New Game Type?

Ok, so I was thinking of a new game type. The game type would be called "Capture". Then the creator of the game can choose which territory set (Europe, Asia, etc.) would be the target. When a player successfully holds the target set for a full turn he wins the game. However, whatever the target set, it will be all neutrals, and only the remaining countries will be split up between the players.

So if I create a capture game on the world map. I can choose one of the 6 sets to be the target. So I choose perhaps Europe. Now everyone in the game needs to fight to control Europe which starts as all Neutrals. If you successfully take over Europe then at the beginning of your next turn you will win, if you still control it.

If a territory set such as Asia was chosen it might be more of a fight against each other rather than a fight to control asia. It could be though that the Neutrals on the target set only have 1 troop each, so it's easy for people to start getting their hands on the target set and get the fight going.

1v1 Games
In 1v1 games this probably wouldn't work so well because attacking Neutrals is a waste of time and will result in a loss. However, what it could be is that if you conquer all of the other players territories so that he has less than 3, he automatically gains control of all of the Neutral territories.

This is a quite radical idea but it would push the game away from defeating players and towards taking over the target territory set.

I was thinking actually to build a series of maps of ancient cities, like Hattusas (Capital of the Hittites). Or perhaps Babylon or something. So each map would be 1 city of about 4-6 territories and then all of the surroundings which would be split up into sets as well. Now I was concerned how I would implement this game type for only these few maps in the series. So then I thought about it and tonight it hit me that maybe it doesn't need to be only for these maps, but could be for any map.

So what is everyone's opinion of this game type Capture? Should we add it, or not? If so, should any of the rules for it change? How should it be set up?

While that could be cool, it would easily be open to abuse.
Lets say we have a map that has a single territory bonus, such as holding a village or a castle or something.
The person creating the game could set that as the condition to win the game.
Then they could easily cheat the game, especially in freestyle mode.
The creator just rushes that territory, and anyone that doesn't know the map perfectly won't have a chance.

It'd be a cool mode, I just think it'd be too open to abuse to keep it without lots of rules to control it.

when we add territory sets to the map perhaps we can choose whether or not they would be available for this game type. So 1 territory sets we don't make available, or perhaps Australia we don't make that available. So only reasonable targets can be used.

I very much like this idea, we would have to be particular about which territory sets would be available, but as long as they were chosen well I don't see any reason this shouldn't work, I'd definitely play it.

I do think the neutrals set on the selected set would need to be at 2 if not more, far too much is left to chance if its not very many neutrals, one person get a good starting position, acquires bonuses quickly, gets a card set and has it within a couple turns and no one can do anything about it. It probably wouldn't hurt to test out a few different numbers of neutrals, see what works best. 

A simpler fix for the 1v1 games might be to just make it so that if you kill your opponent you lose, thus forcing you to go for the territory. That way you can still fight your opponent, but outright killing him means that you lose. I know there's a bit of a loophole there in that if you pin your opponent in a small area he can't do anything, but I that's not particularly a bad thing, just a strategic option. 

Yeah, perhaps testing different neutral amounts. I felt though if there were too many neutrals people would just try to eliminate each other instead of taking over the area.

As for that pinning your opponent it will cause many complaints about not wanting to continue playing his turn, and having to wait for the guy pinning him to take the territories and finish the game. Perhaps if your opponent has less than 3 territories then randomly one of your territories will belong to your opponent. So everyone will always have at least 3 territories, and think it might be more difficult to pin 3 territories.

Yeah though, Maybe for the World map Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America can be options for Capture.

I see what you're saying about the 1v1's would just need to be very clearly defined that bringing your opponent down to 3 territories means that he gets the neutrals. like a message in the game or something, otherwise it would get pretty confusing if you hadn't played it before. 

I agree on the world map, either of the other two would just be too easy

hmmm, there would need to be a lot of thought put into where could be options for capture, maybe just make some maps unavailable when you only have 1v1?

and I don't know how I like the idea of them getting neutrals... if I just wiped them out, it seems really unfair, although I can see how that would force me to concentrate on the target.... I don't know... it sounds good in essence....

I really like the idea in essence. My first thought was Australia, but I think we covered that pretty well.

hmm...pinning...What if the minimum was something like 4 contiguous countries? Couldn't be forced back into a corner because all the 4-country corners (on World Map) have bonuses associated with them.

you mean the minimum territories a player must have, or a minimum territories a set must have in order to be considered as a target?

The minimum number of territories a player must have. It would be different on different maps, I was just thinking it would help keep people from getting pinned because they would at least be getting a continent bonus.

Thought of later though, you would have people owning something like most of Australia and then Siam or something and then they would still be pinned.

Oh right, yeah it's tough to figure out a solution to get people to focus on taking over a target rather than focus on killing other players. Perhaps though, if they win by taking over a target they can get more cash points for a game?

What if instead of a territory set it was just 1 territory and the territory started with perhaps 10 or 15 Neutrals. If the target is too hard to get then it would be more strategic to take out the enemy before you try to take the target. So just 1 territory might be easy enough so that it's better to just try and take it asap than to focus on each other.

If people are just fighting each other instead of going for the target territory then the game type is no different from the regular game type. So we need to make it so the focus is on the target so everyone tries to rush it, but still they need to take it and defend it.

I like the idea of changing the idea of capture to one territory rather than a territory set. taking over an entire territory set full of neutral while everyone else in the game tries to stop you is night on impossible without eliminating the competition. If it were only one territory, you could spend a turn or two building up, smash and grab and have a chance of holding it. 

I believe 15 neutral armies starting on the target territory would be appropriate. It is a high enough number to keep the target from coming in to play instantly before anyone has a chance to get ready but low enough so that it is well worth the effort to take. 

This would also simplify the game as the target territory could possibly be random. 

That sounds good to me. If you randomize the target territory, though, it seems like you've got the possibility of the target starting where one person can keep everyone else away from it easily, such as in the back of Australia or something. A list of targets that the random is chosen from?