Re: Galaxy

From: markhof@ls12r.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Ingolf Markhof)

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 11:12:37 +0000

In article <1993Oct12.224708.10236@cs.tcd.ie>, rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace) writes:
|> The reason I made the declaration that this game would end on turn 125
|> at the latest is simple:  I could otherwise see it stagnating, with the
|> winner being the last person to drop out.  My game 4 has reached this
|> position, where it has totally stagnated and it is obvious that left to
|> itself the winner would be the last to drop out; I have therefore made a
|> similar ruling there; but I figured with game 7 that I might as well do
|> it before the stagnation phase... why wait another 10 or 20 turns of
|> inactivity?

Once I also played in this game. I'd like to comment your declartion.
Basicly, I follow the argumentation of the top player, who claimed that
your declaration is not fair, because it will probably cause a lot of
attacks against him. It's ok to introcude another victory condition to
cat the stagnation phase. But there are other ways to do that:

By the rules, the winner is the last player left in the game. No
alliance victories are allowed. I'd propose to introduce the term of a
draw. At any time, remaining players may declare a draw if everyone
aggrees to that.  To join a draw is less than to win a game, but it's
more than to get eliminated. For a scoring system, one might get one
point for winning the game, but only 1/N (or 1/(N^2) points for a draw
of N players (eliminated or dropped players don't get anything at all,
i.e. 0 points). Thus, in a draw, all included players are equal. It
doesn't matter how big you are. What counts is the fact that you're
still in the game. If bigger players fail to kill you, they will get
less points.

Now, if you want to cut the long stagnation phase, just declare that the
game will end with a draw of all active players in turn XXX, if no one
is able to achive victory until that turn. For sure, this will stop
stagnation.

I guess the best would be not to have a fixed turn to end the game this
way, but to define a condition for that. E.g. the game may end in a draw
if for a number of turns less the X% of planets have been bombed, or less
the Y% of ship mass points have been destructed. It should be possible to
find a reasonable condition that is true when the games stagnates.

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References

Galaxy
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Mon, 11 Oct 1993 11:40:27 +0000
Re: Galaxy
js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)
Mon, 11 Oct 1993 12:15:15 +0000
Re: Galaxy
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 08:07:36 +0000
Re: Galaxy
kjp@cv.ic.ac.uk (Mr K.J. Pankhurst)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 10:51:23 +0000
Re: Galaxy
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 22:47:08 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Mon, 11 Oct 1993 11:40:27 +0000
Re: Galaxy
js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)
Mon, 11 Oct 1993 12:15:15 +0000
Re: Galaxy
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 08:07:36 +0000
Re: Galaxy
kjp@cv.ic.ac.uk (Mr K.J. Pankhurst)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 10:51:23 +0000
Re: Galaxy
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Tue, 12 Oct 1993 22:47:08 +0000