KING OF THE HILL - don't believe?

How many points are left now, I reckon you guys must be cutting it fine to try and catch up to the OTHERS.

id team points
3 OTHERs 609
1 Trekkies 474
4 SEVER 325
2 Sherpas 227
5 TEAM 5 50

This game mode needs overtime rule so that if some teams are within a small number of points, the game keeps going until there is say 25% difference.

That way teams will be incentivised to at least get near the leader.

25% could take a long time to achieve! how about 10% or a few hundred points.

Current score
id team points
3 OTHERs 721
1 Trekkies 524
4 SEVER 438
2 Sherpas 344
5 TEAM 5 50

On tick 587 of 840, giving 1012 points still to be won.
Current hill star holdings are Sever = 2, Other = 1, Sherpas = 1.

@Qwerty have you been keeping a running tally of these scores so we can plot a graph over time, or are you just updating the latest score?

Cool to get an update.

Yea, if I were playing, I like the idea of an “overtime” … but agree it needs to be a smaller value so it doesn’t take forever.

I can’t see the game, but sounds like 4 teams are still in the running - glad it’s not a runaway.

I am storing every information every tick.

Technology levels, E/I/S totals, ship totals, star ownership…

ticks ->300 : http://nptriton.cqproject.net/ticks/-300/4610412414763008/stars
ticks 300-> : http://nptriton.cqproject.net/ticks/300-/4610412414763008/stars

the hill star ids are 16,17,112,117.

See how exactly the API works here. See the “usage” part at the bottom.

#edit

Here you go :slight_smile:

My verdict on the game…
Too long.
Next time have less hill stars (one or two).
Should be a point penalty for capturing home stars (one point per hour).

Yes, there was a two week period where hill positions were static. A shorter game, plus fewer hill stars per team. But I like the optionality inherent in multiple hill stars. Maybe 1 star for every 2-3 teams?

I don’t think the safe hw rule works in practice, since once a player is reduced to just his hw recovery is next to impossible and its presence is just a nuisance. You have to really stack it (say 50 ind) to make it worthwhile, then penalize occupation as @eDave described.

The admin should be very forgiving above letting afk-ers back in. Even better would be to allow a substitute. AFK is brutal to team games

Trading between teams for sure.

#The game has ended!
Cycle 30, Tick 840

##Final score

##Final map

##Points scored by person

SELECT COUNT(a.puid) AS "points scored", b.uid AS "player id", b.alias AS "alias", tuid, team FROM stars_owners_rel a LEFT JOIN players b ON a.puid = b.uid AND a.game_number = b.game_number LEFT JOIN stars c ON a.suid = c.uid AND a.game_number = c.game_number LEFT JOIN __koth_teams kt ON kt.puid = b.uid WHERE a.game_number = 4610412414763008 AND a.suid IN (16,17,112,117) AND b.uid NOT IN (NULL, 3, 16) GROUP BY a.puid ORDER BY "points scored" DESC

##Stars owned by team, tick 840
I wanted to show this particular table, because OTHERs managed to finish second even with only 2 stars left. The other 5 stars were theirs AFK teammate. They would have won probably…

SELECT COUNT(a.suid) AS "stars", tuid, team FROM stars_owners_rel a LEFT JOIN players b ON a.puid = b.uid AND a.game_number = b.game_number LEFT JOIN stars c ON a.suid = c.uid AND a.game_number = c.game_number LEFT JOIN __koth_teams kt ON kt.puid = b.uid WHERE tick = 840 AND a.game_number = 4610412414763008 AND b.uid NOT IN (NULL, 3, 16) GROUP BY tuid ORDER BY stars DESC

##Leaderboard and Player stats

*The infrastructure value is a special number which tries to compare the value of stars a player has with other players. The value takes into account the increasing cost of infrastructure and thus is saying much more than star totals.

##Team stats

I am sorry, I didn’t notice OTHER Horizon came back… I would have reinstated him at once if he told me. I thought his stars better remain under AI control, otherwise they would be too easy to take by his enemies.

