Re: unfair starting positions

[Stan Shebs <shebs at apple dot com>]

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> Ok, I've RSOTFM, and also searched some of the archives, but it's 4:30
> am and I'm tired.  I've played a number of games of standard Xconq the
> past 2 days, typically with 11 players.  I haven't finished any games
> because I keep getting bored.  Mainly this is due to the Unfair Starting
> Positions.  For instance:
>
> - I am plopped down next to lotsa independent cities.  I take 'em over
> and make lotsa infantry.  I crush everything around me.  This is pretty
> unfair to the AIs, they don't stand a chance when I'm given so many
> cities as starting resources.  Boredom sets in when I've got too many
> units to push around.
>
> - Some AI gets that same initial benefit and I don't.  I get crushed.
Play with -v, you'll see that everybody gets the same initial cities nearby.
This was motivated by early playtesting, where some players started out
isolated and others started out on a continent with many cities; one could
get a long way into a game before discovering that the starting positions
were so unfair that the isolated person had no chance of winning.

As usual, the number of independent cities in your "country" is a game
parameter; try adjusting it to see what happens.

> - One time half of my cities were on one island, and half of my cities
> on another, with a 1 hex strip of water separating them.  One AI with a
> full set of concentrated cities quickly crushed me in the north.  A
> second AI with a full set of concentrated cities crushed me a little
> less quickly in the south.  I could have linked the two halves with a
> transport, but I seriously doubt it would have mattered.
So it ain't perfect. :-)

> - One time I was on a continent, very far away from 2 enemies on the
> same continent, and very far by water from anything else.  The 2 enemies
> consolidated into 1 enemy before I could get there.  I got a toehold on
> an independent city he hadn't conquered yet, but he showed up with a
> gazillion units.
You're losing to an AI!? One that's widely acknowledged to be completely
inferior?? I wouldn't admit that to anybody...

> - One time I had a large ocean to the west of my starting locations, and
> no coastal cities whatsoever.  I didn't play that game out, but I'm
> thinking that an enemy could make unimpeded landings on that flank, I'd
> never be able to defend navally against them.  There is of course air
> power, but the situation seems really dumb.
A string of bases can be used as a sort of "canal". Not an intentional 
feature
of the original design, but very convenient.

> I'm realizing this is very unlike the Civ drill, where you actually
> build your own empire and can vouch for its quality to some degree.
> So... is standard Xconq a representative sample of starting position
> problems?  Or has some other game package solved these issues?
> Regardless, what are people's thoughts about these issues?
The current standard game was arrived at by intensive (read: 
grade-destroying :-) )
playtesting in 1987-88. Xconq was originally a clone of WB's empire adapted
for multiplayer, but human-on-human play quickly showed lamenesses of 
Bright's
rules that weren't obvious if you only played against an AI.  So a lot of
changes were just attempts to fix the weaknesses. There is certainly lots of
room for experimentation, although interestingly there has not been that 
much
tinkering with the standard game; people tend to either play the game 
unmodified
or write totally new game designs.


Stan