The suggestion here is to implement a totally new gameplay method, which would be particularly useful for larger games.
The problem, as I see it, is that gamers who would like to play large games are currently given two options: play a sequential turns game, where everything progresses at a glacial pace, or play a freestyle game and check back far too often for games where playing before vs after a particular player can make the difference each turn between winning or losing. I am proposing a style of play which is a totally different option, where each round is a phase of either placing troops, attacking, or reinforcing. Troop movements would all be hidden from all other players until all the movements are placed, much like initial placement in manual games. Not only would this be a welcome change for players who prefer larger games, but it is also a totally different style of play with very different strategy from any currently usable option.
Phase One: Troop Placement
This would progress exactly as the first turn of a manual game, other than that instead of question marks for troops, you would see the amount of troops from after the end of the previous round. Once all players have submitted troop placements, the game increments to Phase Two. If a player misses a turn, they do not get to place those troops in the attack phase, but instead in the following reinforcements phase.
Phase Two: Attacks
Orders:
1. Basic Attacks: Each player would place as many or as few attacks as they would like; they commit the number of troops they would like to an attack, and those troops will all go to the territory that is attacked, provided they emerge victorious. So if I have 10 troops and I want to attack a neighboring terit with 4, and another neighbor with 1 troop, I might send 6 troops at the 4 and 2 troops at the 1, leaving 2 troops at home to defend. This brings in a lot more strategy, since you can't wait and see how many troops it is going to take to conquer a terit; every move has to be calculated by the odds. You could also simultaneously attack one territory from multiple other territories, increasing your odds of victory (possibly rolling two dice per territory from which you attack, rather than three, such that you roll 4 and the defender rolls 2). This simulates the reality that defending from multiple angles is much more difficult than head-on attacks from one direction.
2. Follow-Up Attacks: If I am fairly certain that I will succeed in an attack (i.e. a stack of 20 attacking a stack of 2), I could commit my army to attack further after taking the first territory, by assigning the number that will not proceed (i.e. I might leave 3 troops in the first territory, proceeding on with whatever other troops are left). This would be limited to one territory per territory attacked, since the number of troops to proceed would not be knowable, such that you could divide it further. If the number remaining after the initial attack is under the threshold set, no follow-up attack would be taken. You could hypothetically have two follow-ups attacking the same terit, which would follow the rules from the end of the Basic Attacks.
Implementation:
1. Offsetting attacks: when terit A and B each attack each other, the forces meet as the first battle phase, each rolling two dice, and ties are disregarded. Dice are auto-rolled until one side prevails.
2. Group attacks: attacks where multiple terits attack one are handled as follows: Each attacker gets two dice, and the defender gets two dice; defender wins tiebreakers. For each defender win, every attacker loses one troop. When any attacker beats the defender, none of the attackers lose any (If this isn't clear, I can clarify in follow-ups). This is true both for when multiple attacks from one person are being considered, or when multiple people are attacking a single terit.
3. Group attack winners: When multiple players attack a single terit, if the defender is eliminated, the remaining forces from all of the attackers roll two dice each, with nobody winning or losing any troops on ties. This could lead to a lot of rolls on highly multiple attacks, but since all the rolls are considered simultaneously by the computer, it wouldn't lead to any delays.
4. Simple attacks: One terit versus another, attacking force auto-rolled versus the defending force.
5. Follow-up Attacks: this would follow all of the steps 1-3, but with just follow-up attacks. It is worth noting that your follow-up attacks could possibly end up being attacks of someone other than you intended if the follow-up attack is a territory that has been conquered in the regular attack phases.
Note on Spoils: In the event a player is eliminated by multiple enemies simultaneously, the player who wins that territory as a "group attack winner" gets the spoils, even if a different player ends the turn with that territory via follow-up attack. Basically, spoil awards are considered at the end of parts 3 and 4, and corresponding places in follow-up attack rounds. Spoils will be cashed during the reinforcements phase. The same rules would apply for determining credit in terminator games. It is possible that there are tiebreak scenarios I haven't covered here; please feel free to make up scenarios for tiebreaking.
Note on Teams: Teammates would need to be careful managing their attacks--sending one attack of 20 and one attack of 3 at the same terit might help the odds of winning at the cost of only a few wasted troops, but sending forces of equal sizes could result in them killing each other off in the Group attack winners part of the Attack phase. They would also need to coordinate follow-up attacks, since any of these could result in allies attacking each other unintentionally.
Phase 3: Reinforcements
This would proceed in the same way as the troop placement, where you would order your reinforcements without any knowledge of what other players were submitting, but with knowledge of what troops are/were after the attacks round. A player who received elimination spoils bringing the total to or above 5 will cash a set during this phase. If they miss this phase turn, they will cash them during the following troop placement phase, but would not place at the beginning of any battle orders phase.
This would be a useful improvement on the current options for gameplay, and would provide a totally new way to play maps. Currently gameplay options other than than Sequential/Freestyle would still be in effect. Trench warfare would prohibit follow-up attacks; Fog would still apply (you could have follow-ups attack blindly into the fog, if you wanted). Spoils would act normally, except nuclear spoils would resolve after the other troops had been placed (or I suppose before; this is debatable).
One gameplay option this provides that is not normally available is the ability to have an undo feature: you could arrange things how you want after each phase, and click submit to actually take that action, so if you unintentionally said you wanted to attack with 10 troops, you could go back and alter it to 5. The same could be true for reinforcements-- you could simply choose whatever you wanted, and when you were satisfied with all the settings you'd gotten, you could submit your "turn" of one phase.
The major benefit here is for large games, but it also provides a totally different strategy for smaller games. The main goal though, was to allow players to log in once a day, as the site's home page claims, and not be disadvantaged because a different player got their attacks in first. I could imagine this being popular on even doodle earth cluster-games, where there would be tons of multiple and offsetting attacks. It would proceed slightly slower (rounds per day) than a freestyle game, since actual rounds take three phases of up to 24 hours each (although players would deadbeat after three phases, not rounds), but would not be as incredibly slow as, say, an eight-player sequential game, where play increments as slowly as one round a week. Also, play would not seem so slow to players, because they would be doing something each day for the game.
