FTA

[Szei]

There's another important point regarding how in chess FTA isn't as big a deal. In chess you can only move 1 piece on any given turn. One of the major things about Outwitters which makes FTA so strong is the fact that you can move many pieces at a time. This allows the starting player to gain a strong positional advantage from an early stage. You can establish forward/central map presence a turn earlier which can dictate the rest of the game as you'll have better scouting information allowing you to make informed decisions rather than shooting in the dark.

(Although on second thought the same should essentially be true of chess. It just takes more time for the starting player to establish that key position a turn earlier than his/her opponent can since they can only move 1 piece at a time. The real difference is that in Chess there is NO FOG OF WAR so having that central map control earlier, while undoubtedly important, isn't as crucial. In Outwitters, losing out on center map control and the subsequent scouting information you obtain is a major setback)

Eventually a first turn disadvantage can be implemented to offset this FTA (like the 3 wits on first turn or only being able to move 1 or 2 units so you can't immediately move out and claim map control) *or* we can shift away from the smaller maps and into mostly larger maps where FTA isn't as big of an issue. The nice thing about keeping the maps from getting too large is that the games also won't become too lengthy. It's nice how the current Outwitters games don't drag on too long. I'm not advocating HUGE maps, but simply that we gravitate towards slightly larger maps as opposed to the smaller ones like Sharkfood Island where FTA is quite significant.