Players needed for an experimental game

[Tuna-Fish]

Sounds fun, I'm in.

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I'm afraid I don't understand at all, sorry.

I'll try to clarify a bit. Of cource, what i say might all be fubar, but I'll just take the chance

1. Do you mean by "assassin" that my job will be to eliminate a specific opponent nation (either by out-preaching or by conquering all provinces)?

correct, as far as i undrestand it

2. Is this correct: If my first choice was, say, Caelum, and I get "assigned" my first choice by the algorithm you mentioned in your first post, then my job will be to assassinate Caelum and I will do this by playing the nation which the Caelum player originally wanted to play?

...no
Let's say your first choise was caelum, and your victim's first choise was abysia. Your victim plays with the abysia that was created by you, and you will play with the caelum that was created by your assasin. Thus everyone knows everything about their victim and nothing about their assasin.

3. To be honest, I can't remember at all which pretender designs I sent in; this was a very busy week. Does that matter?

Well, knowing exactly the design of the guy you are supposed to take out would be very helpful, but it's not really mandatory

4. If I know whom I am supposed to "assassinate", won't they know who it is that is supposed to assassinate them (because I will be playing the nation which they wanted)?

No, because you will play the nation you wanted. Simply

Thanks for clarifying, sorry if I am slow today
Np

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by Tuna-Fish:
Sounds fun, I'm in.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I'm afraid I don't understand at all, sorry.

I'll try to clarify a bit. Of cource, what i say might all be fubar, but I'll just take the chance

1. Do you mean by "assassin" that my job will be to eliminate a specific opponent nation (either by out-preaching or by conquering all provinces)?

correct, as far as i undrestand it

2. Is this correct: If my first choice was, say, Caelum, and I get "assigned" my first choice by the algorithm you mentioned in your first post, then my job will be to assassinate Caelum and I will do this by playing the nation which the Caelum player originally wanted to play?

...no
Let's say your first choise was caelum, and your victim's first choise was abysia. Your victim plays with the abysia that was created by you, and you will play with the caelum that was created by your assasin. Thus everyone knows everything about their victim and nothing about their assasin.

3. To be honest, I can't remember at all which pretender designs I sent in; this was a very busy week. Does that matter?

Well, knowing exactly the design of the guy you are supposed to take out would be very helpful, but it's not really mandatory

4. If I know whom I am supposed to "assassinate", won't they know who it is that is supposed to assassinate them (because I will be playing the nation which they wanted)?

No, because you will play the nation you wanted. Simply

Thanks for clarifying, sorry if I am slow today
Np

---

Ah, thanks! How dim of me... Well, I *hope* that my victim has similar tastes as I do...!

[tinkthank]

Well I suppose I could try to dig my mail out of the "sent" folder, that should work -- thanks!

I had sort of hoped it wouldn't be a "You play someone else's build" game -- I don't dislike such games because I feel "cheated", but I can't imagine me feeling "chez moi" in someone else's design. But ah well -- should still be very interesting!
look forward to receiving a turn soon...!

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I'm afraid I don't understand at all, sorry.

Sorry for not being clear enough...

1. Do you mean by "assassin" that my job will be to eliminate a specific opponent nation (either by out-preaching or by conquering all provinces)?

Sort of - your job will be to make sure this nation is eliminated, however how this is carried out has no effect on the scores. If it's eliminated because of another nation, you'll still get full points.

2. Is this correct: If my first choice was, say, Caelum, and I get "assigned" my first choice by the algorithm you mentioned in your first post, then my job will be to assassinate Caelum and I will do this by playing the nation which the Caelum player originally wanted to play?
I don't understand which race it is I will be playing and against whom.

Maybe an example will help:

Assume there are 4 players, A, B, C and D, and preference lists are shortened to 4 entries for clarity.

A's preferences are:
1 - Ulm
2 - Man
3 - Caelum
4 - Ermor

B's prefs:
1 - Caelum
2 - Ermor
3 - Man
4 - Abysia

C's prefs:
1 - Man
2 - Abysia
3 - Caelum
4 - Ulm

D's prefs:
1 - Man
2 - Caelum
3 - Ulm
4 - Ermor

Let's call A's Ulm design Ulm-A, and so on.

