georgeatkins wrote:steephie22 wrote:So can we unfix the amount of countries needed for a coalition?
It is rather arbitrary, you'll have to admit. You say this game isn't Diplomacy anyway, but I think the set number of 3 is the one thing really keeping it from being 'Diplomacy but then better'. It forces a certain playstyle on you: you NEED two powerful allies.
We can make it so that winning with other countries isn't even neccessarily less of a win, since it also significantly increases the votes needed. You would just have to decide which way of winning would work best for you in your current situation. You'd have choices.
So I understand how the 3 country coalitions came to be, but how would you feel about giving players the freedom to make their coalitions however they like?
PS Any thoughts on giving NK two armies?
Steve
You might be looking at this from only one point of view, if I'm reading you correctly (a possible issue on my part). Bigger powers need to find smaller powers to achieve a coalition victory, because the victory count for multiple major powers is larger than when your coalition is a mix of large-, mid-, and small-size powers. The table on the map shows that, as you know. So it isn't just the need of small powers having to find big powers. They need us, too.
Now, there are more smaller powers than large powers, but by the time a coalition vote comes up, a lot of the smaller powers are already gone. As Tom says, the action of determining coalitions is a whole process in itself; probably what we would call the End Game in Standard. And your diplomatic skills may be more important here than they were when you were trying to build up your starting position at the start of the game.
Sure, number of coalition participants is arbitrary, but all rules are arbitrary. Too many players and the victory becomes kind of pointless, like a 4- or 5-way Draw in a Standard game.
To me, whether you call it a Dip Variant is not that important. NWO has certainly transmogrified from the old days of WWIV.
Too many players and the victory is impossible, actually. Since the target vote increases per player (the amount it increases with depends on the class of course) and there's a set amount of votes available in the world, you can create some huge coalition if you want, but it still wouldn't be enough if the entire world votes for you.
I don't really think 'drawing' with other players would be less of a victory in this case. For example, one B power would need X votes and 2 B powers would need 2X votes to win. Is either one easier? Very much depends on the situation. Maybe being in a coalition together and trying to win together is the only thing preventing them from shooting eachother to pieces, making it a powerful diplomatic tool, but this alliance COULD be betrayed if one ally deems it an easier way to win. The betrayal wouldn't even necessarily involve a nuke strike; if you have enough voting support, you just propose the 'coalition' with just you in it and take the win. You'd need enough voting support though.
In it's current state, the 2 B powers would likely just be wrapping up their certain victory while everyone else eagerly tries to get that third spot.
The methods for winning should improve gameplay, ideally. As I illustrated, this way, there's only one point when you can say with confidence you're going to win: when you've won. Everything can happen from start to end. As the game stands now, a lot of people already know they've lost come voting season.
By far the most important reason though, is that while Georgeatkins is right that all rules are arbitrary, the current coalition rule isn't just arbitrary, it creates arbitrary mindsets, arbitrary gameplay.
In Fire&Blood, we created Fight Club: a group of minors around the globe who simply looked for ways to help eachother out in secrecy, sharing extremely useful intel about to-be stabbers, amongst other things. No one else knew, but a bunch of us just kept growing larger.
Then I realised Fight Club couldn't win because a coalition is three countries, so I effectively went batshit crazy in an effort to get me in the winning coalition, because I knew that right now, I wasn't going to be in one.
I went all or nothing, and got nothing, because there was no other option: no possible 4way draw to get into, no reason for the coalition heading for the win to compete with eachother..
All because of the arbitrary number 3, Fight Club was bound to fail and my country effectively committed suicide.
The arbitrary number 3 does a lot with people's mindsets. People who play to win even when a win is impossible face almost certain doom, while those who choose to go for a survive instead cowardly wait for the game to end.
Not to mention what I said before: fixed alliances. You'd get rid of all of that and create a much more dynamic rather than static game if the arbitrary number 3 is removed.