Bidding System - Specifics

[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.

[Turin]

Wouldn´t it be better to implement a second prize auction?

That way there would be no need to bid in a strategic way and you could simply bid the maximum amount which a nation is worth to you. Might also provide more insights into the way players perceive nation balance.

[DrPraetorious]

My only problem with that is that people will have a tendency to bid on their friends, or on *players* they think are not a threat. Also, you have to handle the second round of bidding, which takes extra time.

How's this for prizes -
People # (players / 4) or less get 3 prizes.
People # (players / 2) or less get 2 prizes.
People # (players * 3 / 4) or less get 1 prize.
People above the 75% get no prizes.

For 10 players, that would be:
1,2 - 3
3,4,5 - 2
6,7 - 1
8,9,10 - 0

How's that?

[Turin]

DrPraetorious said:
My only problem with that is that people will have a tendency to bid on their friends, or on *players* they think are not a threat. Also, you have to handle the second round of bidding, which takes extra time.

I don´t really get what you mean.
I´d propose the following mechanism for a second prize auction:
1. Each player makes bids for all nations.

2. Assign nation 1:
The nation which got the highest total bid gets assigned to the player who made that bid. That player has to pay an amount in population equal to the second highest bid.
Then the remaining bids of that player and the remaining bids for the nation he chose get removed from the bidding process.

3. Assign nation 2
Repeat step 2 with the remaining nations and bids until all nations are assigned.

Unless I´m really missing something it should be optimal for each player to bid his reservation value on each nation.

[Micah]

I do like the pretender point system better than the population one, actually. Granted LE Ermor's points aren't worth as much as other nations, but that's ok, since Ermor's bids only interact with other bids for Ermor. The customization that pretender design allows for is also more versatile than a simple population adjustment (although resource-needy nations can't take production 4 no matter how many points they have). The one thing I don't like about the pretender-bid system other than the extra administration hassle of god-checking isn't a balance issue. You can only bid lower for the pretender points, so you're basically bidding on how much of a handicap you can live with, and everyone knows that getting new toys is a lot more fun than losing the ones you have.

Ironhawk's point about large games with lots of bonus prizes is also very valid, a 450% larger starting force for being the last nation is a pretty hefty bonus compared to the guy that got nation number 10 with no bonus picks. I don't like the introduction of so much randomness into the bids, either, because being able to bid on Ulm with a mine is vastly different than Ulm without a mine, and there's no sure way to tell which one you'll get when you bid. In essence the bonus becomes more important than the "real" bid on population.

Offering the prizes in trade for population (say 2500 pop for an iron mine, maybe) seems like a good compromise, so you could control what setup you'd get. To control for other people's perceptions of the power of a nation how about this: A nation's starting population is equal to

40,000 - (.5 of the winner's bid + .5 of the average of other bids on that nation)

This keeps the bidding for a nation relative only to its own strengths, so everyone can go ahead and bid max for LE Ermor and it won't really impact the other nations. It also gives a much more gradual balance curve, since with the bonus picks a nation can get a significant bonus because of a very small difference in bids, while with this system two nations that are bid on nearly the same will have nearly the same starting bonus. By halving the winner's bid it ensures that when you pick a nation you'll have at least as many resources as you bid (which is essential to formulating a workable strategy), but you could have up to 150% as much as you bid once the results are in if everyone else thinks your nation sucks.

Just some more thoughts.

Oh, and Ironhawk, bidding 40,000 on Abysia would be about the same as suiciding your starting army and sitting there waiting to get taken over, which people can do without any help from a bid system or anything else...if someone wants to ruin the game by not playing it's not really very hard to do.

[Ironhawk]

Yes, they can ruin themselves without the help of a bidding system. But this bidding system particularly lends itself to people shooting themselves in the foot since it effects thier starting population.