FG: Battleships

[Adagio]

Players so far:

Sparrowhawk
snoopy369
alva
DrSpike
duke o' york
Asmodean
Dauphin
Lord Nuclear

So how do you guys want to play this game?

[DrSpike]

Well you must have an idea of how it might work.

[Adagio]

As posted earlier I do have a few ideas how to play it, but I want to know how you want to play it
Do you prefer that we wait for enough people to join a tournament, or should we just do it with "free play"

[Asmodean]

Sounds like a good idea...I'm in.

Asmodean

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Adagio
As posted earlier I do have a few ideas how to play it, but I want to know how you want to play it
Do you prefer that we wait for enough people to join a tournament, or should we just do it with "free play"

Well 1 match between two players to test the FG treatment sounds prudent.

[alva]

How about playing with just the one field instead of two? We could even introduce friendly fire then.

[Dauphin]

A rebranding is needed:

American Battleships - now with friendly fire!.

[Dauphin]

I'll join a team for a test game.

[DrSpike]

I would join if I get chance to shoot at Dauphin.

[Adagio]

If we get 3 more players we can start a game with 5 vs 5

But how do we do the thing with ship sizes? Should I just give some "random" ship sizes for each player like this:

For each team:
Player1 gets the 5-tile ship
Player2 gets the 4-tile ship
Player3 gets the 3-tile ship
Player4 gets the 3-tile ship
Player5 gets the 2-tile ship

This does seem a little unfair since Player5 will then have the highest chance of surviving

Each player gets to choose where on the map the his/her ship will be placed and has one shot (but remember it's a teamwork game)
If a player dies the team loses one shot


Is this how you want to play it? Yes? No? Other rules?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by alva
How about playing with just the one field instead of two? We could even introduce friendly fire then.

Even though it does sound interesting there's a few 'bugs' in this:
Let's say team1 is fastest at sending me the ship-placement, then team2 sends in their choices, but one of team2's ships is placed in the same tile as one of team1's ships. In a situation like this both players will have to move that specified ship... and the new ship-placement could then be in another ships place and so on

[Dauphin]

The bigger bug feature is, of course, you'd have to be really stupid not to co-ordinate with your team and tell them where your ship is so that no-one targets you. (Unless your teammates are gits and deliberately target you anway).

But I repeat my earlier post.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Here's multiplay rules.

Each player gets thier own grid. Size of the grid to be determined, but 4x4, or 5x5 should be sufficient.

Each turn a player can do one of the following:
a. Lob two shots at any player (or one shot at two players) by specifing player name and grid location. (these locations are annouced to all players.
b. Lob one radar pulse bouy at one player's grid location which will tell everyone(or just him..hmmm) if there is a ship in a 1 square proximity (9 squares total), but does no damage.
c. Cloak one of his ships which makes the radar pulse bouy not see it.
d. Move one of his ships one space. This is announced to the players.

Ships are 1 square big. And each player gets two.

Comments? Suggestions?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
Here's multiplay rules.

Each player gets thier own grid. Size of the grid to be determined, but 4x4, or 5x5 should be sufficient.

Each turn a player can do one of the following:
a. Lob two shots at any player (or one shot at two players) by specifing player name and grid location. (these locations are annouced to all players.
b. Lob one radar pulse bouy at one player's grid location which will tell everyone(or just him..hmmm) if there is a ship in a 1 square proximity (9 squares total), but does no damage.
c. Cloak one of his ships which makes the radar pulse bouy not see it.
d. Move one of his ships one space. This is announced to the players.

Ships are 1 square big. And each player gets two.

Comments? Suggestions?

Too complicated... and probably waay too slow. 1 square big ships, 2 of them total, on a 25 square grid? And the ability to move? No, that game would take months ... though the smaller grid might speed it up some, i think moving and the other options slow it down too much.

I was thinking about this earlier the other day ... you basically have two ways to do it, which have both been already mentioned.

1. Just like 2 player but more players.
2. A single ocean, bigger, with all players' ships sharing the same ocean.

The advantage of (1) is it's simple and plug-and-play with regular battleships rules; (2) is a bit more competitive and probably quite a bit faster. (2) would allow (require, probably) somewhat more complicated rules; some ideas i had:
(2) Option (I)
a) Players start on different edges of the grid (can be a hexagonal grid if necessary for 6 players, etc.); can move ships two squares (battleship and carrier) or three squares (destroyer, sub, cruiser) each turn. Valid uses of a movepoint are: Forwards, Turn 90 degrees, or Full Reverse (backwards). Turns are executed so the center of the craft (in 3 or 5 spot ships), or the spot behind the center (in 2 and 4 spot ships) remains in the same place.
b) Ships may only fire three squares away from them (battleship, carrier, submarine) or two squares away from them (destroyer, cruiser), diagonal or straight (think civ-style 21 square radius for 2 squares).
c) Ships can *see* one square away, so if they are within one square of a ship, they see it. Any square 'seen' by a ship that turn is visible to the player between turns; the 9 square radius from where your ship originally was, through the one or two moves, to the final point.
d) Ships can fire one shot per turn, each, for a total of 5 shots per player per turn (if they have all five ships); however, they give up a move point if they fire. Shots may be fired at any point in the turn, before during or after movement; so any square within the required radius at any point in the turn is okay.
e) Grid is larger, total size based on player number; 4 players would share a 100 square grid, increasing by 15 or so squares for each player. This should allow for enough time to position ships prior to engagement; GM may allow the first few turns (when it is certain no combat can occur) to be posted in a single message, if he/she desires.1
f) If two ships collide, both lose the square they collided on. If they colide on more than one square, they lose more than one. If they had already lost that square - they suffer no penalty.

That's the basic idea for option (I).

Option II:
a) There are five ships, placed by the GM, on a 10x10 board.
b) Each player gets one shot per turn.
c) The GM posts the results of the shots in either graphical or ASCII form.
d) Any player that makes a hit, gets another shot, in a 'bonus round'; only one bonus round per round (you can get up to two shots, no more, before everyone gets another shot.)
e) The first player to submit a shot that hits, in terms of the GM's time of recieving the private message, gets the shot; the next player's shot to hit the same square misses. (Or you can post shots openly, perhaps?)
f) The competition can either be for number of ships destroyed over time, or percentage of hits over time, or anything else that seems interesting.

Does either one sound good? Option II is a much faster game, and cooperative (like Hangman); you could limit the players to a certain number of rounds in order to be successful, and give credit to GMs who have setups that are harder to beat (or not beaten). Option I is probably slower, particularly when the number of players decreases dramatically.

[Tassadar500]

I'll be willing to try this.