SETTINGS - What are your best settings?

[Nucker]

Lets have some thoughts on what settings give the best/fairest games (I know the dice throw a spanner in the works)

I will start.

For 1 v1 and Team Games
Polymorphic - I feel that Poly is a must. 4s or 3s depending on the map size and dynamics
No Spoils - Flat rate and Escalating create too much additional luck regards what cards you get and dice luck to take a card.
Trench - Once again to mitigate for the dice (most of these settings are for this reason) as a player cant run amok due to a lucky streak.
No Fog - I appreciate the attraction to it but going through logs to guess is a hinderance and seeing what the other player is doing avoids lucky choices.
Parachute - Not only does it mitigate against dice but it means you can use your troops even if you have a poor drop. It also adds an element of strategic play as to where and how you move your troops.
Rounds - I like no limit but in tournaments it can be used to create fair draws

For multi player games - These are really what Risk is about even though most games in CC are 1 v1.
(The world needs a great strategic multi player game that removes most of the luck. CC is not this.)

No Spoils - There is nothing worse than having painstakingly created a great position only to have it wiped out by several players cashing in the same round. It is a gamble to calculate who might have what.
Run (No trench) - In multi player games it is often necessary to move over several territories in a single turn
Sunny (No Fog) - Once again the laborious nature of going through the logs second guessing where players might have dropped
Parachute - Given the nature of the Dice and the drop I don't know why all games are not played with a parachute setting.
Rounds - None

Some food for thought.
I look forward to other players thoughts on their favorite settings.
There is no right or wrong, just opinion and preference.

[detlef]

I agree that I prefer poly to 1v1, but really don't mind 2v2, provided the map is small enough that the first player doesn't get an extra army and can prevent the 2nd one from getting the same. So, for bigger maps, I vastly prefer 3v3 and 4v4. In fact, I was playing the (otherwise very lame) version on Steam and they award the last player to go in the first round an extra army. I don't know about that, but would think that a way to solve this would be, everyone gets the same drop in round 1, regardless of how many territories they have.

I'm truly on the fence about spoils or no. All I know is that I don't like nukes or zombies. Esc is cool because it may reward boldness like a self kill, but I hear you about it just being one more element of luck in a game that's already very much about luck. I generally prefer no spoils to flat rate.

Fog and trench (as, oddly enough, they usually come in pairs and I rarely see sunny trench or foggy no trench). Totally depends on the map. On maps like Feudal and Pelo wars and KC2, I think fog makes them far more interesting because for the first several turns, you're not even hitting each other, rather building yourself up and it seems to add a layer of strategy to try and figure out where your opponent is based on how many spots they own and what their auto-deploys are. In more conventional maps, I'm fine either way, as long as it's not esc/trench because that would seem awful.

For multi opponent games, I used to love esc because I typically fare pretty well in those game, but have come to the realization that's largely predicated on at least two novices being in the game who insist upon playing it straight up, going for bonuses, etc. Then you can take advantage of their inexperience. If everyone is good, it's just a bunch of boring rounds of building stacks, finding easy spoils, and avoiding conflict until someone has the numbers on their side and goes for it. Which I've grown to be bored with. Fog can help at least add an element of rewarding those willing to figure stuff out via snaps, so I appreciate that. But, again trench and esc seem to be a non-starter for me.

On the other hand, I've been in no-spoils multi opponent games that just dragged on forever, so I think you at least need to have flat rate so there's some incentive for attacking.

And, I really don't like nuke or zombie