least it was one thing that I noticed when play testing Episode 1 with Risky, and while I didn't completely confirm it, I can't think of any setting here that would allow it to occur like it did on WF.

No, that setting doesn't exist and that actually became the reason that Episode I is more balanced here then it was on another site I used to play and design on. Strange that a feature I used to try and balance things turned out to be the thing that made it unbalanced.

P.S. I think Connect Some should be kept as is. Beautiful game faults are so hard to think of and create, when they just happen it should be considered special.