Congrats on winning your first game Fizzer; interesting tactic (guessing you only used it because it was 1v1 though...). Congrats to GW Bush too and Apollo (though you didn't have much competition with a first turn surrender and two boots :D).
One more thing, when you go to each individual game, it still says who got first pick. Is this necessary? IMO it is pointless.... :D
Gotta say i hate this format. Why not use the map for random teams? Ffa is horrible. Way too much luck involved. Plus clan mates are teaming up against other people.
that is exactly what i was wondering about this season. the symmetry and lack of space require such balance. what happens when the balance breaks down (because of the inevitable boot/surrender out of boredom or when an idiot/bad player just doesnt know what the hell he is doing and completely ruins the balance or gives the game to someone)? one attack (or boot/surrender) that disrupts the balance could determine the game. FFAs require delicate balance/symmetry and the manipulation of balance/symmetry. if a mathematically balanced symmetrical map becomes completely unbalanced and asymmetrical (in terms of the warfare, not the geometrical design of the map), then what? isnt the game a nongame? isnt the strategic aspect lost? and a simple waiting game and eventual war of attrition the eventual outcome?
the bad settings on this strategically limited map make the season uninteresting to me. maybe the rating system will make the later games more interesting for the better players (assuming they get good enough ratings to play people that know how balance affects FFAs and dknt get fuqed in their early games out of no fault of their own). but i wouldnt ever join a season that requires me to fuq around half the season with boots surrenders and fools that ruin the game/balance before i can play real games.
an FFA on imperium romanum or some other real map with space (but not too much, so the games last forever) and with TURN LIMITS (so games end after a fixed number of turns no matter what is happening) would have been much more realistic.
this is why i rarely join games i dont make. the settings rarely fit the maps and the templates rarely fit the players who will play.
Because all four players could come into contact with one another, the best possibility is that it becomes like a 40-turn attritional thing, like you said. If it's a ten-player FFA on a large map like Africa then it becomes interesting because there is an element of skill in selecting your starts, and although there are lots of elements of chance, there are more elements of skill in that case. In this one it's like "here is your castle, now hope no other player gets too strong and that you get mostly ignored".
I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about. But private messaging is enabled so that means alliances are kosher. Hate the template, not the player.
I do hate the template. Not only does it encourage cooperation, but you barely get to use diplomacy cards at all (why 6 turns, but takes SO long to get?). Plus as soon as someone starts winning a couple games, everyone will gang up on that person in the other ones. It is going to be a total mess. And the low boot time speeds games up, but will also completely unbalance other ones because someone gets booted.
yes, an FFA ladder is definitely a bad idea. I think since the popularity for diplo and ffa games is on the rise, Fizzer probably thought that an ffa laddder may appeal to more people buying a membership and joining. I'm probably wrong, but thats my guess on why Fizzer would organise an FFA ladder, knowing that it wouldnt work out so well as the pervious ones.
SO many people asked for an FFA ladder. Fizzer gave it, people complained. I quite like the settings; the only bad thing about it is the diplomacy card setting.
It's usually the top-players who complain, and i just have to say:
accept that some templates are different and/or harder then others,
and that you can't (or shouldn't want to) be good at them all ;)
powerneg, this template is not harder, it is in fact easier. A non-top player can win a few games if they can use diplomacy well. There is a larger element of luck in this format, which means more people have a chance to win at it.
And what is wrong with wanting it to be better? If we are going to do FFA once and a while, that is fine. I will skip that season. It's not a big deal. But I am offering suggestions to improve the format at the same time I'm saying I hate the idea altogether. That way if it does stick, it will be better for those that choose to play it.