Now let's see which nations will be played. A will get Ulm and B will get Caelum, since noone else chose them as 1st picks. C and D are competing for Man, so none of them will get it. Instead C will get Abysia, since it's still free, and D will Ermor, since his 2nd and 3rd picks are already used by another player.

So the nations and designs will be Ulm-A, Caelum-B, Abysia-C, and Ermor-D.

Now let's decide who kills who: A -> B -> C -> D -> A (A is B's assassin, etc.)

So in the end the player setup will be:

A plays Ermor-D (the Ermor that was designed by D)
B plays Ulm-A
C plays Caelum-B
D plays Abysia-C

The designs will be remade so Ermor-D uses A's password, and so on.

OFC, when the game starts, noone knows who plays what, the only info each player has is the design of his victim's nation.

3. To be honest, I can't remember at all which pretender designs I sent in; this was a very busy week. Does that matter?

I'll send everyone his victim's nation design with the first turn.

4. If I know whom I am supposed to "assassinate", won't they know who it is that is supposed to assassinate them (because I will be playing the nation which they wanted)?

Nope, it's their own victim that will play the nation they wanted.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I had sort of hoped it wouldn't be a "You play someone else's build" game -- I don't dislike such games because I feel "cheated", but I can't imagine me feeling "chez moi" in someone else's design. But ah well

Well, you should see that as an extra incentive to kill your victim, since it 'stole' the nation you wanted to play.

[En Forcer]

oh oh...my assassin is going to be stoked....I made some really decent pretenders....

geez....

Okay, let's see if we can make this work! I'm in...

[PvK]

I pretty much guessed what Nagot had in mind. (However I did choose pretenders I thought were good and that I would want to play myself. And no, I'm not the one who was talking to Norfleet. )

Sounds fun. I'm in.

BTW, I was in a fun and interesting game like this of Space Empires IV Gold. It's a bit easier there in that you can share star systems and fly through foreign positions as long as you have a peace treaty. It's also harder in Space Empires, because of the ability to give things to threatened victims to keep them alive. It got perverse at the end, though, because it was a "game over when the first one dies" game, and the first threatened victim player tried to use reverse psychology by refusing to rebuild himself "my weakness makes me strong", which sort of worked but ultimately backfired. I managed to keep them alive and make myself strong enough to stay alive, but then the race trying to kill me got frustrated at my defenses and blackmailed me to scuttle my defenses or he would end the game by backstabbing the weakest victim. I refused and attacked the blackMailer, the weak victim refused help, and my assassin then killed the weak victim, even though it meant giving the win to the weak victim's assassin.

Fortunately, in this game it won't be possible to trivially keep a weak player alive, and the point system means it's not so "all or nothing". However there is still the interesting element that it is in no one's interest to assassinate anyone except their target, and that target probably won't be a neighbor at first.

I have a question about the scoring though. Supposedly it's intentional that two killers can win... but I don't see how. I only see that a 2nd or 3rd killer can win if all previous killers are dead, but no way to tie.

PvK

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Are you really as untrusting and sceptical as you make yourself appear in your Posts or is this merely a witty and ironic masquerade for the good-natured philanthropic person you really are?

I can be a nice guy, but I'm also just as skeptical and untrusting as I appear, if not more so. It's a trait that has kept me alive. If I wasn't this way, I'd already be dead.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by PvK:
I have a question about the scoring though. Supposedly it's intentional that two killers can win... but I don't see how. I only see that a 2nd or 3rd killer can win if all previous killers are dead, but no way to tie.

It's possible for 2 players (A and B) to cooperate so that A scores 6 for the first kill, and B scores 4 + 2 for the 2nd and 3rd kills. Remember X -> Y -> Z becomes X -> Z when Y is eliminated, therefore everyone will always have exactly 1 victim and 1 assassin.

The funny part is you have no way to know who your new victim will be before your current victim is eliminated - unless that victim talks too much OFC . So in the above scenario it's possible that B realizes A is his new victim after he killed the first one.

I forgot to mention I'll keep an eye on the game's progress, so as soon as someone is eliminated I can notify the assassin who his new victim is.

[Tannath]

Sounds really fun. Count me in