on the other hand weak player could try by begging to ally with a strong, get protection, and finish late. A behavior generally frowned upon, because it does not meassure your ability to play kdice, but you ability at begging at the right person...

of course people see it "undynamic" this option no longer gives you many points...

OK, I see where you are coming from lwanya. The games don't seem to be as dynamic as the style of past. However, as fuzzycat said, the losses and gains are easier to deal with, as they are less harsh. That is one thing that helps. I can play a few games, and be able to leave, not angered, say, as with the old style, you could lose a fair amount of points in a few games.

To be honest, it isn't as active or entertaining, but, what can you do? I like this style since, even though a little less exciting, it's less dramatic overall.

And, as the community of this game, we should be doing something ourselves if it's not as fun as it can be. I'm just trying for solutions. Weekly forum contests? In fact, I just realized that the social aspect of this game and the community really makes it as fun as it is, so, we need to fix any dullness, not Ryan.

Previous Scoring System =
* promotes early expansion, but then if you fail, hole up in a corner and get a friend to hand you whatever place you can get, 4th or better
* as a result that led to a lot of begging, and 'unfair' results where a play who had 11 lands but gets demolished down to 1 finishes with a worse score than someone who had 1 land in the corner but was buddy-buddy with the leader on the board who handed him 2nd place.

The reason the previous system was popular was because it was comfortable - people knew exactly what to do to get the maximum possible place, finish higher than your opponents.


New Scoring System =
* promotes expansion (but not reckless expansion, as your AS or dominance only is counted by how much land you are able to retain, thus crazy expansion is pointless if you lose it all by the time your turn starts)
* promotes a more lively gameplay because players who are defeated and reduced to 1 land at the end actually have incentive to roll themselves out of the game to salvage their dominance score, thus removing the begging aspect of the game in a great way


Summary: by dynamic you mean changing and I feel the new scoring is much more dynamic because it encourages gameplay to be more active in the early rounds 1-15 or so of a game. There used to be a grab of 4 or 7 lands then stack to all 8s, then ally and fight. How dynamic is that? When compared to the new system which promotes more expansion and more 5 and 6 and 7 stacks around in the 10th rounds than before, where 8 stacks commonly dominated the landscape of any game that was a few rounds in.

The fact that all max-stack endgame battles tend to occur later in the game itself indicates that the game is more dynamic.

There are more chances to choose to do a 5v2 to safely link, or a 5v4 to link and remove a key foe fighting for the same area. Thus, more tactics are involved as opposed to 8v8 battles which are indeed luck (though some are better at understanding the game than others to maximize their luck, nevertheless 8v8 battles come down to the dice exclusively, whereas tactics + the dice determine the early game)

Last point - since dominance is in place, there is a TREMENDOUS incentive to ally up and confront the #1 (to lower their AS and boost your own). In the old system, allying with #1 was the best bet, then squabbling for 2nd - that leads to boring games that are indeed, predictable (the big win) and stale. The new system encourages people to rally and combat the #1 on the board and to play for the ultimate goal of the game, to conquer the entire board and have fun while doing it.

Grun rests his case.

Ok, Grun, i actually read your post. I agree with all but:

If you are in first and get teamed up on, it sucks, and though it should just be dealt with, it still sucks to be ganged up on because you actually either performed well or just got good placement.

And, I am on lawanya's side over the beginning big syndrome. If you do have a good control of at least five spots with no threats by the 3rd round, you will most likely get a top three or four score.

And anyone know how to get to that forum with that luck-placement calculation?

Being weak and allied with the strongest player and ended up being 2nd or 3rd is a strategy, and possibly the only strategy if you are weak. I don’t understand why such a strategy should be ‘frown upon’. Don’t always blame the weak player who tried such a strategy; the strongest player who agreed to the truce is as much to blame for. No one ever support that if you are the weakest player, some how the only way to survive is to form a truce. Unfortunately, this game is about dominance and not survival, and thus the new scoring system is right for such a goal.

I like the new scoring system but i have seen two problems...

1. The game seems to depend even more on set-up and 1st turn luck than it did before. It would be cool if Ryan could find a way to bring more skill into the game, or to even out the opening positions. I know chess isn't what kdice should be, but just drawing straws to see who wins wouldn't be much fun either.

2. Players now have the ability to directly drain points from their opponents by keeping them alive with 1 or 2 territories. Players often have to beg for mercy just to be killed now. I doubt this is what the dominance score was intended to do. One way to fix this would be some kind of real surrender option that puts a player out of the game (leaving his territories unchanged until they're taken by someone else).

Vengeance:
1. Having bad starting position and only lose 2 points is skill, isn't it? Bad luck can happen, but also be avoided sometimes. A thing unexperienced players don't do, they go for the risk.

2. You would have to keep alive about 5 players to get effects from AS, so simply forget about that.

algios:
1. I didn't say there was no skill involved, just that I would personally like to see more.

2. I have already seen this effect many times in only a couple of days playing under the new system. It is hard to believe that you haven't.

Vengeance, for your two points:

1- Bad starting position in the PREVIOUS system was equally detrimental. However, there occasionally was an 'out' in that one could truce with a big player near them and hope for a 4th or better. The new system, however, does have a tremendous amount of opportunities for a player to have a horrendous start and go out 7th or 6th and only lose 12 to 20 points. There are a lot of tactics which I see very few people employ to improve this, but I don't much care to give away hints for free.

2- AS farming or mercy when one doesnt want it is indeed problematic, but we must remember than the previous system had no safeguard for equally annoying results - such as playing a great game but going out 6th because some alliance killed you all the way down and PAST their 1 land ally. While this sort of activity (reaping dominance unjustly) is done in poor taste, one must remember that might makes right. In the old system #1 essentially doled out the places. It is the same now, except one might flag sooner to preserve dominance.

Grun, I see a couple of things I dislike and some (maybe) easy fixes for them. That doesn't mean I think we should go back to the old system. Just that there's still room for improvement in the new one.