Re: Galaxy alliance wins

From: rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)

Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 10:36:39 +0000

In article <382r7p$8c8@siva.abekrd.co.uk>, graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths) writes:
>
> I'd appreciate a resume of the idea behind this because, to me, it does
> entirely the opposite. Theres no point in alliance members ganging in
> increasingly smaller alliances against other (probably larger) allies in
> an attempt to gain more HoF points. They'll get a share anyway not much
> but more than they'd get if an attack failed.
>
The whole point is that the game itself tries to encourage an individual
winner. However, if the players want to agree to finish earlier and the GM
allows it, then they should be allowed to. But it was decided that doing
this should still show the relative amount of work (invested effort) made
by each player.
The person with the greatest industry should get the lion's share, the
person with the least industry should get the smallest share.

> Theres less incentive for the largest power in the alliance. If the points
> were split equally the larger power would (well, if it was me anyway) take
> out all but the strongest of his allies because each member (no matter how
> small) takes a huge chunk of points.
>
True
Which means that the chance of ever getting an alliance would be almost 0%
because it would be seen as grossly unfair to the person who has put the
most effort in.

> For example an alliance of 5 players has finished taking out their enemies
> in a 60 player game.
>
> Player 1 has 40000 Industry
> Player 2 has 5000 Industry
> Player 3 has 5000 Industry
> Player 4 has 5000 Industry
> Player 5 has 5000 Industry
>
> Under the current system Player 1 would get 40 points and the others would
> each get 5. Player 1 would probaby say "Sod it, its not worth 10+ hours a
> turn to take these guys out, they've done their share let them have 5 pts."
>
Very true.
That was the idea, and a discussion with the players at the time settled on
this system as being fairest to all while rewarding the total work done and
time investment made.
Without a fair (proportional) split of the points, it is unlikely that the
alliance will hold together. After all, it only takes one person to break
it, and if the leading player doesn't think that they are being suitably
rewarded for their effort then they are more likely to break the alliance
and try to generate a few extra points

> If he was only on for 12 pts and so were his allies it may be a different
> story after all how long could it take.....
>
:-)
If he had a split like that in the example he would probably be so far ahead
in all his tech levels that it would take about 3 turns to wipe the rest
off the face of the galaxy. Or at least to the point when the game would be
flagged away by the others as being unwinnable.
And a single winner is *much* more impressive than an alliance   :-)

<snip>

> ......I would like to see a limit placed on
> the number of winners allowed (3 maybe) because the HoF looks fairly daft
> with loads of people on less than 1pt.
>
Sounds fair and reasonable.
It would also make sense to just drop all scores under 1 pt as being not
worth recording.

>(Zeus had 11 winners 3 of which got
> a huge 0.2 points)
>
Zeus was a mess that faded when I initially lost email access, so the
players called it an alliance and flagged it away.

(
    / \
   /   )
  >>---|->                 get my point ?
   \   )
    \ /                    Rob McNeur
     (                     Rob@ccc.govt.nz

References

Galaxy alliance wins
graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths)
Wed, 19 Oct 1994 10:08:57 +0000
Galaxy Hall of Fame innacuracies ? Help Please !
graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths)
Fri, 14 Oct 1994 14:23:12 +0000
Re: Galaxy Hall of Fame innacuracies ? Help Please !
rnovak@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Robert Novak)
Fri, 14 Oct 1994 15:28:07 +0000