Yes, HWs are too weak. Their strength should increase together with the strength of nearby stars, but that’s unfeasible, because of the Infrastructure costs… On the other hand, I think that players should get eliminated, because the game isnt fun when you are reduced to just 1 star.

Trading between teams - not sure about that. We have played few team games already, they were with trade restrictions and it worked. But I must admit that it would introduce new tactics.

I have no idea if Horizon returned, and didn’t mean to imply that he did. I’m sure you would have reinstated him. I merely meant to highlight that, while AFK is a factor in every game, it is particularly disruptive in a team game. As it was in this game.

I think a team game is a winner-take-all format. Just like a tournament game. As such, all alliances between teams are temporary, backstabbing is to be expected, but many times teams must work together temporarily in order to advance mutual interest. All diplomatic tools should be available, including trading.

Thanks again for organising. I will give a “lab rat” badge to all who participated.

QWERTY, let me know if you want me to mess around with victory points or anything like that as well.

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@JayKyburz , Oh yes, that would be great! I’ve written you in personal hangout, I think you should find it in your email as well. It was this account.

Was wondering what that badge was!

Despite my…issues, I’d like to improve the game and would like to play again when we can figure out a better way and learn from this game.

  1. stronger HW
  2. one hill star
  3. 16 stars per player - one of my teammates was “locked in” from the start.
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Great! This is what I wanted to hear.
I always appreciate your input :slight_smile:

  1. Stronger HW - definitely. I wanted to make them stronger, but changed for some reason before the final design.

  2. My opinion is, that there should be at least 2 stars for a 5 team game, in other words, I think the number of stars should be lesser than half of teams.

  3. Well, that’s a possibility, though, I liked the limited number of stars, makes them more valuable and there are also less ships and stuff and you can focus on -non easy- plotting.

Heh, love the lab rat badge!

Once again Qwerty, great game thanks for the efforts and it really was enjoyable.

Here’s my two cents on what might be worth a try in the next one:

  1. Stronger HW to kickstart the game
  2. Severe penalties but no prohibition on takeing HW’s (this would assuage the guerilla tactics that the Severs suffered from, even though this itself was pretty cool). Holding an enemy’s HW for the entirety of the game should essentially guarantee a loss for your team.
  3. Multiple Hill Stars for sure (oh and a prohibition on renaming them - confusing!)
  4. Full trade options - facilitates diplomacy
  5. No alliances between teams - that was a good mechanism - only informal tactical alliances (as we saw in the inaugural game).
  6. Points awarded for merely capturing a Hill star. Not a lot, not enough so that is someone’s primary strategy, but something so last-ditch heroics are encouraged. Would mix up the end-game a bit.

Anyway, that’s about all I have at the moment, but once again, a fun game mode and one I’m definitely interested in trying again.

PS Qwerty, your stats were amazing too (and I was the infrastructure leader, so I’m a bit biased :wink: ) . If you’re interested, I’d be happy to volunteer to try to implement some charts in JS. I’ve been working on a burn-down chart for work that could be easily modified to draw some of your stats. Ping me in Hangouts/email if that sounds cool.

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Symmetrical Rings layout. Or a greater density of stars. There were many holes on the map.

Also hill stars with low resources.

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Awesome sounding game - thanks everyone for being the “lab rats” on it! :wink:

P.S. A Turn-based game (6/10?) would be fun (sign me up!) … and if you only counted the “hill point” at the turn point, it would make for some interesting strategy - i.e. do I take at the 6 hour point … or wait until 1 hour after to get weapons from my teammate.

Yes! Hill Stars shouldn’t be particularly valuable in their own right. I had forgotten that. If they are, it just reinforces whoever has the inital advantage.

Maybe they could be middling or slightly better than average, but surely they shouldn’t be stacked the way they were.

I’ve set up a uservote, let’s try this. Post your ideas there! :slight_smile:

Let the voting begin, http://nptriton.uservoice.com/