In my experience with gameplay development, mapmakers contend with two annoying arbitrary restrictions: Having to have a certain number of starting territories so that the first player doesn't get an advantage through the territory bonus; and having to put neutrals or starting positions on small continents so the first player doesn't get an advantage from dropping a bonus. The former problem I've
addressed in part but I'll modify it here to be more useful, and the second has a simple solution below.
Suggestion Idea:
Minimum Neutrals, v2
Description: Let a single XML tag for the map specify that at least N territories in the map start neutral. The tag can be set to apply only with specific numbers of players. For example, with 48 territories, a deployment problem only occurs in a 4-player game. If you can code it that a 4-player game gets 4 random neutral territories, then you can have a 48-territory map on any of the other player settings.
Why It Should Be Considered: Means that mapmakers no longer have to set specific territories to start as neutrals in order to get a fair number of initial territories. Gives mapmakers that much more control over gameplay.
Suggestion Idea:
Nobody-Drops-a-Bonus-Zone
Description: Let the XML define sets of territories such that no player will have the entire set at the start of the game. The sets must be mutually exclusive (and probably exclusive from start positions) and must have more than one member. There is a simple algorithm for ensuring this:
- Produce a random ordering for the K players such that each player occurs once.
- Fill up the no-drop zones one at a time from your list.
- If you reach the end of the K-player sequence, generate a new random sequence of players. If the first player of the current sequence is the same as the last player of the previous sequence, move that player to the end of the current sequence, to ensure that no player is positioned twice in a row.
- If you fill up the no-drop zones completely, randomly distribute the rest of the current player sequence before proceeding with regular territory distribution.
- If you reach the maximum number of player territories -- say, if the entire map was made of no-drop zones -- make the rest of the map neutral (the only caveat with this is that it's likely to leave the last couple of continents entirely neutral; this might be overcome by randomly assigning the neutrals first, and then proceeding with the rest of the distribution).
This algorithm should, for the most part, run in linear time.
Why It Should Be Considered: Means that mapmakers no longer have to set specific territories to start as neutrals in order to prevent players from dropping unbalanced bonuses. Gives mapmakers that much more control over gameplay.
) ANYWAY, there are hundreds of people on here who have gotten really good at playing dubs on specific maps, but there's really no dubs specific map yet. This would make it much easier to come up with maps designed to accommodate teams, but still able to be played in standard/terminator/assassins.
