Manual Initial Troop Placement

[Queen_Herpes]

For the longest time you have asked "why can't we decide where top put the armies?". Ask no more.

This popular suggestion is finally reality as a new game option, Initial Troops. It has 2 settings:

Automatic - the usual 3 armies

Manual - players decide where to place their armies in a blind freestyle round

See Instructions -> Game Options for more details.

As usual, thanks to everyone who suggested manual troop placement or provided feedback on the suggestions. Credit for this particular solution goes to c1arinetboy

Enjoy!

Lack, you must remove fog from manual deploy. There is no point to a mnual deploy with fog. The player whose turn is first wins 99% of the time. Please, please manual deploy is a wonderful idea, but with the fog it is terrible. I continue to make the mistake of playing manual deploy games. Much to my detriment, I lose all of the games where my opponent goes first and have won all of the games where I went first.

[ender516]

For the longest time you have asked "why can't we decide where top put the armies?". Ask no more.

This popular suggestion is finally reality as a new game option, Initial Troops. It has 2 settings:

Automatic - the usual 3 armies

Manual - players decide where to place their armies in a blind freestyle round

See Instructions -> Game Options for more details.

As usual, thanks to everyone who suggested manual troop placement or provided feedback on the suggestions. Credit for this particular solution goes to c1arinetboy

Enjoy!

Lack, you must remove fog from manual deploy. There is no point to a mnual deploy with fog. The player whose turn is first wins 99% of the time. Please, please manual deploy is a wonderful idea, but with the fog it is terrible. I continue to make the mistake of playing manual deploy games. Much to my detriment, I lose all of the games where my opponent goes first and have won all of the games where I went first.

Let me ask a simple direct question, with no slight intended: Do you think that removing the fog would make it fairer, that is to say, give you a better chance of winning? Because if not, I think removing the fog might just make this initial placement round much longer, as players wait to see what other players do. In the fog, you might as well just get on with it. Perhaps the fog during placement should be an option as well: automatic, manual with fog, manual with no fog.

I should probably state right now that I have not tried this new feature yet, have never played freestyle, and have only ever played one speed game, so I may be talking through my hat.

[trinicardinal]

For the longest time you have asked "why can't we decide where top put the armies?". Ask no more.

This popular suggestion is finally reality as a new game option, Initial Troops. It has 2 settings:

Automatic - the usual 3 armies

Manual - players decide where to place their armies in a blind freestyle round

See Instructions -> Game Options for more details.

As usual, thanks to everyone who suggested manual troop placement or provided feedback on the suggestions. Credit for this particular solution goes to c1arinetboy

Enjoy!

Lack, you must remove fog from manual deploy. There is no point to a mnual deploy with fog. The player whose turn is first wins 99% of the time. Please, please manual deploy is a wonderful idea, but with the fog it is terrible. I continue to make the mistake of playing manual deploy games. Much to my detriment, I lose all of the games where my opponent goes first and have won all of the games where I went first.

Let me ask a simple direct question, with no slight intended: Do you think that removing the fog would make it fairer, that is to say, give you a better chance of winning? Because if not, I think removing the fog might just make this initial placement round much longer, as players wait to see what other players do. In the fog, you might as well just get on with it. Perhaps the fog during placement should be an option as well: automatic, manual with fog, manual with no fog.

I should probably state right now that I have not tried this new feature yet, have never played freestyle, and have only ever played one speed game, so I may be talking through my hat.

Basically why would i want to deploy first if you can see where I'm deploying? More likely than not people will wait till the last moment to deploy and then the person who plays first will still win. Fog for placement is better

[Caymanmew]

why not have it so each person take turns placing toops

[e_i_pi]

Basically, the way it is right now is horseshit. I won't go into detail, but I'll suggest this: make it so that you can only deploy a maximum of 5 troops on one territory. Right now, rather than deployment being strategic, it's your usual "stack in one place and blitz", which is shithouse, because the player going first can either secure a continent instantly, or reduce the other players territory count so much that they can't get back into the game. Also, next time an idea is implemented, think it through rather than just chuck it in ffs

[khazalid]

if you're stacking your 20 armies on one territory then you really don't have a clue what you are doing.

whilst i agree that a little consultation about the specifics of an update is preferable to the current "SURPRISE CC'ers! What do you mean this doesn't work?" methodology(?) there is no real case for changing either the max number of armies per territory or the foggy deployment.

[clangfield]

I think it should be fog, but I think it would also be fairer to have an indication of who is eventually going to go first. That then gives players who are not going first the chance to avoid having all their armies obliterated on the first turn, or to prevent the first player taking a bonus area cheaply.
Otherwise the first player will always have the huge advantage.

[morleyjoe]

I like the idea of manual placement, but wonder why should people get a medal for it? If someone always plays Peloponnesian War or Feudal War and chooses Manual placement, why should they get a medal for it? There's no skill in doing that. I just joined a manual Feudal War game, and only have one place to deploy the troops, but it could count towards a medal if I win??? And I'm sure there are other maps just like those two.

