Match queueing and FTA

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(07-15-2012 07:42 AM)Harti Wrote:  

(07-15-2012 07:22 AM)calmon Wrote:  Let him start with 2 wits and is good.

LOL

You hopefully understand what limiting it to 2 would mean for the first player. Nothing else to do than to grab the bonus spaces, effectively giving P2 the chance to set everything up like P1 originally would have been able to do. Second turn advantage then, pretty much.


If OML has an open mind about doing something about FTA, the beta testersalready presented a fair amount of (better) solutions than limiting P1's wits to 2.

Even if it means Player 1 limited to taking the bonus spaces, it is not (in my opinion) a bad solution. It is already the case that in the first turns, 2 wits are spent (on bigger maps) for each player to take the bonus spaces. In that variant, the 1st player would have 7 wits on his second turn to do something else than taking bonus spaces.

The reason (as I explained in that other linked thread) is that the turn by turn wits will be 2 5 7 7 7 7 7 7 ... (for big maps) if you take the difference between P1 and P2 wits after each turn it is instead 2 -3 +4 -3 +4 ... so probably on the bigger maps it still leaves P1 with a slight advantage. On the smaller maps the same calculation will lead to the prediction that 2 wits for P1 will give P2 a (very) slight advantage.

If you dislike how the first turns are spent to take bonus spaces, an option is to somehow change the game to make it harder to take the bonus spaces (i.e., imaging a runner is not enough to take a bonus space, or 2 units has to step on it before you get it). This would make it a bit more of an investment whether or not to contest the bonus spaces, but probably it would still be necessary, as games generally go to 20+ turns and the extra wits you get will basically always be worth it.