Eliminate first-turn bonuses

[drunkmonkey]

Concise description:

Players who receive a region bonus upon initial deployment have an automatic advantage in the game. If this player goes first, the game often becomes un-winnable for the second player.

Specifics:

I assume there's a routine which randomly places troops on the map. My suggestion would be to put this in a loop. After placement, if abs([Player 1's troops due] - [Player 2's troops due]) > 1, reset the map and run the placement routine again. Do this until a fair map is generated.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

This is especially a problem in 1v1 games. Even if you're doing best of 3, an imbalanced map forces the other player to win both of the "fair" games.

[Sir. Ricco]

I like the idea, but it would conflict with maps that gain you first round bonuses.

[drunkmonkey]

I like the idea, but it would conflict with maps that gain you first round bonuses.

I'm not sure I understand...which maps are you referring to?

Edit: If you're referring to Feudal, New World, etc., both players are due the same bonus at the beginning of the game. That scenario would pass the check in my suggestion.

[phantomzero]

This could help make drops more even. Although, like dice, these things tend to sort themselves out over many games...

[iamkoolerthanu]

This could help make drops more even. Although, like dice, these things tend to sort themselves out over many games...

This is true... Just because your opponent got all of Aussie one game, doesn't mean your never going to get it in another game... I like the idea though, because I hate when I start a 1v1 game and the other player starts off with Africa.. but on the other hand I love when I start with it...

[drunkmonkey]

I agree, it evens out over time. But I see this as a different issue than dice. You shouldn't be randomly given more troops to start the game. It's possible to rebound from bad dice. It's impossible to rebound from the other player starting with a +4 bonus and going first, if the other player knows what he/she's doing.

[Sir. Ricco]

I like the idea, but it would conflict with maps that gain you first round bonuses.

I'm not sure I understand...which maps are you referring to?

Edit: If you're referring to Feudal, New World, etc., both players are due the same bonus at the beginning of the game. That scenario would pass the check in my suggestion.

Well, City Mogul's whole point is the bonuses.

[SultanOfSurreal]

I hate when I start a 1v1 game and the other player starts off with Africa.. but on the other hand I love when I start with it...

why should you love that? it just makes the game a boring mop-up chore from the beginning

[rhp 1]

lame... luck is part of the game. evens out over enough games. you're obviously crying about it happening to you, you just don't remember the times you dropped bonuses.

[phantomzero]

I hate when I start a 1v1 game and the other player starts off with Africa.. but on the other hand I love when I start with it...

why should you love that? it just makes the game a boring mop-up chore from the beginning

It looks like you miss quoted me...

[drunkmonkey]

lame... luck is part of the game. evens out over enough games. you're obviously crying about it happening to you, you just don't remember the times you dropped bonuses.

Before you showed up, there was a civil discussion going on. No one is "crying" about anything *Mod Edit*
Yeah, I've dropped bonuses too. It takes the fun out of the game. Can anyone honestly tell me that starting with such an advantage is any fun?

[Queue]

lame... luck is part of the game. evens out over enough games. you're obviously crying about it happening to you, you just don't remember the times you dropped bonuses.

Before you showed up, there was a civil discussion going on. No one is "crying" about anything *Mod Edit*

Yeah, I've dropped bonuses too. It takes the fun out of the game. Can anyone honestly tell me that starting with such an advantage is any fun?

I can.

[drunkmonkey]

lame... luck is part of the game. evens out over enough games. you're obviously crying about it happening to you, you just don't remember the times you dropped bonuses.

Before you showed up, there was a civil discussion going on. No one is "crying" about anything *Mod Edit*

Yeah, I've dropped bonuses too. It takes the fun out of the game. Can anyone honestly tell me that starting with such an advantage is any fun?

I can.

Anyone with > 2 wins?

[william.paul]

In theory it would be nice, but wouldn't it take a lot of work to account for all the different bonus conditions that are available?
The Civil War map for example has bonuses for regions, capitals, and key cities. You want to eliminate all of those on the first turn?

What about maps with an auto-deploy territory like Vancouver or Texas Wars?

Also, there is no guarantee that a first turn bonus guarantees a win. I played a game in which I got a first turn bonus, and lost every roll out of the gate. Sh!t happens, you learn what (if anything) you can from your mistakes and you move on to the next game.

[drunkmonkey]

Another bump to see if this gets picked up by the new mods.

[TheForgivenOne]

Knowing little about XML, i don't know if you can possibly code it to so that it is impossible that 1 player can drop 3 certain Spaces, yet can possibly still drop there.... If that made any sense at all. I agree, bonuses on the drop are Bull, but i don't know jack squat about XML. I know about as much XML coding as you would know about Some random star in a different Galaxy.

[drunkmonkey]

Knowing little about XML, i don't know if you can possibly code it to so that it is impossible that 1 player can drop 3 certain Spaces, yet can possibly still drop there.... If that made any sense at all. I agree, bonuses on the drop are Bull, but i don't know jack squat about XML. I know about as much XML coding as you would know about Some random star in a different Galaxy.

Here's my idea (in pseudocode). I assume there's a function that randomly places all the troops on the board. We'll call it InitialDrop().

repeat
ClearBoard()
InitialDrop()
until (abs(Player1Reinforcement - Player2Reinforcement) < 2)

This would randomly place all the troops, then check to see if one player was getting a larger bonus than the other. If so, it would wipe the board and start over.

[JoshyBoy]

I believe we should leave it as it is, and that this change would be unneccesary. Just my own honest opinion.

[TheForgivenOne]

Dropping a bonus in Risk is luck factored. If we were to take out luck... we'd have to take out the dice.

And pretty soon people will start saying "Well he got 3 of the 4 on Australia, and i didn't. It's not fair"

[drunkmonkey]

Dropping a bonus in 1v1 effectively ends the game before it starts 99% of the time. Comparing this suggestion to "taking out the dice" is ridiculous. But if it's part of the game, I guess we'll just deal with it.

[TheForgivenOne]

The dice, in essence, are luck. Same with the drop. I played Risk at christmas at relatives, and my cousin basically dropped all of Europe. We still played. You got to take the good with the bad

[Mr_Adams]

If you take away bonuses 1st turn, in 3 + player game, you are damning anybody with a first turn bonus fairly consistently, because all the opponents will ally against them to destroy their bonus(es). Given the human aspect, there will be some over shot in the attack, leaving the person who was previously at an advantage at a disadvantage. What about if the computer was programmed to give the person with the largest bonus the last turn?

[drunkmonkey]

The dice, in essence, are luck. Same with the drop. I played Risk at christmas at relatives, and my cousin basically dropped all of Europe. We still played. You got to take the good with the bad

"Basically"...that means he didn't drop it, and there was still a fight. If he dropped Europe, and began turn 1 with 8 deployments, there wouldn't have been much of a fight left. Yes, you'd have played it, but would it have been fun? That's what we're here for, right?

[Mr_Adams]

The dice, in essence, are luck. Same with the drop. I played Risk at christmas at relatives, and my cousin basically dropped all of Europe. We still played. You got to take the good with the bad

"Basically"...that means he didn't drop it, and there was still a fight. If he dropped Europe, and began turn 1 with 8 deployments, there wouldn't have been much of a fight left. Yes, you'd have played it, but would it have been fun? That's what we're here for, right?

I believe he means that he got the whole continent on the drop, not that he gave up the bonus...

[TheForgivenOne]

Dropping all but 1 in Europe takes so much luck, with 3-4 players. He got to go first, and we played with unlimited forts. So he took it, and basically got to make sure all the angles had a defense.