Capital initial forces

Most of you will have seen what happened during the ongoing capitals tournament. A player was killed almost instantly on the World Extended map. The reason for this was the high initial reinforcement count (because of the high amount of territories in the map) and the relatively low amount of forces you start with on your capital in one of these big maps.

My idea is simple: why not increase the amount of armies you start with on your capital based on the initial reinforcements. Currently, you always start with 13 troops on your capital (???). However, what we could do is add 2 more for every extra initial reinforcements you get. So a bigger map which gives you 4 reinforcements initially, will have 15 troops on the capital, 5 will lead to 17, etc.

Another option would be to make the troop count depending on the amount of territories (though I would advise keeping the minimum at 13 troops), but then games with a lot of players will take ages, because they start with a lot of troops on their territory, but nobody gets much additional reinforcements.

Thoughts?

I will add that the capital of the Second Player would have one more troop than the first one, the third player would have one more than the second and so on Why? Some times one player has an initial bonus due to the set up, if he is the first player he can get it but if he is the last he probably won't. Anyway, the last player nearly always starts his start in a worse condition than the first ones; I know that in a deathmatch is very difficult to solve it (how many troops to add?,and what it is more important, where?) but in Capitals games I guess it's easier if we use the cap to solve this handicap.
My suggestion includes (I must say it's one of his best examples) 2 and 3 players games.

I believe the start amount of troops on capitals already varies sometimes. Not sure on what it depends though.

Sometimes the last place is the best because all the others have wasted their armies on taking a card or region and you can walk right in and hit all those "ONES"

I agree with you Thorpe, SOMETIMES. Most of times it happens one of these things if you are the last one (of course, this is just my perception):

1- In few players game: Because of the big reinforcement of the previous players you can suffer many attacks and your reiforcement troops will be smaller than other players.
2- Many players game: You lost some provinces and your chances to get a bonus are fewer than other players chances.

I know this may not happen and I also know that someone has to be the last one, but we can try to find a way to correct the handicap.

I think that if your bonus is one less because of territories taken over, I think that is a mistake in the map design, not in the gameplay itself. Giving everyone one troop more, will lead up to the last player to have 7 troops extra in a 8 player game. That is A LOT!
No, maybe you have a bit of bad luck if you're last, but there are also good things about it. You can be last to turn in your cards for example, like Thorpe said you can hit the ones, etc. It is impossible to make the start of a game completely fair, because you always have to take into account start positions, etc. Sometimes you start with a region, well, that's luck. Sometimes you start last, well, not as lucky maybe.

Making the initial troops change depending on map size and amount of players is a suggestion to change a BIG problem in capitals game on quite a number of maps that have no other gameplay flaws otherwise.

I guess you are right but I have suffered many times in (6 or more players games) the attacks of other players trying to get a bonus in their first turn that put me far behind of most of them. If you add the posibility of someone accumulating troops close to your cap my experiences in the last positions are not good at all.
I'll try to focus on the advantages you say.

The formula already works like you want it to Cireon. The problem is on larger maps where two people attack you before you even start your turn.

Here is the formula (a little simplified) 10 + (num terr on map divided by number of players divided by 3) round down. In other words you get 10 + the number of initial reinforcements.

So on the world expanded map it would be (91/4/3) = 7.58 rounded down to 7 and add 10 = 17.

Perhaps a solution is to add two if num initial reinforcements is greater than or equal to 5.


It's impossible to design maps that work with any combination of players and settings. It is up to the tournament organizer and players to know from experience what works and what doesn't. Ideally you want each player to start out with either 11 or 14 territories. So when choosing a map you multiply the number of players by 11 or 14 and choose a map with that many territories.


On another point rather than write complicated code to prevent players from randomly getting a region from the initial drop, how bout we just not give them that bonus for the first round. This will give all players the chance to break it, if they feel it necessary, before they get a bonus for it.

It would still be the case that if the 1st player has the bonus then they will be able to protect it better with their normal reinforcements. But I think it's fun when someone gets that lucky. It's really easy to turn everyone on them and they keep that mentality most of the game. So is it really lucky?


Part of me thinks that the very last player to go should get a +1 on their cap, but the other part of me knows it will be a customer service nightmare. I'll get tons of messages about glitches in games where one player started with an extra territory on their cap. New players won't know that its supposed to be that way and they won't understand why. They will just think it's unfair. I don't want to deal with that.

Each map...options ... # players...and a lot of other things come into play...you just adjust to them or never play them...

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT "RISK"

I like the idea of "Not bonus on first round".

And I love the reason why you don't the +1 in the cap of the last player :-)  I guess it would be a nightmare, hehe

Alright, I thought the amount of troops on your capital was static. Then let's just keep it as it is. Maybe each map can have some kind of "recommended amount of players", so it is easier to find out which combination works?

I think bonuses should stay as it is. Like you said, if someone starts with a region, that can be fun. They don't necessarily mean that you will win, because you will be everyones target from the beginning. Usually, these kind of imbalances fix themselves after a couple of turns.

Each map does have a recommended number of players. The problem is that that info is on the flickr page. We need a proper map browser in the create game page that shows the number of territories, map author, map notes, recommended num of players, year created, etc.

Oh if only there was someone who knew how to program such a thing. Hint Hint.

I would like to hear more opinions about whether or not players should receive region bonuses on the first turn. It would have a huge effect on 2 players games on the oregon cities map.

Vexer, Cireon already made a long post somewhere with lots of very good suggestions. A map browser was one of them.

I will gladly program one, however, I want a good design for it, as I wont waste lots of hours making one where others can do so in 10 minutes.

Ill try to find that post and bump it, lets see of this community has some (good) suggestions.
Like marcoxa's tab's

ill design it for you, its my thing, lol