[SirSebstar]

you still need to win 400 times, so thsats also an accomplishment

[-Maximus-]

I like the idea of manual placement, but wonder why should people get a medal for it? If someone always plays Peloponnesian War or Feudal War and chooses Manual placement, why should they get a medal for it? There's no skill in doing that. I just joined a manual Feudal War game, and only have one place to deploy the troops, but it could count towards a medal if I win??? And I'm sure there are other maps just like those two.

Thats how I got manual silver!

[morleyjoe]

I like the idea of manual placement, but wonder why should people get a medal for it? If someone always plays Peloponnesian War or Feudal War and chooses Manual placement, why should they get a medal for it? There's no skill in doing that. I just joined a manual Feudal War game, and only have one place to deploy the troops, but it could count towards a medal if I win??? And I'm sure there are other maps just like those two.

you still need to win 400 times, so that's also an accomplishment

But is it worth 12 medals for beating 400 people in Manual Assassin Fog Freestyle games on Feudal War? I don't think so.

I do like the idea of medals and winning games to earn them, but not for getting them by default. Those two maps I mention do not matter if it's manual or automatic. Why not then have a medal for automatic deployment or sequential games too? The manual medal just does not fit in with the other medals.

[jleonnn]

So how does it determine how many troops we get in manual?

[Duality.]

So how does it determine how many troops we get in manual?

This proves we need a facepalming smiley... You get the amount of troops that would already be deployed before Round 1 begins.

[cthulhu]

I like the manual placement. It's a good option, although I'm hanging myself with it more often than not for the time being. Ugh!

I'd like to suggest a couple related features for simplification of placement:
1) If you have no troops to place or only one possible territory to place on, then automatically complete the placement phase.
E.g., feudal war, 1 territory to start, then automatically place all in that territory; City Mogul, no troops to deploy (at least it was the last game I started), shouldn't require manual observation, actually, it feels a little like being jeered, you have no troops to place, now click the button and wait 24 hours...

2) "Uniform placement", ever try to take world 2.1 or conquerman and bring every territory up to 2, then concentrate forces on a couple key areas? Placing on territories one-by-one is okay for 3 or 4 territories, it is simply aggravating for 15 or 20. How about make a button called "Uniform placement" which is available whenever you have more (>=) armies to place than territories to evenly spread them out across your vast empire?

To the multiply cited point about putting all of your troops in one territory, this is a problem for the player with their (and my) strategy. It can be very fruitful. It can also be a sheer calamity. I think there was one game I had where 4 players (yes, and me) all put all armies on their australia territory. We all burned and had no real chance from there. Effectively, we all fool's mated ourselves. Now, I don't want to suggest that we go all conventional and take a week or more to just deploy the first round of troops. That would make me avoid manual placement altogether probably. I will say as we discuss a potential solution, placement doesn't have to be completely freestyle and blind, but I'm not sure of a good approach to solve it yet.

Cthulhu

[ender516]

I like the manual placement. It's a good option, although I'm hanging myself with it more often than not for the time being. Ugh!

I'd like to suggest a couple related features for simplification of placement:
1) If you have no troops to place or only one possible territory to place on, then automatically complete the placement phase.
E.g., feudal war, 1 territory to start, then automatically place all in that territory; City Mogul, no troops to deploy (at least it was the last game I started), shouldn't require manual observation, actually, it feels a little like being jeered, you have no troops to place, now click the button and wait 24 hours...

2) "Uniform placement", ever try to take world 2.1 or conquerman and bring every territory up to 2, then concentrate forces on a couple key areas? Placing on territories one-by-one is okay for 3 or 4 territories, it is simply aggravating for 15 or 20. How about make a button called "Uniform placement" which is available whenever you have more (>=) armies to place than territories to evenly spread them out across your vast empire?

To the multiply cited point about putting all of your troops in one territory, this is a problem for the player with their (and my) strategy. It can be very fruitful. It can also be a sheer calamity. I think there was one game I had where 4 players (yes, and me) all put all armies on their australia territory. We all burned and had no real chance from there. Effectively, we all fool's mated ourselves. Now, I don't want to suggest that we go all conventional and take a week or more to just deploy the first round of troops. That would make me avoid manual placement altogether probably. I will say as we discuss a potential solution, placement doesn't have to be completely freestyle and blind, but I'm not sure of a good approach to solve it yet.

Cthulhu

Your suggestion about uniform placement sounds like a nice new feature for BOB or Clickable Maps to introduce. You ought to post something in one or both of their threads.

[SirSebstar]

So how does it determine how many troops we get in manual?

This proves we need a facepalming smiley... You get the amount of troops that would already be deployed before Round 1 begins.

try this one
http://209.85.62.26/5676/26/emo/icon_facepalm.gif

[jleonnn]

or this one: