Picking & locating the team members if LT34 is a team game

Post by **wieder** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:07 pm

How about this.

We will decide that there will be n teams. Then we will make random teams. This process with creating n random teams is repeated 5 times and then we will pick the one that's most fair.

How to pick the most fair one is another question. It could be done with a vote and perhaps let someone who is not playing make the final decision.

How to locate the teams? I would prefer random locations because picking the locations is another game and a good player doing the picking can really get some serious advantage with that. Any other ideas besides the method used in LT32?

Post by **wieder** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 9:24 am

If the random teams are not enough, we could allow some re-arranging of the teams.

We could add an option for teams to swap players in other teams. If we have 5 teams, a,b,c,d and e the team a could pick a player from team b,c,d, or e and swap it with team b,c,d or e. This would prevent the swapping team to pick good players from other teams and if the starting locations would be random there would be less interest to create one weak team someone could easily conquer.

Team A would do it first but every team would get a chance to swap a player between the other teams and this could be repeated several times if needed.

This is not how it's decided to be. I'm asking for opinions if this would work.

Post by **Corbeau** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:29 am

How about making it simple. Someone mentioned it in the chat, I'm just repeating it: Pick "team leaders", they choose players for their team one by one, probably strongest first. End of story.

Post by **wieder** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:07 pm

That was used in LT32 and not everyone liked the outcome that much. I would like trying something else.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:02 pm

How about this:
3 players per team.
3x higher research cost.
alliances can be assembled across teams.
pooled research only within pre-configured team (if that's possible...).
no tech exchange outside alliance.
randomly shuffled teams
no uninforceable (defacto ignored) rules about # of winners,etc

Post by **Corbeau** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 3:19 pm

So, let me get this straight: a lot of people want a team game, but can't agree on how teams should be assembled?

Just checking, teams have to be decided before start, right?

Post by **wieder** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:46 pm

Almost everyone would like to start as soon as possible = early January and they would also like to use Freeciv 2.5. That however will be out in February.

The teams for a team game will be needed before the game starts.

kevin551 · Post by **kevin551** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:21 pm

wieder wrote:... picking the locations is another game and a good player doing the picking can really get some serious advantage.

True, but why is that a bad thing. Isn't this supposed to be a strategy game.

Example - In LT32 Kryon's team had a terrible time because they had a bad starting position. It was not random.
Afterwards Kryon had this to say

Kryon wrote:Our team had the worst starting locations. We were split into 4 separate locations and that made it really hard for us to survive. And as the team leader, I blame mostly myself for this

Is it really a better game if the losing team has a terrible time because they randomly had a bad starting position.
Example after LT34 finishes the losing team states

Losers wrote:Our team had the worst starting locations. We were split into 4 separate locations and that made it really hard for us to survive. And as the team leader, I blame Wieder for choosing random starting locations

Post by **wieder** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:58 pm

Yeah, they can blame me for that

There are some issues with picking the locations in a pre-game picking game.

First the map is known to everyone and that rules out exploring the world. Second, the location pickings are really one game that takes place before the actual Freeciv game. Those two (first picking and then moving for xxx turns) are od course played as one game as in LT32 but as Kryon pointed out, losing the picking game greatly contributed them to losing the actual Freeciv game where you move units and stuff.

Very few players commented about the bad random locations in LT30, LT31 and LT33. Some yes, but not too many. At least there was exploring involved.

Has there been a team game with random locations in the past and how did that turn out?

el_perdedor · Post by **el_perdedor** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:32 pm

how bout the same island or island complex each team and that that island is the same for every team.
so it is the choice of the team where who starts, but there is no advantage of the type of terrain you have.
also if each team is on a island, means that for the first say bout 15 turns, there is just peace, good to make a stragety.
so yeah that.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 3:21 am

I vote against having the same selection process for teams and start positions. I didn't like how the pre-game became a strategy game, and then once game started many players were micromanaging how to choke settlers, etc. I vote for randomly shuffled teams.

I don't think the team size matters, because teams will ally with other teams anyway.. so if you start with teams of 3, they are going to grow into the same as they would for bigger team sizes.. Smaller team size= less complication in beginning, more exploration, and more possibilities for early attacking.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 3:25 am

.. also, I think it will be nice surprise to see who is on team, rather than knowing exactly what team, location, revealed map, start positions of every player, etc.,.

edrim · Post by **edrim** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:31 pm

As I will not play a team game, i think i can make quite nice pregame for team leaders to pick their locations.
For eg. it will not be map reveal but i will only make a screen with locations without terian and ocean.
Leaders will know where are the picking spots are but they will not know what resources and terian is there.
And it will be not known for everyone where is everyone else except team leaders will know where they put his teammates.
I know this is less understadable but i will write whole system in best easy way to get it.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:16 am

edrim wrote:I will not play a team game

I won't either. I will only play if not teams! That makes two, anyone else in?

