Re: Galaxy - Attrition and vacant positions

From: cebra@ids2.idsonline.com (Jonathan Cebra)

Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000

We had an earlier request from Graeme for suggestions for ways to deal with
attrition of players from Galaxy - especially early in the game.

One thread suggested designing Galaxy playing robots, though I suspect that
writing such a robot might be a greater task than writing the game code.

On a simpler approach I would suggest the following: part of the reason is
that Galaxy GMs are too good to us; it is too easy to join a Galaxy game
whether one is serious about playing or not.  I *won't* suggest that GMs stop
running games, but perhaps the following protocols might help:
1) no game starts until a specified number of potential players greater than
the number needed sign up (e.g. for a ten player game, perhaps 12 or 13 have
to sign up).
2) when the game starts, the sign up list is randomly ordered and the top
players get positions; the others get notes telling them that they are on the
waiting list.
3) additional players will be added to the waiting list in the order they sign
up.
4) Any player who fails to submit a first move (either the first turn of the
game or the first turn after being selected from the waiting list) is sent a
message that s/he has been dropped and the turn report for that race is sent
to the next person on the waiting list.
5) Failure to submit two turns in a row during the next 5-10 turns will result
in the same fate; thereafter three missed turns are necessary to drop a player.
6) There could be an absolute or relative cutoff established below which
positions are allowed to remain vacant. (In the later stages players drop
because they have been defeated, although a few scattered probes might cause
the race to show up on the status report.

I think that all of the above protocols could be automated.  They would
probably have the most impact early in the game, but that's not necessarily a
problem.   It's also true that the larger the game the less effective this may
be (as a larger percentage of the potential pool of players will already have
signed up or decided the game is too big for them.)

Once again, I do thank Galaxy GMS (in particular Graeme) and must
say that I am enjoying Oxygen despite the high drop-out rate (perhaps because
of it, those of us who are left have had a lot of easy victories.)

References

Re: Simplifying Galaxy
cebra@ids2.idsonline.com (Jonathan Cebra)
Fri, 19 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Looking for a good pbem
Yoni Rhein <famrhein@worldnet.att.net>
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Looking for a good pbem
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Simplifying Galaxy
Stig Hemmer <stig@pvv.ntnu.no>
Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Simplifying Galaxy
weertj@xs2.xs4all.nl (Jacco van Weert)
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Simplifying Galaxy
graeme@postimpressions.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths)
Thu, 18 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Simplifying Galaxy
cebra@ids2.idsonline.com (Jonathan Cebra)
Fri, 19 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Looking for a good pbem
Yoni Rhein <famrhein@worldnet.att.net>
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Looking for a good pbem
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Simplifying Galaxy
Stig Hemmer <stig@pvv.ntnu.no>
Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Simplifying Galaxy
weertj@xs2.xs4all.nl (Jacco van Weert)
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Simplifying Galaxy
graeme@postimpressions.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths)
Thu, 18 Jun 1998 00:00:00 +0000