Economy, Supply Cap, Turtling, and Predictabiliy

[CombatEX]

(11-21-2013 05:47 AM)game_taker Wrote:  So far some of the other ideas given by CombatEX and brayton would add complexity into the game rules which would ruin the brilliant simplicity that Outwitters currently has.

As you may be aware, I agree with your basic premise but I'm afraid that based on OML's statements the only direction for Outwitters 2 is a game with added complexity. Perhaps I misunderstood, but Adam said that they would probably only do a sequel if they have a compelling enough way to mix up the formula. Personally this isn't what I want from the sequel if it means what I think it means. I want Outwitters 2 to basically be Outwitters 1 but with extra features, not changed core gameplay.

However, I still do think that my suggestions can be done in a way that doesn't add much complexity. Alvendor put it well.

(11-21-2013 06:33 AM)Alvendor Wrote:  I really like the idea of different values of wit spaces to increase to number of attack paths on the maps. Maybe a compromise between that and simplicity is to not make them upgradable but have different kinds. Wit spaces in the back of the map that are not usually attacked would give 2 or 3 wits making them high priority targets.

As I say in my original post, I feel Outwitters would benefit greatly from an increase in the number of viable attack paths. I'm not sure that the compromise Alvendor proposes - simply making 'safe' witspaces worth more would be enough to encourage attacking them, but it's possible this could work and it would be less complicated. If this really is enough, then I'd gladly take this over my original suggestion. The only reason for the tiered witspace approach is because I'm not sure that a simple flat increase is enough. Hopefully we'll be able to try this though =)

As for the supply cap change, I honestly think this is just an obvious move to decrease turtling and ever so marginally increases complexity. It's still very intuitive and fits within the simple nature of Outwitters. That is - units take up supply equal to their wit cost and you have a maximum supply that you can support on the board at any given time. When Outwitters first came out there were proposals to limit the number of specials to a hard cap. I was opposed to this as it's a seemingly arbitrary restriction and also counter to the simple nature of the game (only one unit has a limit while the rest don't?). However, though I disagreed with the solution, the reason for this proposal was understandable. It's not as exciting playing a turtle game in general and especially against Scallywags who build a ton of bombshells. The supply cap would still give you flexibility to choose what composition of units you think is important, but also make too many bombshells undesirable as it limits your ability to make other units to support them.

Just imagine SvS on Peakaboo if it were only viable to get out a couple bombshells. I think most of us who have been in 100/200+ turn games would welcome this change.

The rest of this I've already said before so but if you missed it, beyond fixing Scallywag related problems, the limit on unit production from a supply cap would also have the potential to create more action in general. When you hit the supply cap, you can't spend wits on making more units so instead you have more wits to spend on movement and attacking. This encourages more mobilization of your units and trades instead of just sitting around. Combine this with additional targets created by a change to witspaces (increased value for safer wit spaces) and you have more reasons to move around the map along different routes.