Whodunnit? [19 Apr 2014] v10, p10 - Gameplay

[Fuchsia tude]

One thing I noticed that bothers me concerns the distribution of suspect attack points from inside the mansion.

Some rooms have two attack points to suspects; some only one. Some weapons are attacked from one these double-suspect rooms, or even two; one, from only singles. Since a double room provides more opportunities for the owner to gain income, I'd propose moving some of these around slightly, so that every suspect can be attacked from one double-supect room and one single.

Code: Select all

        Blonde  Blue    Brown   Orange  Pink    White
Garage  --X--
Living          --X--
Foyer                   --X--
Office                          --X--
Bedroom                         --X--
Media                                           --X--
Game    --X--                           --X--
Kitchen                                 --X--   --X--
Dining          --X--   --X--

Orange is attacked from Office and Bedroom, each with no other suspect attack route; Pink from Game and Kitchen, each with another suspect attack route. Easy solution is to just replace one of the pink hands with an orange one, and vice versa.

Weapons are... a bit tougher, because there's no small number divisible by 7 and 9, the way 18 works for 6 and 9...*

Code: Select all

         Bat     Saw    Bomb    Katana   Gun   Pickaxe Crossbow
Garage  --X--   --X--
Living                                  --X--   --X--
Foyer   --X--           --X--
Office          --X--           --X--
Media                                           --X--   --X--
Bedroom                                                 --X--
Game                                    --X--   
Kitchen                 --X--         
Dining                          --X--   


*Why did you create 7 instead of 6 weapons, by the way?

[degaston]

*Why did you create 7 instead of 6 weapons, by the way?

I don't recall exactly. Probably some combination of:

1. I didn't want to duplicate the Clue game exactly, which has 6 suspects, 6 weapons, and 9 rooms,
2. My original map had 6 suspects, 7 weapons and 8 rooms, which seemed aesthetically pleasing to me, and...
3. I wanted to avoid the possibility of a symmetrical 3 person game where each person holds two suspects, two weapons, and 3 rooms.

One thing I noticed that bothers me concerns the distribution of suspect attack points from inside the mansion....

My main goal when I laid out the attack points was to avoid having neighboring rooms (including the corner rooms connected by the secret passages, and the Game Room/Office, but not other diagonal neighbors) contain the same symbol, and to avoid having any two rooms contain more than one identical symbol pair. This was to maximize the difficulty of holding a monopoly on attack points for a suspect or weapon, and especially of holding a monopoly on multiple attack points.

Simply swapping one of the pink and orange attack points would violate that objective, but I've found a way to make it work with more extensive changes. I guess I'll include that in the next update.

[Fuchsia tude]

All right. I guess I have to wait until the update.

One last thing, you misspelled "Blond". You used the female spelling. I realize it's a Reservoir Dogs reference, but do they all have to be Misters? Even the board game was half and half...

[iancanton]

It's a nuisance doing both sizes.

at this stage, u don't need to do both sizes to the same standard. it's enough that both are playable with clear borders and show the correct information in all respects.

*Why did you create 7 instead of 6 weapons, by the way?

I wanted to avoid the possibility of a symmetrical 3 person game where each person holds two suspects, two weapons, and 3 rooms.

this is actually a very good reason.

if u're going to move a weapon, then may i suggest moving a bat from the garage, which seems slightly overpowered with only one non-special region (especially when held with the living room through the secret passage) to the game room, which doesn't have a lot going for it?

ian.

[degaston]

It's a nuisance doing both sizes.

at this stage, u don't need to do both sizes to the same standard. it's enough that both are playable with clear borders and show the correct information in all respects.

I'm making a fairly major update:

• Changing magnifying glasses to knives
• Adding a warrant territory to the notepad
• Swapping some of the link types per Fuscia's suggestion
• Updating the legend

So I want people to see the same thing no matter which size map they use. Though it's a little hard to get motivated to work on it when it feels like the foundry is a ghost town, and the site is circling the drain.

if u're going to move a weapon, then may i suggest moving a bat from the garage, which seems slightly overpowered with only one non-special region (especially when held with the living room through the secret passage) to the game room, which doesn't have a lot going for it?

ian.

I don't feel like the Garage is too overpowered, considering it has the second lowest bonus structure, and the Game Room has the highest. I think it would shift things too far in the other direction to have two suspect and two weapon links in the Game Room, and only one of each in the Garage. My plan right now is that after the update, the Foyer, Game Room and Dining Room will each have one weapon and two suspect links, the Bedroom will stay the same, and all other rooms will have one suspect and two weapon links.

