Simultaneous Risk Questions From: Richard Rognlie <rrognlie@gamerz.net> Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000 I have recently been working on creating a version of R. Wayne Schmittberger's _Simultaneous Risk_ as an addition to my email game server, pbmserv@gamerz.net. It looks to play like a cross between Risk and Diplomacy. However, I have a couple questions for the Risk and Diplomacy afficionados of the USENET world... *ANY* discussion would be welcome. 1. Notation for the board. In the silence of last week, I got exactly no response. So, I've taken it on myself to create one. Each territory gets a 3 letter code. NA => ala nwt gre alb ont que wus eus cam SA => ven per bra arg EU => ice sca gbr neu weu seu ukr AF => naf egy eaf con saf mad AS => ura sib yak irk kam mon jap chi afg mid ind sia AU => mal ngu wau eau The only oddity is Indonesia. Its name is too close to India so I renamed it to Malaysia (mal) [I hope no one is offended]. 2. There are two kinds of movement: Deployment, and Movement. Deployment consists of trading in sets of cards (as applicable) for 4, 6, 8 or 10 armies (+2 bonus per territory if you happen to currently hold that territory). And also the allocation of the new armies to territories you hold. A typical deployment move might look something like (assume player is due 5 armies): CARDS sib mid jok (for the one of each 10 trade in) mid 5 seu 3 weu 3 naf 2 con 2 This would cause 7 to be added to the Middle East (5 +2 bonus), the other 10 in weu seu naf and con as listed. The other kind of move is Movement. This is where players beat up on each other. It would be something like this: mid 4 -> egy mid 4 -> eaf naf 2 -> egy con 2 -> eaf In this example, the player is moving 6 armies into Egypt (4 from the Middle east, and 2 from North Africa) and 6 armies into East Africa (4 form mid, 2 from con). 3. Schmittberger's rules do not include reinforcements, etc. But I think they're necessary for a full blown Risk game. How often should they occur? I'm leaning to every 4 turns. So the game would progress as follows: Assign territories Deploy remaining pieces Move Move Move Deploy Move Move Move Deploy etc. 4. Unlike Risk, we will not force a territory to have an army. You may choose to vacate a territory on a move. However, you *lose* the right to count that territory as one of yours for reinforcement and control of a continent purposes. 5. The final sticking point is... Schmittberger's combat system seems flawed for more than 2 players. I can't seem to make it work unambiguously for more than 2 combatants. Therefore, I'm looking for a replacement. One that came to mind last evening was: Largest force wins All other forces are removed Winning force loses as many pieces are the next largest force. In case of a tie for largest force, *ALL* units are lost with the exception of one defending unit (if it happens to be the same strength as the largest force, and there *is* a defending group). Some examples: A defends with 4. B attacks with 5 and C attacks with 6. Result: C wins, but loses 5. A defends with 3. A reinforces with 3 from an adjacent territory. B attacks with 5. Result: A win but loses 5. Similar to above, but in addition C attacks with 6. Result: A still wins and loses 5 (due to the defender rule). A defends with 3. B attacks with 5. C attacks with 5. Result: Mutual annihilation. This seems to work, but I'll certainly entertain alternate attack mechanisms. But be warned... IT MUST RESULT IN UNAMBIGUOUS RESULTS FOR ANY NUMBER OF PLAYERS! Comments, or Suggestions are welcome and encouraged. Richard -- / \__ | Richard Rognlie / Sendmail Consultant / Sendmail, Inc. \__/ \ | URL: http://www.gamerz.net/rrognlie/ / \__/ | Give a man a fish, and he'll be hungry tomorrow. Teach a \__/ | man to fish, and he'll be at the river all day drinking beer. Up