Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Proposal: Return

Timed out and cannot be enacted, 4-4. Josh

Adminned at 19 Apr 2012 15:21:37 UTC

Remove the text

If each claim made by the player who influenced the Public last Cycle in their Control message was accurate, first, if a single Player has more Councilmen than every other player, that player gains an amount of Power equal to one tenth of the total amount of Power owned by all other players combined.

Then, if a single Player has more Power than every other player, that player has achieved victory. This player is encouraged to explain the cause of the dark Ansible, and the fate of Blogia, in any Declarations of Victory they make in the near future.

from the ruleset.

Replace “Otherwise, a new Cycle begins.” with “Then a new Cycle Begins”

Remove “The Public” from the list of institutions.

Add a new institution called “The Ansible”

The Ansible’s Completion is tracked in this rule: it is currently 0% complete. When specifying a Direction to the Ansible, a Player may include with that Direction an Order of CONSTRUCT or DISMANTLE. If a Player Influences the Ansible with an Order of CONSTRUCT, its Completion is increased by (M+P+C)%, where N is the number of Marines this Player Directed to the Ansible this Cycle, P is half the number of Power this Player Directed at the Ansible this Cycle (rounded down), and C is five times the number of Councilmen this Player Directed at the Ansible this Cycle. If a Player Influences the Ansible with an Order of DISMANTLE, its Completion is instead decreased by (M+P+C)% where N is the number of Marines this Player Directed to the Ansible this Cycle. If ever the Ansible’s Completion is higher than 100%, it is immediately set to 100% instead; if ever it is lower than 0%, it is immediately set to 0% instead.

Add a new institution called “The Signal Tower”

When a Player Influences The Signal Tower, if the Ansible is not currently 100% complete or Unpowered, that Player loses five credits, two power, one marine and one councilman (provided they have them). Otherwise, if a single Player has more Councilmen than every other player, that player gains an amount of Power equal to one tenth of the total amount of Power owned by all other players combined. Then, if a single Player has more Power than every other player, that player has achieved victory. The Bonus for The Signal Tower is always zero.

Current victory condition sucks. Don’t get why the Ansible failed before, but making it a little easier to construct by letting you throw power and councilmen at it if you want. Making broadcasting the signal a institution to make the endgame more interesting. Signal Tower will blow up if you try and influence it before the Ansible is constructed, and Ansible goes before Signal Tower so you need win both to make sure someone doesn’t destroy the Ansible on you.

posted by Clucky at 17 Apr 2012 21:24:36 UTC Comments (17)

Comments

Kevan: he/him

17-04-2012 21:43:04 UTC

I think the dynasty started off with a lot of protosals, so people were voting down anything that wasn’t perfect and waiting for a rewrite.

for Although you’ve got your Ns and Ms mixed up.

Cpt_Koen:

17-04-2012 22:05:34 UTC

for

A couple of issues:

In “if the Ansible is not currently 100% complete or Unpowered”, it is unclear whether the ‘not’ refers only to ‘currently 100% complete’ or also to ‘Unpowered’. (It’s also unclear what ‘currently’ refers to but that’s not relevant.)

Besides the Ns and Ms, it’s weird to repeat “where N is…” but not what P and C are (between CONSTRUCT and DISMANTLE)

If I Influence the Signal Tower while the Ansible is not 100% Complete, if I have, say, no Marine, I could argue that I am not fulfilling the “provided they have them” condition and so may keep the 5 Credits, 2 Power and 1 Councilman.

Josh: he/they

17-04-2012 22:11:43 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

17-04-2012 22:13:34 UTC

Yeah, I messed up with the N/M thing. Good point on the Unpowered thing, although I’m not sure why I added it in the first place (if its unpowered, then nothing happen) =P

But all that can get fixed with another proposal.

Cpt_Koen:

17-04-2012 22:34:05 UTC

No, the Unpowered is meaningful, since once could Influence the Signal Tower while the Ansible is at the same time Unpowered and 100% Complete.

Whether we want it or not is another question ;-)

Yonah:

17-04-2012 22:45:01 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

17-04-2012 22:45:14 UTC

Oh yeah, its when the Ansible is unpowered. Forgot about that. Knew I had some reason for putting that there =P

I think its good. It fits stylistically—you need a working Ansible to launch the signal.

Florw:

17-04-2012 22:52:07 UTC

for

Patrick:

18-04-2012 01:20:12 UTC

against
In my opinion this system is flawed, anybody wanting to get the ansible online or wanting to influence the signal tower is really going to be set back, and I doubt any player is going to ever be so far ahead of everyone else that they will be able to give up so many resources while maintaining their lead.

This will just lead to a dynasty that never ends as none of the top players will want to give up that top spot just to get a little closer to ending the dynasty.

The current system may not be the ideal one, but I think it is better than this one.

Cpt_Koen:

18-04-2012 16:26:58 UTC

Well you do have a point, I don’t want a stalemate.
against

Clucky: he/him

18-04-2012 17:44:36 UTC

If no one works towards it we can revise it, but I don’t think it’ll be a stalemate and think its way better than ‘make six lucky guesses’

southpointingchariot:

19-04-2012 02:16:27 UTC

against I really like the public mechanic. Its not intended as simple “guessing” - its supposed to be a mix of reading what others will do and being able to control and influence on your own. I would much prefer to smooth out that mechanic to everyone’s satisfaction, such as saying that a guess still counts if no one influence the institution, requiring a mix of your own and others influencing, or changing how many guesses you have to make, perhaps having it fluctuate based on the gamestate, rather than abandoning the concept. I think the Ansible method will lead to a much more mundane and less exciting end. The public will work - I think it at least deserves a chance.

Kevan: he/him

19-04-2012 08:47:54 UTC

“Reading what others will do” is fine in a game with a small number of players and a small number of decisions, but if you’re having to guess how 11 people will bid on 12 auctions, you really can’t do any better than guess.

Patrick:

19-04-2012 11:36:46 UTC

@Kevan: But that’s the point, you have to be in control of the game in order to make good guesses. Besides, you only have to guess 6 institutions.

southpointingchariot:

19-04-2012 13:51:47 UTC

@Kevan, it doesn’t have to be everyone’s bids on everything. The details can change, but the mechanic I believe is a good one.

Kevan: he/him

19-04-2012 14:09:04 UTC

Well, there’s picking six Institutions and guessing how the bids will go on them, or there’s looking at all 13 Institutions and guessing which six you have the best chance of overpowering with your own Marines.

At the high end (where you have over six times as many Marines as every other player put together) it’s an automatic win, but it drops off into sheer luck very quickly, below that. And since the would-be winner would lose a crippling number of Marines if they guessed even slightly wrongly, I’m not sure anyone would take the risk.

Josh: he/they

19-04-2012 22:21:13 UTC

CoV imperial