Increasing turn speed

[Narrew]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Also, the supporters of poo on the stick seems loud, this might be the winning idea!

Yea, and large Cometary Poo and the capitalistic repercussions to T.P. stock holders.

[Ruatha]

I've been running an Turn league on NGC3 for 3.5 turns now. There will be no repercussions for negative points.
It's just a list with no direct implications.
So far this is the result:
------------------------------------------

Current standing in the "Turn league" 2403.4:
First three players to submit +1 pts, Last but one -1 pts and Last player to upload -2 pts.

Player.................Points
Slick 1
Warlord Ragnarok 1
Bjork 1
Teal 1
Roanon 1
Tnarg 1
Perrin 1
Narrew 1
Unkown Enemy 1
Kachoo 1
Ruatha 0
Thermodyne 0
Capt RR 0
Cory 0
Cyrien 0
Albator 0
Spunky Jones 0
Captain Greybeard 0
Tbontob -1
SWizzardS -6

[ June 09, 2003, 11:59: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ragnarok]

I just wanted to post that I enjoy the idea of the turn submition league you put together. It adds something else to the game to keep track of and makes it more enjoyable.

[Fyron]

Ruatha, the issue with timezones is that when the majority of players are in the same timezone (as happens a lot), they will always be the first to submit, and the other players will usually end up being Last. If only one player is the odd one out, he might be able to average to 0. But since several players will get positive point values each turn, the odd one out will eventually have to be kicked. If there are more than one players in the opposing time zone(s), then it gets worse, as the second to Last player could often never have the chance to submit first and cancel out the negatives, and so would end up getting kicked. Several of the games I have been in have caused me to be one of the Last to submit each turn simply because the turn processes while I am asleep and most all of the other players are awake when it processes.

[Katchoo]

Probably the best thing to do would be to list the top 3 fastest players, and the players who have missed a turn without any explanation. Everyone else can live in amonimity.

As Fyron pointed out, differing timezones can be a problem. Another problem can be those of us who like sleeping in until noon, thus missing out on those early morning new turn files in our mailbox

Truthfully, the only people who should be getting negative points are those who miss their turns without explanation. Regardless of intention, putting negatives next to the names of people who upload Last but well within the deadline creates an unfair image of those individuals.

I'm sure this has already been said to death in this thread, but i'm too slovenly to remember what's already been said, let alone read all the prior Posts again. Viva la lazy!

[geoschmo]

There is really only one way to make turns faster on a consistant basis. Play games with fewer number of players. There is an inverse relationship between the number of players and the length of turn time. You can't really get around it.

If you like games with more players play a game with 4 humans and a bunch of TDM races. Or give the AI bonus, or both.

The all human 20 players/24 hours turns game I am running has gone over 90 turns now and possibly a half dozen of those turns have run with all turns in. There is always one or another player missing a turn. I don't even think about it unless someoen misses several turns in a row.

It's really not fair to rate players on who is faster or slower getting the turns in. Aside from the programming complexity, the reason we never did anything with a turn speed rating on PBW is because the more we thought about it the less fair it seemed to be.

I agree players should normally not be penalized for anything other then missing a turn without notice. If you wanted to go farther then that you could strongly encourage the Last player each turn to do their next turn right away once the turn processes.

So to sum up:

Play with fewer human players.
Do not tolerate players missing turns without notice.
Strongly encourage players playing Last to play both turns.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

How about something more like:
+1 for submitting first
+1 for submitting in the first half of the turn limit (IE: on day 1 of a 48-hour-turns game, or within 12 hours of a 24-hour-turns game)
-3 for submitting after the deadline (applicable to ALPU and No-Auto games)
-10 for unexplained absence. (per turn missed)

Where the modifiers fully stack.