Thread: 2004 Game
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Unread 13-04-2003, 00:36
DanL DanL is offline
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Few more comments...

About the unbalanced team idea - it seems like something cool, but I don't know if it would work.

2 vs 1 means only 3 'bots per round and at the bigger regionals, that would result in a lot less matches played. Personally, I'd rather have more matches - if we spend 6 hard weeks, I'd want to play with the bot as much as possible.

3 vs 1 I think is the worse. First, it would be a bit TOO unbalanced unless the defending bot had a REALLY big advantage. Then there's the fact that two offensive 'bots could easily pin the lone defending bot, letting the third offensive bot have a field day. There's also the fact that if the defender fails for some reason, not two but THREE teams get to do whatever they want and have pretty much total control over the rest of the match (in the past two years, two teams only got to do what they wanted if two other teams failed). This could lead to some unfair advantages.

3 vs 2 I think is the best compromise on all these issues, except for the fact that it might be a bit crowded. But then again - like it was mentioned before, the field this year only seemed crowded because of all the boxes. I'm not sure what effect the introduction of a 5th bot would have on overall gameplay, but I think this would be the best way. However, the IFI controller would have to be tweaked to allow more than four competition channels (atleast I think it has only four competition channels this year).

Finally, 6 bots or more I think is a bit too many bots on the field at one time.

One also has to consider if, say, it was 3 vs 2, would the size of the final alliances be upped to four?

Long story short, although I like the idea of unbalanced alliances as something new, well, I thought this year's game would be something fun, but if we would have thought hard about it, we would have realized it was nothing more than a pushing war.
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And about the veterans getting together to discuss the game... part of the balance is the fact that ALL teams find out the rules at the same time. Maybe I misunderstood you, but I wouldn't be a big fan of the more expierienced teams getting even a 1-week's head start on the design just because they're more expierienced (actually, ESPECIALLY because they're more expierienced).
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Dan L
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Last edited by DanL : 13-04-2003 at 00:39.
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