StratThinker · Post by **StratThinker** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:35 am

I really like the idea of teams so that I have someone to learn from, but idlers made LT32 not so nice; some team suffered from idlers, while others benefited by delegating for their idlers. I cannot think of a way around this which is not more complicated than one of the point system for limiting allaince size, hence I vote for a teamless game.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:26 pm

StratThinker wrote:I really like the idea of teams so that I have someone to learn from, but idlers made LT32 not so nice; some team suffered from idlers, while others benefited by delegating for their idlers. I cannot think of a way around this which is not more complicated than one of the point system for limiting allaince size, hence I vote for a teamless game.

well, I guess I will also play if it's team game

.. but as I stated on other forum topic, i would prefer teamless or very small teams!

btw, how is it going with the ladder war game? Is it nearing completion?

Post by **wieder** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 6:30 pm

Seems like most people who want to have a team game would want to have one because that would allow them to be in a same team with the more experienced players. Lots of experienced players are not that interested about team games of they would want to decide who is in the team. There are also some players who are experienced and would like to play a team game but at the same time I got some comments saying how the teams picked by the team leaders felt random for the players.

Players picking the teams (Maho's algorithm) is also said to have an issue with the good players teaming up together.

I was previously 80% sure LT34 was going to be a team game but here we have lots of stuff explaining why it shouldn't be that. Maybe we will need some more comments from players who want to have a team game?

All this talk won't be delaying the game. If we can't agree on some detail, I will decide about that so that the discussion won't take forever.

ifaesfu · Post by **ifaesfu** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:16 pm

I think it should be a team game by tradition. I prefer random picking and placing.
To make the teams: Use the ranking. New players or players who aren't in the ranking yet would go to the bottom of the list. Then, if there were 40 players for size 4 teams, the ranking list would be divided into 4 parts, so that each team get a player from 1st-10th, 11th-20th, 21th-30th and 31th-40th. Optionally there could be a chance to change the teams but only swapping players from the same "level".

edrim · Post by **edrim** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 10:19 am

Can we decide if it will be a team game or teamless before all rest discussion, because there is no option to discuss settings if we dont know if it is team or teamless.

Post by **wieder** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 10:29 am

Yes, we should decide that.

Let's say that this decision will be made by Wednesday. Currently it looks like it will be a teamless game after all because there are lots of disagreement about how the teams and locations should be decided. Some deadline must be decided for the final decision and now we have it.

A tradition and some players learning from the old ones is not good enough if those issues are not solved and if lots of players really don't want to play a team game.

The most important thing we are trying to do is to have a fun game and a game that's enjoyable for as many people as possible.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 11:57 am

You really should set up a poll system. If 1/3 of people want a team game, they should have it at least 1/3 of the time. Dictatorship of the majority is not the way to go.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:06 pm

Well, if people are not organised and don't know what tehy want, that's another problem.

mmm2 · Post by **mmm2** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:19 pm

Corbeau wrote:Well, if people are not organised and don't know what tehy want, that's another problem.

I prefer random teamless or random team game. I like small size teams, because that allows flexibility for teams to ally with other teams. If initial teams are size 8+ then it's too big to form alliances with other teams. So it would lead to such situation as with Lt32 where teams form fake agreements and ceasefires with other teams.

Post by **wieder** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:36 pm

We simply can't set up polls for LT34. This may be different in the future but now it's a no go.

Sorry about the wall of text I'm posting here

I know lots of people would like to see polls and I myself would like to see those as a tool for measuring the interest for certain option. We also know that there is interest for both game types. Teamless games and those with teams. The decision will be made by Wednesday and if LT34 is not going to be a team game, there is nothing preventing LT35 from being a team game. Besides if 1/3 of the people are those who want to have a team game, LT35 being a team game would quite fairly serve that purpose since LT32 was a team game.

The admins sometimes need to make the final decisions and obviously not everyone will be happy with the outcome. However this is the same with the decisions that are based on polls only. Some people will be unsatisfied no matter what. This is one more reason why I don't feel that the polls should be the primary tool for deciding about the settings.

The difference between making decisions and dictatorship comes in the form of comments and discussion. This is also the reason why it looks like I can't decide or make instant decisions. Listening what people say and what they really want to get is not that straight forward and usually comes with issues because there can be conflicting outcomes with the polls. I'm happy to be wrong about stuff if people can explain why I was about to make a wrong call. It's not possible to make the right decisions if you avoid the possible wrong ones at all costs and never just make the decision even if everyone doesn't agree with it.

I currently have a very strong feeling that we should need to have more discussion about how to set up the teams. Selecting the people with who you play with sounds like a simple process but it's anything but that and we have lots of people frustrated with all the proposed options. The options are team leaders picking team members (LT32 way), team members picking the teams (Maho's algorithm), random teams, random teams with the most fair one selected, very small teams with more than one team winning the game and also teams with good players getting less teammates. None of those became very popular and I can understand why.

The fundamental problem is new players having hard time allying with the experienced ones because they may start idling or just playing a traditional lone wolf game while ignoring the rest of the team. This happened also with LT32 and would probably happen too often in the future if we can't figure out the best possible system for people to get good teammates they like to play with.

In the past polls worked reasonably well on LT because most of the players were old ones and they apparently had fairly similar view about how to play. With all that there has been lots of flame wars and I honestly think that akfaew made the best possible decision when he no longer used to polls for making decisions but asked about opinions and made the decisions based on his views and on the views of those people who were able to explain why something should be changed.