Marc H. wrote: > Ryan wrote: > > The ad hoc rule I made was that the game continues until there is an > > empty sector AND there is a lone player with the most points. > > [...] I see two possibilities: > > 1. Having an empty quadrant breaks ties. [...] > 2. Having at least one piece left breaks ties. [...] 3. Scores are computed as captured points *minus* points still in your territory. This does not completely remove the possibility of ties from the game, but it does create an opportunity for someone *not* tied for the lead to win the game. =^> Of course, it opens up a new way to create ties. Maybe combine this with possibility #1? > There could be a problem, though, where players are simply unwilling > to move the game toward an end if they're not in a winning position. Here's where we hit on why games I was playing in did not have any problem ending in reasonable time. I tend to push games to conclusion even if I'm losing, if I think somebody else is in a strong enough position that they've demonstrated superiority in that game even if they can't win decisively. (I am aware this makes me frustrating and annoying to 2 out of 3 opponents. =^) > Especially if they're within one player mistake of obtaining the > lead, this might even be reasonable. I don't want to get this discussion off on a tangent, but, I'm am *strongly* against games of strategy being played as games of "gotcha". Do you want to beat somebody because they screwed up, or because you outplayed them? > We might simply need a secondary end condition in which the game is > prematurely terminated if the players are unwilling to make moves > which move it toward completion (say three times around the table > with no pieces changing hands or being captured?) That could > actually result in an unresolvable tie, though. We could just say that a game with no clear winner has no winner. I would have rather played a 3-player final than the 5-player final we had. > Perhaps we just need to accept the possibility of ties and structure > the tournament to accomodate them? We're talking about two related > problems here...a sometimes unsatisfying endgame, and a difficulty > in resolving tournament scoring. I agree. I am not in favor of changing the rules of established games. I would like to figure out a good tournament structure, though. -- Elliott C. "Eeyore" Evans eeyore@xxxxxxxx