Head to Head - First turn

I have played a ton of head to head games in the last 15 months. It has always vexed me when I play several games in a row with a favorite competitor and one of will get many more first turns than the other head to head. I propose that with head to head games we keep track of who should go first next game to be able to keep it a little fairer with those short burst binges against a favorite opponent. Playing devil's advocate, over time it averages out for sure... However, I wonder if there are any statistics that would correlate with first turn prevalence and domination of a specific opponent. Thank you, Haloway13

Interesting idea. How would it work in practice though? True randomness seems to be the easiest way to code it... Unless you subdue set how many games you want to play in advance.

would simply not allowing player 1 - turn 1 attacks gain a card be enough or too much?

[quote=begold]Interesting idea. How would it work in practice though? True randomness seems to be the easiest way to code it... Unless you subdue set how many games you want to play in advance.[/quote] Just keep a table in the DB as to who went first for every pairing that ever happens head to head. [table] [tr] [td]First[/td] [td]Last[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]begold[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2ofclubs[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Hooboy11[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Hoodlum[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]God_of_War[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]SpamFree[/td] [td]haloway13[/td] [/tr] [/table] something like (I might have this a bit wrong) select last from t_First_Last where p1 in (select * from t_First_Last where p1 = First or p1=Last) AND p2 (select * from t_First_Last where p2 = First or p1=Last) Then update the table appropriately to reflect the change

[quote=God_of_War]would simply not allowing player 1 - turn 1 attacks gain a card be enough or too much?[/quote] Do you mean to not get a card if you go first?

1 vs 1 is not only who starts first an issue but most of the time the drop. 3 player games aren’t fun either 4 player ugh, 5 plyer games with none emotional players are very nice and interesting. Maybe 1vs1 you should be able to pick your cards one after 1, or all 1 vs 1 should be best of 2 where each player get the chance to have a fist play. So 1 vs 1 best of two

[quote=haloway13][quote=God_of_War]would simply not allowing player 1 - turn 1 attacks gain a card be enough or too much?[/quote] Do you mean to not get a card if you go first?[/quote] Yes. I just did a head to head. Opponent starts with 7 troops. Of course they can take whole regions with that. I then only get 6 probably, maybe 5 on how the dice go.... and it is an uphill battle the entire time. Then they get 1st opportunity for a set turn in too to finish the job, Just a suggestion, seems easier than tracking whom you are playing against.

I've seen a setting that gives the 4th/ person 1 card and the 6th player to go gets 2. Maybe an option giving player 2 a card in 1v1 to Start the game would even out the advantage.

[quote=Ready4war] I've seen a setting that gives the 4th/ person 1 card and the 6th player to go gets 2. Maybe an option giving player 2 a card in 1v1 to Start the game would even out the advantage. [/quote] I really like this idea for the simplicity of it. I have no idea if this is balanced, but maybe we can offer it as a limited option as an experiment to see what people think.

I think true random or the op post idea is the only truly balanced option. It would be cool to try tho

I think the scale at which we have to implement this makes the OP idea not quite feasible. Currently the drop is determined as close to true random as computers can manage. In the end, Risk was never designed as a 1v1 game, so luck of the drop isn't something we can do much about. There have been many suggestions over the year to make things less random, but they all come at the cost of significant complexity in our code. Therefore, in general, I'm more in favour of offering something like "best of 3" to reduce the impact of random flukes than trying to patch up the problem with lots of smaller sizes. The card one stood out to me since it's actually really simple. That being said, in increasing cards games, turning in second can be beneficial too.

What's [quote]the best of 3[/quote]? Also yeah it can but starting with a card still wouldn't be a disadvantage due to that

I think it's a good idea. If the second player truly prefers to turn second, he can skip the attack for a turn.

[quote=Ready4war]What's the best of 3?[/quote] Instead of playing one game, you always play two games on the same map with the same settings, each with a different player starting. If it's a tie after two games, you play a tie-breaker third game.

Agree with Haloway, first player in 1v1 games has advantage. In general first player can get 1 or even 2 countries from the 2nd player. So why not give 2nd player 1 extra country (i.e. 3 extra armies)? Seems easier than keeping track of who played who. I'm no big fan of the extra card idea, as - it doesn't mean that 2nd player will also be able to turn in first; - the game could already be decided after 3 turns; - turning in first in the early stages of the game is not always a benefit. Now that we're on the subject of 1v1 games, can we also discuss the rating system? I think it's much to penalizing for the higher rated players. Tks