From: "Benedict, Nicholas" Subject: [eurobrit] Other Brittania variant - bidding for peoples - comments/playtest ers? This one is a little bit better thought-through. I would like to hear any comments, and possibly volunteers to play. --- Here are the premeses: 1) "Traditional" Brittania places some nations in unhistorical alliances (e.g. Angles and Picts fought a few times, Scots and Romans (and especially Romano-British) shouldn't have been allied, etc.). While these are to some extent inevitable, it is fun once in a while to at least switch them around. 2) Allows play of any number of players, at least in theory. 3) Gives an interesting challenge to players who know the game well. Here are the actual changes (it's pretty small - most of this is just discussion) --- 1. You bid for each nation, in turn. Nations come up for bidding one-by-one. You can bid in standard turn order, but I think it is better to go like this: Saxons, Angles, Danes, Normans, Norweigians, Romans, Welsh, Brigantes, Picts, Scots, Caledonians, Romano-British, Norsemen, Irish, Dubliners, Jutes, Belgae. Every player bids a number of victory points openly in a pre-defined order (with high bid for one people bidding first for the next one) until all other players pass. 2. You have a maximum number of victory points you can bid: 500/(number of players). Therefore, in a four-player game, each player has 125 points to bid before penalties kick in. Each bid over this amount costs double victory points for the incremental amount for the first people you successfully bid on that crosses the threshold. Additional people cost triple points. 3. As you go through the peoples, each player will get a "coalition" of peoples, like they do now. 4. Scoring at the end of the game is simply points scored - points bid. --- Here are some problems I ran into and how I dealt with them: 1) Small coalitions: Someone might bid 4 points for the Jutes, get lucky, and score 10 points, giving them a +6 that might be difficult for other players to beat. Solution: Not too much of a problem. The low-scoring peoples come toward the end. It is a huge risk to play this strategy as it will be obvious to other players, and no one will want one player to get just one highly-variable people cheaply, or, if they do, they will make sure to shut them down (try scoring Jute, Irish, Caledonian, or Brigante points when everyone on the board without exception is gunning for you) Also, most people will score higher points with allies than without. So, someone taking only, say, the Brigantes, will find that his points are more limited for them (and therefore he can't afford to bid as highly) than if he had Brigantes and Picts or Brigantes and Saxons. 2) Large coalitions: The reverse of the previous problem. If I have the Saxons, I can afford to bid more on the Angles than other players, since I can get more points out of them than other players. Once I have Angles and Saxons, I then bid for the Danes and ensure that they all get max points. I can easily bid 45-50 points for the Danes since I will arrange to get tons of Danish points. Solution: A bit bigger of a problem, but part of the fun of the game. The bid limits (e.g. in a 4-player game a player can only bid 125 points before bids cost double) should help sort this out. Also will arouse other players against you (the most extreme combination I can think of is Angles/Saxons/Danes...even with that, other people can make your life hell). Probably the bid-limit ceiling, the penalties, and the bid order could be refined with playtesting. 3) A-historical alliances: Going to happen. But we have them now - at least they will be different. 4) Bidding process will take forever in email. Not much you can do about that - if people are in compatible time zones it probably makes sense for them to agree to go to ICQ channel or an irc chat room for 20 minutes to take care of bidding. --- An example of how the bidding system works, with the limits: 4 player game, players A, B, C, D. -A Bids 60 points for the Saxons. B passes. C bids 61. D, A, and B pass. C Gets Saxons. -C bids 50 points for Angles. Everyone passes. -C bids 50 points for Danes. Everyone passes. D has now successfully bid 160 points (no penalty for unsuccessful bids), which is 35 over his limit. THese 35 points cost double. Now D must win 195 points with his peoples to be "even" -C bids 20 points for Normans. D bids 21 points. A bids 22. B and C pass. D bids 23. A, B, and C pass. D gets Normans. -D bids 20 points for Norweigians. A and B pass. C bids 23 points. If C wins, this will cost him triple. You get the picture.... Anyone want to play? ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details http://click.egroups.com/1/11231/0/_/624690/_/981650033/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Don't forget World E-Britannia Championship, the Britannia PBEM Tournament.