Bidding System - Specifics

[DrPraetorious]

wfb - Niefelheim would have a population of 28000 (you only pay the bid that actually goes through.)

LoloMo - you absolutely must bid for 10 nations. You could bid something like:

nationA 12,000
nationB 9
nationC 8
...
nationJ 1

Note that since you only pay the winning bid, and you want the total bids for opponent's nations to be high, it is to your advantage to bid something on all nine nations, provided you actually do get your first choice.

[LoloMo]

Seems like a workable system. The bidding process is like a game unto itself, each bidder has to think really carefully.

When do we test this out? =)

[LoloMo]

What happens if a player bids the highest for say 3 nations?

[Micah]

Lolo-

He gets the one he bid the most on (and he can't bid the same amount on 2 nations).

My question is what do you do about LE Ermor? They don't really care much about their capital's population.

Likewise, some resource-intensive nations might get skewed, since you have to rely on other people bidding low to get the iron mine bonus, which won't happen if people all decide to bid fairly high on, say, MA Ulm, realizing that they can take a lower gold:resource ratio and do fine...the person that ends up with them will end up in a bad spot not because people all thoght Ulm was awesome enough to overcome, but because they thought they'd get some bonuses to compensate for it being crappy.

Finally, people tend to have nation preferences that are independant of balance. Some people simply don't want to play, say, LE Rlyeh because they don't like the feel of it, which again will skew the bidding, giving the person that does end up with it a big boost since everyone else bid low to avoid getting it.

I like the idea a lot, and I know every system has flaws, so I'm not trying to nitpick, I'm just pointing out what I see as potential problems so that maybe someone can come up with a tweak to fix them, or just tell me I'm being overly anal. =)

[LoloMo]

Micah, I think if lots of people bid high on MA Ulm in your example, then it probably means Ulm with the iron mine bonus is pretty much in demand.

To prevent extreme imbalances due to LE Rlyeh theme unpopularity for example, a suggestion would be to have a second or third round of bidding, where you can adjust your bid upwards (upwards only never downwards, and by a minimum of 30% higher than the winning bid).

The more rounds of bidding the lower the minimum bid increase can be. But a lot of work to tally it though unless it is automated.

Edit: Can also limit the second and successive bidding rounds to submitting only one increased bid per player.

[Velusion]

In the past I've proposed a bidding system based on Pretender Points - as they are worth about the same to every nation - were population might not be.

I've always liked the idea of a bidding system though.

[Ironhawk]

Seems like a decent Sealed-Bid Auction protocol. I like how you are betting population, that was a nice touch. But you should keep in mind that a player could completely ruin thier nation in this fashion, ie: I bid 40,000 (all my pop!!) for Abysia. It might seem like poetic justice to rob that person of all thier pop, but it will make for a bad game due to the power vacuum it will create.

Additionally, I am not sure the prize system functions as you add more players. Consider an 18 player game (that is max in dom3, i think?). If I am the least bid on nation, then I will receive 9 prizes. What happens if I choose the troop prize every time? I will end up with 450% more troops than everyone else!

[DrPraetorious]

Pretender points are not worth the same to every nation - LE Ermor, for example, could care less, frankly.

The issue with bidding pretender points is that it is difficult to engineer. You have to figure out some way to open people's pretender files and look at the contents. This bidding system is done entirely with the map editor.

I agree that water-based nations are a problem. It could be as simple as: water nations do not ever get the bonuses (but you still have to bid on them.) It should also be noted that since I use maps with fixed #s of start sites, the # of water positions would be fixed - so if there's a water start site, everyone must bid *something* on a water position, in case they are stuck with it.