starting army placement

[ChaunceyMo]

I scanned through this forum and didn't see mention of this, but I've been bothered by it since I started here: randomizing starting army placement can, in certain game types and given similar player skill, turn the game into 100% luck.

I know the game is fundamentally luck-based, but it's all about playing odds and taking risks. It shouldn't be about who had the better starting placement, and the board game way of setting up the board (taking turns placing armies, with the first to place an army also the last to take their turn) eliminates this issue.

On the site I've had games, particularly team games and no cards games, decided from round one by army placement. If team A has all of south america and africa, for example, while team B is scattered randomly across the other continents, AND team A goes first, there is practically no way for team B to win.

As for no cards games, which I used to like as they were a fine test of player skill, I've gotten turned off because too many of them come down to one player starting with all or most of a continent secured, and going early enough in sequence to secure it before they can be challenged.

So I'm not sure what the best solution would be, but what should be a fairly simple one would be to stop players/teams from getting too much of a single continent or too many adjacent armies in their starting position, and possibly gauging the starting position by whoever has the best placement and making sure that person doesn't go first.

[Jota]

This is not entirely true. I have had games where I started out with a good position, holding most of a continent, but lost anyway. Good luck is often not enough to make up for poor gameplay.

[HighBorn]

i totaly disagree... anygood team can come back from bad placement i have play upwards of 40 games as a certain persons teammate and even in the worse case we have come through.. loseing only 7 games so far as partners

[ChaunceyMo]

In non-team games with cards or in games with three teams, it's never insurmountable. In games with two teams (2 on 2 or 3 on 3) if one team gets really great starting position AND they go first, it is very possible that the other team ends up with a huge army disadvantage and a huge positional disadvantage, the combination of which is sometimes totally impossible to get past.

In no cards games, the statement I made before applies. If you disagree you have been very lucky.

[HighBorn]

no have [layed many no cards games as teams and only lost two out of about 20...

[ChaunceyMo]

given similar player skill

Two or three players who play on a team together all the time does not equal similar skill to a few random newbies. It's not insurmountable if you are better than your opponent, but if you play someone as good as you and they have such a huge lift early you're SOL.

I'm not suggesting anything too dramatic, just a minor adjustment to stop people from getting ALL the starting advantages (best placement AND going first). It's worked in my favor, too, and I feel somewhat dirty about it. I'd rather that not be a factor.

[HighBorn]

yeah i see your point of view and the best thing i ever seen suggested for this or that might fix this i an option when u start game to have teams alternate instaed of going one after the other.. in example. team 1 player goes the team 2 player one than team 3 player one so forth and so on

[ChaunceyMo]

Yes, I think that would help enormously in this example (and others). In a sequential 3-vs-3 game if the game starts with the first player on a team, and the first two players just fort everything to the third, it's possible for the third to kill someone on the other team before they've even taken their first turn. That's no fun.

[HighBorn]

yeah maybe the turn seq could be altered its been brought up b4 i dont remember the kinda response it got