I like the idea of games with different options, and 'house rules'. Break up the tables into different categories. Any games with non-traditional rules will not count towards your points.

I think to add more diversity, always randomly generate the tables. It seems that tables could be represented by some sort of code that
is their map. Maybe that code could be displayed somewhere.. or users could create their own maps by entering a code after a designer was implemented.

Maybe let members create maps and have tables named after them. Would give a benefit to those who aren't "point whores" and want to have fun playing the game.

I'd even help you develop all this for free!

... give the point whores a separate forum, separate boards, create a "champions-league" or something, so they feel good about it, but they should use a separate entrance and stay out of the forum.

I think flagging has become too big a part of the game. "If you're not first, you're last."

I'm not sure how much this game is supposed to be faithful to the Taro Ito's Dicewars, but I think that this game has taken a life of its own and can expand from it quite a bit.

I think that perhaps too much of this game relies on luck. Most of the frustration that I have seen is that even with the best strategy sometimes, your luck can take it all away.

The two biggest points of luck are your rolls, and restacks.

I think that if restacking had some sort of logic to it.. perhaps actually stacking your dice on your connected regions instead of outliers, it would go a long way to fixing some of the restack luck.

As far as rolls go, something needs to be done about the end of game 8v8 battles. Far too often has a person abused luck to a victory that was clearly someone else's. I don't have the answer, but some sort of brainstorming needs to be done to figure out how to stop 8v8 battles being based soley on luck. Perhaps giving some sort of bonus to the defender or attacker who's dice have been sitting at that location for a good number of rounds... something.. anything...

That's my rant

I was thinking that maybe you could swap a land with another one of your own lands in exchange for forfeiting your turn. This may reduce some of the luck involved in random re stacks, or reduce the amount of turns people have to wait before they can do something with their big stack.

1) Team Play
2) Just keep punishing people who use team play / trading favors / PGAs / LTRs etc.
Punish them again and again and again until they quit the game or they quit cheating.

3) For the Primary monthly scoring competition only reward wins, first place finishes. That might be the only way to keep groups of elitists trading favors each game.

The pastel colors are lacking in contrast. Making them bold primary colors has no real downside.

I have problems with differentiating between some of them sometimes, and it makes my eyes hurt after an hour or so.

I think flagging etiquette can lead to some pretty arbitrary game results. Usually if a player flags for a position first, that player gets priority over a player who flagged for the same position afterward. Sometimes this is fair, but sometimes the player who flagged for a position second clearly deserves the position he flagged for more than the first person. Yet the person in first place will respect the first flag, claiming that it is because that player "flagged first," even though it's pretty clearly because it will give the first place person an opportunity for point farming. Positions that players flag for should reflect the true position that the players, and this is often not the case because of this "first come, first serve" flagging etiquette.

Also, luck should somehow be factored into the points received by a player at the end of each game. If a player loses a 4v2 and a 3v2 at the beginning of a 2500 point game, maybe the player should be given a slight recompense. Over the long run, this could even out luck differentials among players.

--Personal preference, but less luck, more skill in the gameplay.

--Swapping dicestacks. Once per turn, you may swap any 2 adjancent dicestacks that you control. It would be similar to "attacking" your own territory. This would allow for people with, say, an 8-stack trapped in a corner to move it through the territory and into combat.

--Having an "objective", where 1 random territory on a board (randomly chosen each game) is specially marked, and whoever is controlling that gets +1 dice per turn. This would make people choose between taking a strategic area or the objective area.

--Getting a forum (no offense to anyone!). Invisionfree, phpBB, vBull, etc.


Random thoughts from me, take what you will o.o

I think part of the beauty of kdice is that it is simple. So, it is hard to add more and keep the simplicity. Assuming that we don't want kdice to morph into a full fledge "Risk" type game.
There are some things that could be interesting

1) Goal based games
a) Player targets - each player has another player as a target. The game ends when the target is eliminated.
b) Land targets - Have some land squares be associated with the player color. The goal is to own all the land of your color
c) First person to 10 contiguous lands
d) Most land after 5 rounds

2) Game play changes
a) change the allocation of dice to favor putting the new dice near other dice. If there is a 2 stack adjacent to 3 5stacks and a 5 stack adjacent to 3 2 stacks favor (by some percentage) putting the new dice on the 2 stack instead of the 5 stack.
b) Have land types. (woods are easier to attack from, mountains are easier to defend...)
c) Have a more rich connectivity model for the map. If the map had a richer way of connecting land besides being connected physically then you could get bigger games. Say mark land with letters A-Z and all the lands with the same letters can attack each other.

3) Philanthropic
a) Publish more statistics so the information could be used for research or teaching.
b) use all these dice rolls for something useful like proving randomness of numbers
c) have helpful work that people could do on the side while they are waiting for their turn.

4) Motivator changes - what motivates people to play
a) Have tournaments where winners advance instead of having points
b) Get points for eliminating a player, not just by your place in the finish.
c) Have monthly non-point goals like most games participated in or most unique players eliminated