All Units Should Be Produced When the Last Player Ends Turn

[tabanli]

In order to reduce the advantage of starting the first, I think when the round is finished, last player finishes his/her turn, all the units should be produced and teleported. Just as at the beginning of the round the first player gets his troops, so should everybody else. I think this is a very important change and can make the advantage of starting less than what it is now. It helps you to get denfender to face an approaching hero, who already has the advantage of starting. You may also leave your cities unattended and use your troops better if you are the last player.


Let's say that I am playing one on one with an opponent. He made his move, start producing an elf and finishes his turn. I also make my move and I train an orc and finish my turn. So at the beginning of the turn 2, BOTH THE ELF AND THE ORC, should appear. Be cause the first player is getting his troop, why shouldn't I ? Same with the teleports. Since the first player gets his teleported units at the beginning of the turn, so should everybody else.

I think this can be a very important change.

[KGB]

Tabanli,

This has been proposed before more than once and it's not a good idea at all.

The change simply now benefits the player going 2nd (or last in a MP game). The reason is because when that player finishes his turn he instantly gets men. So the big advantage is that player gets an immediate defender in the city while the player going first must hold the city through the entire other player(s) turn before getting his armies. That's a HUGE advantage to the 2nd/last player. It's especially big during the expansion phase because you know you can leave empty cities and keep moving forward because the other player would never have a chance to get your empty city while the 1st player would have to be cautious about that.

Also the concept of going 1st and 2nd really has no meaning once the game gets past turn 1. For example consider on turn 1, player 1 builds an elf and moves to conquer a city (not reaching it). Player 2 builds and Orc and conquers a city and makes an Elf. Now on turn 2, player 1 gets 1 Elf and conquers a 2nd city and builds an Orc. Player 2 gets an Orc and and Elf. So the result is player 2's 2nd city is now AHEAD of player 1's second city due to the fact he conquered his before player 1 did. Hence the idea of going first is meaningless as cities are conquered because you can't be sure that player 1 ALWAYS got all his cities before player 2 did. Unless of course you are playing a perfect mirror map and both players expand at exactly the the same rate (which is very unlikely).

KGB

[tabanli]

I can imagine that someone already proposed this. However I don't think it gives the second player any advantage whatsoever. Under those conditions, everybody would still prefer to be the first player. I also don't think the first players advantage is only about the first few turns, it is a continuing advantage.

Let's say that each part has 20 cities and producing 2 turn units and each turn approximately they have 10 new army. They reach a point where both have 100 armies. Now at the beginning of the next turn first player is attacking with 110 armies and player 2 is defending with 100 armies. When the new turn begins, now player 2 has 110 armies attacking and player 1 is defending with 110 equality is reach. So every turn, player 1 has an advantage in attacking. So this is the situation one on one. However with more than 2 players it gets complicated. now being 4th might be better than being second or third. However second and third players has nothing to complain since at least they have extra defenders in their cities against first player attacking and they just can't take advantage of forth players miserable position.

[KGB]

Tabanli,

I can imagine that someone already proposed this. However I don't think it gives the second player any advantage whatsoever.

It's a big advantage for player 2. You either didn't understand my example or didn't think it through completely.

Example 1: Player 1 captures a city with his Barbarian and starts production of a defender. Player 2 has a nearby Wolfrider that he attacks with and ambushes the Barbarian because there is only a lone Barbarian in the city. Now look at the reverse. Player 2 captures a city with his Barbarian and starts production of a defender. A unit is immediately produced. Player 1 has a nearby Wolfrider but he can't attack because there is now 1 Hv Inf defending the Barbarian. That's hugely unfair.

Example 2: Player 1 captures a city and starts vectoring armies there. Player 2 has 3 turns to stop these arriving armies: his turn, his next turn (armies in transit 1 turn), his turn after that (armies in transit 2 turns). Now look at the reverse. Player 2 captures a city and starts vectoring armies there. Player 1 has only 2 turns to stop these arriving armies because immediately all player 2's production happens allowing his armies to get a 1 turn jump on player 1. That's again unfair.

Example 3: Player 1 captures a city and decides to leave 1 unit defending it while sending the rest of the stack on toward the next neutral. He does this because player 2 has a nearby crow. Now look at the reverse. Player 2 captures and city and moves his whole stack on toward the next neutral. He does this because even though player 1 has a nearby crow it's impossible for him to lose his city because a unit will be immediately produced there. I know you think this case isn't important, but it is. Because lets say the remaining stack was only 3 units of Lt Calv and the next nearby neutral has 1 Lt Calv defender. Being able to use 3 Lt Calv ensures a 90% victory while only being able to use 2 (leaving 1 behind) drops that to only 79% chance to win thus giving one player a risk free extra city.

