Please note my previous post.
Once this proposal is finalised I will draw it to the attention of the site owners/moderators.
When discussing, please quote concisely from the proposal to make the thread easy to follow.
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Back Story/Motivation
The neutrals have been infected by an unknown virus. This affects their behaviour making them irrationally, unreasonably aggressive. They attack any un-infected armies without thought for their own safety and with no real goal in mind; in fact whether they still have a mind is open to debate.
They always attack the largest uninfected armies on their borders and continue the battle until they destroy their enemies or sustain such casualties that they cannot continue. There is no antidote.
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Suggestion Idea:
Additional game type option:
Infected Neutrals : Yes | No
Specifics
With Infected Neutrals set to No game play is as now.
With Infected Neutrals set to Yes game play is as follows:
- Any neutral armies on the map when the game is initialised are infected and are active.
- Any neutral armies introduced to the game by deadbeats, bombardments or killer territories are infected and incubate for one full game round before becoming active.
- Active neutrals attack if capable. Incubating neutrals do not attack.
- With colour codes added active neutrals are identified by a preceding 'a' and incubating neutrals are identified by a preceding 'i'. These replace the usual 'n'.
- The infected neutral turn occurs immediately after the end of each game round before the start of the next game round.
- The infected neutral turn progresses according to the pseudo code below.
- Code: Select all
// DEPLOY phase
// add one army to each ACTIVE infected neutral territory
For Each active infected neutral territory
add one army to territory
write to game log : "infected neutrals get 1 army added to <territory name>"
Next
// Infected neutrals do not receive ANY other bonuses of any kind, positive or negative.
- Code: Select all
// ATTACK phase
// All ACTIVE infected neutral territories with 4 or more armies and with non-neutral neighbours are capable of making an attack
// NB bombardment attacks are not allowed
- Code: Select all
NumAttTerr = number of territories capable of making an attack // how many territories can attack ?
While NumAttTerr > 0 // as long as there's one or more territory that can attack, attack !!
// the following two lines must be INSIDE the While loop since the territories capable of attacking may have changed since the last iteration
arrange the qualifying territories in an array AttTerrs() // indexed 0, 1, 2 etc
sort the AttTerrs() array by number of armies (high to low) then alphabetically (a to z)
AttTerrInd = 0 // set the attacking territory index to zero; to point to the first attacking territory
// select TARGET player territory(s)
// This logic addresses both a single target territory and multiple target territories
// The attacking territory will attack the bordering territory(s) which contain the most armies
// [Remember that bombardment attacks are not allowed]
arrange the qualifying territory(s) in an array Targets() // indexed 0, 1, 2 etc.
sort the Targets() array by alphabetical order (a to z)
NumTargs = the number of territories in the array Targets()
AttackForce = initial number of attacking neutral armies - 3
TargCount = 1 // set the target count to one; to indicate the first of the NumTargets targets
While TargCount<=NumTargets // attack each of the targets in turn
TargInd = (AttackForce + TargCount - 1) MOD NumTargs // set the target territory index; to point to the TargCount target
Repeat
attack Targets(TargInd) // attack the target territory
Until the attacking territory has <= (3 + (NumTargs-TargCount)*INT(AttackForce/NumTargs)) armies or the battle is won
If the battle is won Then
If TargCount = NumTargs Then // ie neutrals are attacking the last target territory
advance all possible armies
Else
advance all remaining armies - (NumTargs-TargCount)*INT(AttackForce/NumTargs) armies
write to game log : "infected neutral player attacked <territory name> from <territory name> and conquered it from <player name>"
delay 5 seconds // to allow players to watch the turn in real time
TargCount = TargCount + 1
End While
NumAttTerr = number of territories capable of making an attack // recalculate
End While
// END phase
// Consider all INCUBATING neutrals
For Each incubating neutral territory
If incubating neutral territory was infected in the preceding game round Then
write to game log : "infected neutral territory <territory name> incubating"
Else
incubating neutral territory becomes active neutral territory
write to game log : "incubating neutral territory <territory name> now active"
Next
// Note that regardless of game settings infected neutrals make NO fortifications.
The player who wins gains no points for beating the infected neutrals any more than they do now for winning a game containing neutral players or eliminating neutral players.
It will be seen that infected neutrals cannot win any games and so the question of points lost does not arise*. This firmly positions the infected neutrals as a gameplay feature and not an AI player.
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Why it is needed
It would introduce interesting new ways of playing and tactics ...
- Neutral territories are no longer handy defences, but are actively dangerous!
- A deadbeating player does not benignly lapse, but his armies become infected and attack! Perhaps you won't ignore the player who looks like he might deadbeat after all.
- Even if there are no infected neutrals in the game to start with (because of the map/player numbers combination) some may be introduced by a deadbeat or, in maps including the option, by a successful bombardment or a "killer" territory (no maps yet exist with killer territories) ...
- When considering an attack on another player the fact there are "infected neutrals behind him" needs to be taken into account ...
- You may actually decide to deploy/fortify your armies away from infected neutrals since this may make them attack elsewhere ...
- Several players have asked for AI over time and, rightly, this has been rejected since this is a player/community based site. However the infected neutrals would introduce some positive elements of AI players (though 'intelligence' is stretching it a bit).
- Imagine a 1v1 (where 1/3 of territories are automatically neutral) ...
- Imagine a growing infected horde (it cannot auto attack since it is surrounded on all sides by other infected neutrals) ... which you deliberately release knowing, because of their predictable behaviour, that the infected neutrals will attack your opponents ...
- Map designers could take into account infected neutral behaviour when designing maps ...
- In heavily infested situations human players will have to cooperate to eliminate the infected neutrals first ...
- In extremely heavily infested situations human players may not, even with co-operation, be able to eliminate the neutrals ... in which case the player able to survive longest will win.
- Assassin games ... "someone kill the infected before they give the game to .. oh shit - too late!!"
* Infected neutrals can't win or gain points ...
It is important to note that existing rules do not consider neutral armies as a player and hence the neutral armies cannot win. Under existing rules:
standard game
If at any time there is only one player left that player wins.
(whether the player holds 99% of the territories or a single territory)
assassin game
If at any time one player is eliminated (by whoever) the player whose target that was wins.
terminator game
If at any time a player is eliminated by the infected neutrals then the points are awarded to the player who last took a territory from the eliminated player (as per the rules to cover deadbeats). If no player had previously taken a territory from the eliminated player the points are awarded to the last surviving player at the end of the game (again as per the rules to cover deadbeats).
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Footnotes
1 References to 'alphabetical order' mean ASCII order (and refer to the names of the territories). Hence numbers come before letters etc.
Implementation of this would possibly be more straightforward and processing/server efficient as 'XML order'. To facilitate XML=alphabetical order it would be necessary to revise XML for all maps to ensure the [borders] sections presented the borders in strict ASCII order.