Why games end so early

[Brogan]

I am amazed that games are continually ending so soon. What I have expected and seen are players running their positions longer than they would in the past which should lead to longer matches. When the game matured a bit and Phil was running it in NC, games would routinely run into the late 20's and 30's. I was even in one that lasted until turn 40. Why so many short games now? It would be one thing if we had a bunch of new players but generally the players are very experienced leading me to wonder why "we" let a position win before turn 20.

[Ry Vor]

I am amazed that games are continually ending so soon. What I have expected and seen are players running their positions longer than they would in the past which should lead to longer matches. When the game matured a bit and Phil was running it in NC, games would routinely run into the late 20's and 30's. I was even in one that lasted until turn 40. Why so many short games now? It would be one thing if we had a bunch of new players but generally the players are very experienced leading me to wonder why "we" let a position win before turn 20.

See my earlier discussions on Victory Conditions. There is a wide berth in conditions necessary for SVC, and too tough a standard for standard.

[Hawk_]

I am amazed that games are continually ending so soon. What I have expected and seen are players running their positions longer than they would in the past which should lead to longer matches. When the game matured a bit and Phil was running it in NC, games would routinely run into the late 20's and 30's. I was even in one that lasted until turn 40. Why so many short games now? It would be one thing if we had a bunch of new players but generally the players are very experienced leading me to wonder why "we" let a position win before turn 20.

See my earlier discussions on Victory Conditions. There is a wide berth in conditions necessary for SVC, and too tough a standard for standard.

I want to mention that I am really enjoying game 116 and expect it to go to 40. I think the game design may lend itself to longer more balanced games.

116 is a 12 person team game where there is no diplomacy between teams. We don't even know who is playing which kingdom. Thanks to Nikodemus for organizing it.

I would like to play another game of this in January if anyone else has interest and we can talk Ry-Vor and Cipher into setting it up.

[Ry Vor]

Thanks for the feedback, Hawk.

I had posted an idea for a 5 kingdom, 12 turn Alamaze derivative, that I didn't get much feedback on. What I was trying to do was get more opportunity for private games starting quickly.

I'd like the queue for the next game or two forming to be filled quickly.

Even now, who knows who would prefer the next Steel game to be Classic or Resurgent? Steel or with Twists?

[HeadHoncho]

Hawk, I would play that game, if we could implement the suggestion I made in the 116 thread:

Just for future tweaking of this anonymous format, you might want to shift the RA capital into region 8, the WA capital into region 4, and the TR capital into region 1. And no regional reaction levels would need to be changed, I believe.

This would give every team two starting regions and one contested region (TR/EL in 1, and DW/RD in 3, matching superior militaries against better terrain adjustments).

Without that tweak, the WI/TR/BL team is heavily advantaged, and the DW/RA/WA team is heavily disadvantaged, IMO.

[Wynterbreeze]

We strayed off topic here, so I'm yanking it back. If games are ending earlier, why do we think the issue is with Standard victory being to hard, instead of SVC being to easy?

[HeadHoncho]

I think there is a significant disparity and variability with SVC, to the extent that it is pretty much the deciding factor as to whether a Kingdom can play for the win, or is forced to play for second place via an artifact hunting strategy.

With that said, there are enough good players in the pool such that when one of them rolls up a good setup with a decent shot at SVC, at least one of them can convert it into a win.

Not that it's all luck, of course, but it is still the most important part. Even if you're a great player, you still need an achievable SVC to have a shot.

[Wynterbreeze]

I think there is a significant disparity and variability with SVC, to the extent that it is pretty much the deciding factor as to whether a Kingdom can play for the win, or is forced to play for second place via an artifact hunting strategy.

With that said, there are enough good players in the pool such that when one of them rolls up a good setup with a decent shot at SVC, at least one of them can convert it into a win.

Not that it's all luck, of course, but it is still the most important part. Even if you're a great player, you still need an achievable SVC to have a shot.

Interesting

[DuPont]

Actually, I think it has a lot to do with too many NAPs. You start off thinking you want to attack a couple of kingdoms and make a NAP with everybody else. Then you can't stop somebody from winning because you have a NAP with them. I'm in an anonymous game that I expect will go to 40 turns because there are no NAPs - as somebody gets strong, others try to tear them down. I love the format, personally.

[HeadHoncho]

I love anonymous as well, I've been trying to get more games of that type going, but have run into a wall.