Hornet95 wrote:Why don't we do
1 spoil = 1 army
2 spoils = 4 armies
3 spoils = 9 armies
4 spoils = 16 armies
5 spoils = 25 armies
We could still cap at 5 cards to keep the coding simple.
that sounds like a pretty fair compromise, to have quadratic spoils rather than exponential. It would keep the numbers within an easily manageable amount while eliminating the luck factor in the other card types. Personally I think have a larger cap than 5, just for fun
837204563 wrote:Here's why saving your cards is a winning strategy:
Let's call the average number of armies required to completely eliminate a player k. K increases at most linearly (there is a maximum linear increase based on the total number of bonuses and territories on the map which players will tend to approach). This means that, depending on the map, there is a round, let's call it c, in which, having not played any cards so far, the exponential spoils will be enough to wipe a player out, no matter how many troops they have been getting per turn. At this point you turn them in and proceed to wipe one player out, turn in his spoils to kill the next player, and so on.
There is no reliable defense against this strategy. If you cash in before c you can't count on wiping anyone out. It doesn't matter if you use them to increase your deploy because that is only a linear improvement, which can't compare to an exponential improvement from holding cards. If you place them on your own territories it doesn't do you any good either, you merely delay being wiped out by a single turn by the people hoarding their cards (someone wins on c+1 instead of c). Of course luck of various kinds means that this strategy isn't guaranteed, but if 4 players are hoarding cards and 4 players are turning them in, one of the players hoarding cards will win.
I agree, however that is exactly what would make this form of spoils really cool; it would be quite different game play and strategy if the numbers increase exponentially. If it didn't affect the game play and strategy some, what would be the purpose of suggesting something like this?
72o wrote:
Agreed. In order to combat people purposefully screwing up the system for seemingly no good reason, we will have to cap it at a certain number of cards. I say 8-10 feels about right. 8 cards would be a cash of 128. 10 cards would be 512. That's plenty. No need to make it any more ridiculous than that.
At 10 cards you would have to cash to be below 10, similar to today's 5 card cap.
Good call, Timminz. Thanks for the feedback.
I definitely agree. I would support a limit of 8 cards because near 128 is something you can reach in an escalating game, whereas 256 or 512 is a lot, and like 837204563 pointed out, the only purpose of the game would become the spoils.
So as not to be confused, I think either number of spoils squared like Hornet95 said or a moderate cap on the number of spoils (8 maybe) for exponential would be a good solution. Those would allow for a new non-luck based approach to spoils and introduce some new strategy while not completely changing the whole game.
perhaps make cash value=1.8^(#spoils - 1) ? so that 1spoil=1, 2spoil=~2, 3spoil=~3, 4spoil=~6, 5spoil=~10, 6spoil=~19, 7spoil=~34, etc. etc. That would introduce the issue of rounding; I don't what to do about that, but with that value, spoils would still be worth a bit but not to the extent of creating a different game.
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