Polymorphic Freestyle
Concise description:
A natural, practical extension of freestyle into the polymorphic game type.
Specifics/Details:
1) Instead of having all 2-4 slots for each player take their turn simultaneously, play the turns as if it were a regular 1v1 freestyle game.
2) For example, a 3 slot polymorphic game would be as follows:
Red and yellow can begin their turn after the site mandated delay. They can play their turns simultaneously
Once they end, they must wait for the other to do so. Then, if yellow were to end first, green would be allowed to start the next turn when their ready and vice versa.
So, if red ends first, green can begin once yellow ends. Then once green begins his next turn, pink may start as well.
Once that player ends, blue or cyan can begin in a similar fashion.
3) This should be relatively easy to implement.
4) Even though I believe it is the natural extension of freestyle to polymorphic games, it can be seen as sort of a hybrid of sequential and freestyle games if you choose to think of it that way (if you wanted).
5) When a player is eliminated I see two possibilities.
A) The color that has been eliminated loses a turn, meaning that one player will get a double turn. (The first of this turn would be similar to a sequential turn, and so I do not advocate option A. If others do and this suggestion gains momentum this can be discussed later.)
B) The color that's been eliminated simply gets bypassed and the freestyle game continues as before, except with the eliminated player cycling though 1, 2 or 3 less players.
I.E. Three slot poly: Red gets eliminated by yellow. Once yellow ends, green can begin. Once green begins and he ends, then pink can take her turn, and she then ends. Once pink ends it is open for blue to play, and cyan can start. Once that turn ends, green can begin again and so can teal.
I think option B is interesting because each player would have to plan accordingly for this interesting change. I think the more skilled player would be more likely to exploit this difference, and in some cases it might even be able to be exploited as an advantage for that player if one of their slots gets a huge bonus.
How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
This would add a new twist to polymorphic games. It would make ending your turn before/after your opponent critically important in certain situations depending on how the game plays out. It would also make for some REALLY awesome and interesting speed freestyle games placing a huge emphasis on strategy and skill.
Also, I really like the idea of option B. It might actually be advantageous to try to eliminate one of your own people so their turn didn't get in the way. For example, if green in a 3 slot poly had a 20 bonus, and red and yellow have 3 men deploys only, while your opponent gets 8 for everyone, eliminating your own guys to allow green to go more frequently means you could actually give yourself a huge advantage this way (assuming no cards, for instance).
I admit this fact almost deterred me from suggesting this, but on second thought I think it actually makes the game MORE strategic. It would take some serious planning and strategy to know when and how to exploit this new twist, and adds a whole new layer to 1v1 games. It would also make it sometimes advantageous to try to keep a slot alive (but trapped) in such a way that you can use any given slots lack of board presence to your advantage. Even I admit I'm not sure how it would be best to play this... try to build evenly and gain bonuses evenly might be wise, but it might also be wise to beef up one slot and then take out the others!
I could go on about the possibilities all day but I'm sure you get the point...
