PBW - Two new PARANOIA games

[Bman]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Bman, I am trying to figure out the hunt thing. How is it different than a typical Last man standing game in which the objective is to knock out everybody else? You are given a specific target I guess, but you stated it was ok to knock out a neighbor early if you wish. I am confused.

Geoschmo

The key is that the game will end before the Last man standing. I have not decided on X, but am leaning towards 3. That means the game will end when someone has worked through 3 of their targets. With 10 players, that could be when 7 players are left, or it could indeed come down to Last man standing.

So when you have a big fleet passing by your good ally's undefended homeworld, you have to ask yourself, "Do I backstab him and take his homeworld, thus forcing him to surrender his empire to me and make me stronger? If I do, then I have just brought someone else that much closer to winning the game yet I am no closer to winning, but I am stronger now and better able to kill my targets."

The tricky bit is you do not know which player you will be helping until it is too late. And you do not know who that player's next target is. Perhaps he happens to have a large fleet near his next target's homeworld already? Perhaps his new target is a close ally of his? Perhaps you are his next target? The possibility is good that he could go close the deal before you could do anything to stop him even with your new wealth.

Now it occurs to me that you could go on a rampage and just start killing everyone. The odds are that with 10 players, after 3 kills, you have helped 3 different players once each. After 3 more kills, there are only 4 players left including you. Someone at this point is probably only 1 away from winning.

I will try to map out the target progressions such that an indescriminate rampage against everyone you meet will probably result in you losing.

By only having to take the homeworld and the rest of the empire surrenders to you, I am trying to provide a strong incentive to take random targets of opportunity. The X targets to win limit I am trying to setup to be a counterbalance to keep you from just waging war indiscriminately. Of course, if you are very attentive to the happenings in the galaxy, you could discern who is targetting who, and then be selective in who you kill off as a target of opportunity. It will be possible to kill everyone else in the game regardless of whether they are your target or not, you just have to do it in the right order, kinda like a puzzle.

The fact that your target will change over time will be a nice incentive to break old alliances via the tried-and-true backstab and to also forge new alliances.