Variable Territory Map Mode ; for 3 - 7+ Players

[PSBirch]

Yes, I have yet another suggestion...

Having played a number of 3, 4, and 5 person games on the dedicated servers recently, I've begun wondering if it were possible to alter the territory allocation in games of that size. I know in 3 player games you can have 2 territories each; but in a 4 or 5 person game, the play is at least partially unbalanced as someone will not have a neighbor to contend with, be alone in the Americas, etc.

Which led me to thinking, especially as 1) the map isn't too politically accurate to begin with, and 2) the random modes seem to have such a draw -- Why not, when you have N players, have the whole of the world be divided into N (mostly) contiguous territories? Granted this would require slicing the world up into smaller chunks (30, if I'm doing the math correctly), and require a little more logic on the server side (well, maybe a lot) but it should help keep games more balanced, and help Defcon's already stellar replay factor.

As for the other factors -- units / cities / etc; that might need to be another switch; "standard" style, and proportions-based (you have 1/4 the world, you get 1/2 again as many units, have 1/2 again the population, 1/2 again the points in survivor, etc) Of course the AI might wig out...that's something I know nothing about, however, so I can't really speak to it, though I would assume the AI could be taught to adapt.

And think of the possibilities for 6 player games (and/or duels) -- Sometimes Central America would be part of North America, sometimes South America. Sometimes Europe would have parts of Egypt, North Africa, and/or the Middle East. Perhaps Africa gets the middle east, but loses west africa. Russia keeps Siberia, but SEA gets Mongolia. Etc etc. Perhaps you could even have mod-hooks to play with certain, non-contiguous empires; Australia and New Zealand finally coming on the map; the US gets the Philippines, etc etc. Or, and yes this is a huge pie-in-the-sky; players start with a "home" territory then build-out their possessions (maintaining contiguity?) during a pre-game, adding yet another layer of strategy to the game.

Finally, it would also help scale the game for when more than 6 people can play a single game, a feature which I would think is more probably now that the dedicate server is coming along so nicely; just mod (as in %mod) the number of territories, and off you go!

[NeSS]

I have no idea about the balance issues, (I figure there probably will be many), but I've seen this sort of thing happen with Risk.

You select territories turn by turn, then you battle. I imagine this would probably not work with Defcon, but it is an interesting idea that I haven't seen before. Refreshing.

[xander]

It is not possible to assign territories in the way that you suggest using mods or the dedicated server. I can think of several ways of sort of faking it, but none of them would be elegant or particularly useful. As to supporting more players, I think that, given current bandwidth restrictions, larger games would only be possible for a few people to host (people on very fast university connections, for instance). Defcon uses a surprising amount of bandwidth. Furthermore, six territories are hard coded into Defcon. Adding more is impossible at this time, and removing them, while possible, leads to problems when territories are randomly assigned (for instance, players can be assigned to territories that don't exist on the current map).

However, I like the idea of random territories that are increased / decreased in size to support more or fewer players. I wonder how hard it would be for IV to add that to the game...

xander

[PSBirch]

30-Territory World Map behind the clicky.



Discuss

[PSBirch]

It is not possible to assign territories in the way that you suggest using mods or the dedicated server.

Yeah -- figured this was stretching the idea a bit far

As to supporting more players, I think that, given current bandwidth restrictions, larger games would only be possible for a few people to host (people on very fast university connections, for instance).

Oh, certainly; I can't even do 4 on my connection. But now that there is a dedicated server option, someone, somewhere, will have the ability and desire to host 7+ person games, not to mention the LAN possibilities.

Furthermore, six territories are hard coded into Defcon. Adding more is impossible at this time, and removing them, while possible, leads to problems when territories are randomly assigned (for instance, players can be assigned to territories that don't exist on the current map).

Without a Risk-like selection tool, the masses would have to be hard-coded in then. This is not trivial, but it's certainly possible with a bunch of `if` or `case` statements.

However, I like the idea of random territories that are increased / decreased in size to support more or fewer players. I wonder how hard it would be for IV to add that to the game...

xander

Hrm...you know, it might be as "easy" as having the server load a different map depending on how many slots are open in the lobby...

[xander]

Hrm...you know, it might be as "easy" as having the server load a different map depending on how many slots are open in the lobby...

That is the way that I would do it, but I do not think that you can load new maps after a game has been started -- you can load a mod after you start a game, but players have to load that mod before they join the game. Also, there is no way of distributing mods, and no way for the server to force clients to load or download mods after they have joined, as the game is starting. The mod system would have to be cleaned up a LOT to make this work, which would require rewriting much of the code. It just isn't possible in the current modding system, or with the dedicated server (though the dedicated server would be the way to go).

xander