I think the killer neutrals in the secret passages have worked pretty well to make it more difficult to hold opposite corners. I'm in a game right now where each of the corners is currently held by a different person.

[robellis00]

Anyone else having trouble with the beta site? I have been testing the Whodunnit? map, but can't get on the beta site anymore.

I'm getting an error message that says, "This server could not prove that it is beta.conquerclub.com; its security certificate expired 5 days ago." When I try to go to the site, the https: webaddress in the top left corner of my browser has a big red line crossed through it.

Any help or instructions would be greatly appreciated.

[degaston]

Anyone else having trouble with the beta site? I have been testing the Whodunnit? map, but can't get on the beta site anymore.

I'm getting an error message that says, "This server could not prove that it is beta.conquerclub.com; its security certificate expired 5 days ago." When I try to go to the site, the https: webaddress in the top left corner of my browser has a big red line crossed through it.

Any help or instructions would be greatly appreciated.

I think if you just go to the address bar and remove the "https://" part, it will work.

[robellis00]

I just tried it several time, with no luck.
Thanks for the suggestion, but it didn't work for me.
I'm willing to try anything though.

[degaston]

I've also clicked on "Advanced" and "take me there anyway" or something like that, which sometimes works, but it usually shows me the page as text only, with no formatting or pictures at all.

[iancanton]

the beta site is up again!

ian.

[2007spaceodyssey]

Hope this map can go into beta some day

[Fuchsia tude]

Hope this map can go into beta some day

People need to actually play the beta maps on the beta site

imo

[Fuchsia tude]

One thing I notice is that the first detective you control (roughly) doubles your continent bonus, the second one increases it by 50%, and the third by 33.3%. This makes taking a cop much more important than rooms, in the early game.

I wonder if it wouldn't lead to more interesting variety in viable tactics if you made every cop grant +50% continent bonus, instead. Something like this:

Code: Select all

Mansion     Detectives
Room      0   1   2   3
-------  --  –-  –-  -–
Bedroom   1   2   3   5
Garage    2   3   4   6
Office    2   3   5   7
Living    3   4   6   9
Dining    3   4   7  10
Kitchen   3   5   7  11
Media     4   6   8  12
Foyer     4   6   9  14
Game      4   7  10  15

That does increase the reward levels a bit. So, if you prefer to keep the 3-detective rewards the same, maybe:

Code: Select all

Mansion     Detectives
Room      0   1   2   3
-------  --  –-  –-  -–
Bedroom   1   2   3   4
Garage    1   2   3   5
Office    2   3   4   6
Living    2   3   5   7
Dining    2   4   5   8
Kitchen   3   4   6   9
Media     3   4   7  10
Foyer     3   5   7  11
Game      3   5   8  12

[degaston]

One thing I notice is that the first detective you control (roughly) doubles your continent bonus, the second one increases it by 50%, and the third by 33.3%. This makes taking a cop much more important than rooms, in the early game.

I wonder if it wouldn't lead to more interesting variety in viable tactics if you made every cop grant +50% continent bonus, instead. Something like this:

Code: Select all

Mansion     Detectives
Room      0   1   2   3
-------  --  –-  –-  -–
Bedroom   1   2   3   5
Garage    2   3   4   6
Office    2   3   5   7
Living    3   4   6   9
Dining    3   4   7  10
Kitchen   3   5   7  11
Media     4   6   8  12
Foyer     4   6   9  14
Game      4   7  10  15

That does increase the reward levels a bit. So, if you prefer to keep the 3-detective rewards the same, maybe:

Code: Select all

Mansion     Detectives
Room      0   1   2   3
-------  --  –-  –-  -–
Bedroom   1   2   3   4
Garage    1   2   3   5
Office    2   3   4   6
Living    2   3   5   7
Dining    2   4   5   8
Kitchen   3   4   6   9
Media     3   4   7  10
Foyer     3   5   7  11
Game      3   5   8  12

Thanks for the input. I'd prefer to keep those bonuses from going too high, so I'd probably choose the second option if I changed it, but it is a pretty minor tweak, so I don't think it would change the game that much either way.

I'm not really satisfied with the way it plays, though. One problem is that I think "book him" needs to be a killer neutral, but you can't have that as part of a bonus/win condition, so I'm waiting for management to make some changes to the XML. Other features I'd like to be able to include are conditional bombardments combined with conditional borders.

I don't have much hope that any of this will happen, though.