Under those conditions, everybody would still prefer to be the first player.

Not true at all. I agree that on some smaller maps going first matters. But on many larger maps or well designed maps it doesn't matter at all because you won't meet for a long time and then I'd always want to go 2nd to get those free advantages I mentioned above.

Let's say that each part has 20 cities and producing 2 turn units and each turn approximately they have 10 new army. They reach a point where both have 100 armies. Now at the beginning of the next turn first player is attacking with 110 armies and player 2 is defending with 100 armies. When the new turn begins, now player 2 has 110 armies attacking and player 1 is defending with 110 equality is reach. So every turn, player 1 has an advantage in attacking.

This is a fallacy that comes from doing theoretical analyzation vs actual game play.

It's true player 1 has 110 units. But this is not Risk where you can stack 110 units on 1 territory and attack 100 units on adjacent territory. So it should be totally obvious that not all 110 units can be used each turn to attack player 2 unless you are constructing a specialized map where every city is right next to every other city so that all 110 men can be used to attack 100 men of the other player. Furthermore there is no guarantee that those extra 10 men produce a victory of any kind (there may be equal losses or one player or the other may lose more) given there is a stack limit of 8 for both players and 32 for the defender in a city. In reality it takes times for armies to reach places they can attack from. Well designed maps recognize this.

For example if you have something like

P1----P1----P2----P2

Where P1/P2 are cities and P1 and P2 can reach each other immediately then there is an advantage for player 1 since his armies arrive and he can attack player 2 as you noted. However if P1 and P2 are spread out so that you have to spend a turn in the open then there is no advantage because the turn in the open allows player 2's armies to arrive in time to defend.

Thus any advantage player 1 gets is wholly from the map design and not from how the game works.

And as I said and you realize once turns go by and players acquire cities at different rates it becomes impossible to say who is getting an advantage. The example I gave above where P2 gets his 2nd city before P1 means P2 is then technically ahead in production due to capturing a city earlier than player 1 did. So giving him an added advantage like you want to do makes no sense.

KGB

[tabanli]

I understand your point and I agree that my proposal gives a favor to the second player. There is no doubt about that. But the first player already has starting advantage, such as reaching critical center or bless sides etc. So giving something extra to the second player may counteract the starting advantage.

In the current system at the beginning of each turn, first player already gets his vectors and his trained armies and he can attack with them while the second players armies are not there. So this is an advantage in addition to the starting advantage. So why not give something extra to the second guy?

I also have to admit that I never considered Solo barbarian ride be cause it is not my style. I can see that it makes the situation very problematic for the first player.

Maybe we should focus more on making maps less favorable to the starter. I am working on one right now but it might not be ready for the end of April.

[KGB]

I understand your point and I agree that my proposal gives a favor to the second player. There is no doubt about that. But the first player already has starting advantage, such as reaching critical center or bless sides etc. So giving something extra to the second player may counteract the starting advantage.

Maybe we should focus more on making maps less favorable to the starter. I am working on one right now but it might not be ready for the end of April.

I would love to see more focus on fixing the maps that have an obvious bias toward the 1st player. This is especially true of those maps that stick lots of stuff in the dead middle allowing the first player to reach them to get a big advantage.

Many map makers seem to think mirror maps are balanced when they are only balanced visually and not game play wise.

KGB

[magian]

Is it possible to set player turn order when making a map? If so, you could counteract the advantages of going first by giving the later players some tangible benefits (closer cities, more ruins, blahblahblah).

[KGB]

Unfortunately no.

It would be nice in scenario maps to do that to allow maps like Illuria to retain their turn order.

KGB

[tabanli]

I am working on a map which looks like a mirror map 100X125 at the center. However starting cities are at a particular distance to the map design. I am thinking first player should be at 17 moves away, the second at 14 moves away, the third 11 moves away and the last one 8 moves away. I am still thinking about what should be the magic numbers so that nobody has an obvious advantage. 17-14-11-8 looks ok. 18-14-10-4 may also work. So the first player is really the last player to get the city but could be the first one at the ruin. Anyway I will get it sometime next month.

[KGB]

Tabanli,

There is no way to specify which start spot goes first. It may be that the shortest distance moves first and the longest moves last. So I am not sure your map design will work unless a change is made to allow the map maker to specify which side goes first.

KGB