Board Game Arena

Today was released another update. The game can now end when the score cannot be changed anymore (final order of the players). It is not strict end, but at least half of the players must agree to an end. When the condition is met, every player can vote during his/her turn or continue playing as usual.

Just to remind you changes done before: clicking on the selected pawn will deselect it

Adam

That's a good idea

...and what I like very much is the fact we can now select easily a single pawn or a double pawn thanks to the "I" or "II" that appear.

I now have a position where my opponent is 9-0 down. He has 4 pawns on the inner tracks; I have two outside him. He has no chance of winning unless he takes both of mine, which obviously he has no chance of. We've been playing goodness knows how long like this and he just keeps demanding that I move in. I've met this numerous times previously but always the losing player accepts defeat and ends the game.

Should there be a mechanism for ending this kind of thing?

table #44306348

He has technically not lost yet if he has the possibility of victory, even if it is determined by you exposing yourself.

This is more a fault of the game than the player.

Maybe change it so that bridges are forced paths if only a single color occupies the most outer ring?
With 'forced path' I mean that bridges cease to act like points to move to an inner ring, but regular paths which you must move down.

It is a serious flaw in the game.

I have had a game just like that once, with myself in your position. There is no reason for me to go in the middle. And no reason for the other player to take the last spots in the center.
The only way to end this is if you can cross a bridge and score the last points or can catch a pawn from the other player in one turn.

Thanks both. I can't even hope for a good roll for a capture or a point - he has two pairs of doubled pawns one in each of the inner rings so I can't pass them safely.

But I don't quite agree it's a fundamental fault wit the game - more a rules drafting issue (unless the designer intends to force the leading player to move inside, which I doubt.) It's more like the previous issue which led to the more frequent early end situation. However, I'll just plod on and see what happens!

Cappie wrote:It is a serious flaw in the game.

I have had a game just like that once, with myself in your position. There is no reason for me to go in the middle. And no reason for the other player to take the last spots in the center.
The only way to end this is if you can cross a bridge and score the last points or can catch a pawn from the other player in one turn.

I totally agree with this. I've only played the game maybe 3 times, and in one case my only option to win was chasing down my opponent and capturing, and as long as that option existed I was going to keep trying, but it just went on and on. I think I finally just went into the center and ended it cause it was driving me crazy.

But I just played one like this kind of scenario, where I had the game won by a tie breaker, the person in 2nd could no longer play, and the other player would be last place even taking that last point and capturing someone. I just needed to stay outside and stay safe. I don't know that the player was refusing to take the last spot cause he never got a 1 at the right time. (This was definitely a fault of the game.) I finally took the chance of going into the center ring, at a moment when it felt safer, just cause it was driving me nuts and I thought it would go on forever. Fortunately he was never able to get me and I got that last point and just plain won.

But I agree it's a fault of the game that situations like this get created to begin with. I could understand if there's any chance that someone could still win (or move up in standing) that they would want to keep playing, and I can understand that people would start getting bored with it too.

If someone can't win and still refuses to move, then that's the fault of the player. But mostly I think this is a fault of the game. It certainly would be nice to have a solution to this. But if someone still has a chance to win they should have the opportunity to try, so I'd only want an early end if there's just no way someone can move up in the standings.

Liallan wrote:If someone can't win and still refuses to move, then that's the fault of the player. But mostly I think this is a fault of the game. It certainly would be nice to have a solution to this. But if someone still has a chance to win they should have the opportunity to try, so I'd only want an early end if there's just no way someone can move up in the standings.

I suggest a draw if no pawn (single or double) passes a bridge, or captures pawn(s) after X consecutive moves. With such rule, it will be impossible to prevent a game from ending.
In the Chess game, X = 50. In Hypnosia, X could be smaller to prevent boredom.

I specify my suggestion :
1) The game ends if no pawn (single or double) passes a bridge, or captures pawn(s) after X consecutive moves.
2) The scores of the remaining players are equalized to the smaller one (among scores of the remaining players) when the game ends in application of this rule. So, the players who have no pawns in play are not affected.