[Fuchsia tude]

If you're waiting for XML changes, I'd like to see conditional visibility. Right now in fog games, if you see it, you can shoot it. But I kind of hate how in this map you need to hold a cop and a weapon note and a suspect note and a room note just to know whether the victory condition is currently under threat. I wish you could see the victory condition either A) all the time or B) if you hold a cop, regardless of anything else. A number of older maps with victory conditions (that aren't collection-style, like Ancient Greece) could use this tweak.

In non-fog games, this would have no effect.

[iAmCaffeine]

Ancient Greece doesn't have a victory condition.

[degaston]

If you're waiting for XML changes, I'd like to see conditional visibility. Right now in fog games, if you see it, you can shoot it. But I kind of hate how in this map you need to hold a cop and a weapon note and a suspect note and a room note just to know whether the victory condition is currently under threat. I wish you could see the victory condition either A) all the time or B) if you hold a cop, regardless of anything else. A number of older maps with victory conditions (that aren't collection-style, like Ancient Greece) could use this tweak.

In non-fog games, this would have no effect.

Yes, I agree that the victory condition is not visible enough in fog games. I might be able to fix it with conditional bombardments, or maybe even non-conditional ones.Conditional visibility might also work. I don't see any reason to think that we'll be getting any of these tools.

[Thorthoth]

I just want to say an Agatha Christie/Clue-type map sounds like a lot of fun. Let's get this one done.

[degaston]

I just want to say an Agatha Christie/Clue-type map sounds like a lot of fun. Let's get this one done.

I just played a beta game with Fuchsia tude, and I think not being able to have "Book Him!" as a killer neutral is a big problem. Once someone takes it, the win condition becomes too easy, and it's also too easy to continue to kill an opponent's detectives. There needs to be a cost each time someone wants to go for the win condition.

[riskllama]

I just played a beta game with Fuchsia tude, and I think not being able to have "Book Him!" as a killer neutral is a big problem. Once someone takes it, the win condition becomes too easy, and it's also too easy to continue to kill an opponent's detectives. There needs to be a cost each time someone wants to go for the win condition.

+1

[Thorthoth]

Just perform a first approximation and then get it out on beta. That's the important thing.

[degaston]

Just perform a first approximation and then get it out on beta. That's the important thing.

It's been on the beta site for about two years, and had 153 games played. (could be more - I don't know if there have been any beta site resets since it was added.) It "works", but not as well as I want it to. Some minor updates to the XML might allow me to fix it, but I don't think the site owner is interested enough in adding new maps to do that.

Also, two years and 153 games have only added two pages worth of comments here. Probably about 2/3 of those are mine. The whole idea of the foundry appears to be pretty much dead.

[Thorthoth]

Just perform a first approximation and then get it out on beta. That's the important thing.

It's been on the beta site for about two years, and had 153 games played. (could be more - I don't know if there have been any beta site resets since it was added.) It "works", but not as well as I want it to. Some minor updates to the XML might allow me to fix it, but I don't think the site owner is interested enough in adding new maps to do that.

Also, two years and 153 games have only added two pages worth of comments here. Probably about 2/3 of those are mine. The whole idea of the foundry appears to be pretty much dead.

No, I meant 'real' Beta. Here, on CC.

[degaston]

Just perform a first approximation and then get it out on beta. That's the important thing.

It's been on the beta site for about two years, and had 153 games played. (could be more - I don't know if there have been any beta site resets since it was added.) It "works", but not as well as I want it to. Some minor updates to the XML might allow me to fix it, but I don't think the site owner is interested enough in adding new maps to do that.

Also, two years and 153 games have only added two pages worth of comments here. Probably about 2/3 of those are mine. The whole idea of the foundry appears to be pretty much dead.

No, I meant 'real' Beta. Here, on CC.

For what purpose? I know the map is not in a finished state, and I can't finish it unless some changes are made to the XML. More games played on a map that has known flaws will not help anything.

[Thorthoth]

Just perform a first approximation and then get it out on beta. That's the important thing.

It's been on the beta site for about two years, and had 153 games played. (could be more - I don't know if there have been any beta site resets since it was added.) It "works", but not as well as I want it to. Some minor updates to the XML might allow me to fix it, but I don't think the site owner is interested enough in adding new maps to do that.

Also, two years and 153 games have only added two pages worth of comments here. Probably about 2/3 of those are mine. The whole idea of the foundry appears to be pretty much dead.

No, I meant 'real' Beta. Here, on CC.

For what purpose? I know the map is not in a finished state, and I can't finish it unless some changes are made to the XML. More games played on a map that has known flaws will not help anything.

ALL the maps have flaws and the CC Beta maps are even expected to be changed after their release.