Fairness of the random setup

[ypaul]

Actually you’re completely right. Doing it in order solves everything. This is a very good solution to all games with random initial setups if we ever need to make them competitive. I’m really impressed.

And yeah, I’m completely convinced now. Thanks a lot for this!

[Romain672]

Sorry about that. I tried to improve it. Is it easier to read now?

Yes, it's way better

[Romain672]

Since you are talking about that stuff, Santorini has some really good ideas on it.
It's a game where each player play a different 'hero' which are not really balanced between each other.

At the start, six randoms heros are drawn.
One player choose two heros and one hero which will play first.
The other player choose which hero he will play between the two (and so, will play first or second depending of both choices).


One basic idea for Mapmaker then, is to make one person choose which color will start, while the other person choose which color he takes.
But like you said (since I have no idea), since the random setup doesn't change much things, it doesn't seem a game adapted to that.

[ypaul]

It’s an interesting suggestion, but the issue with one player choosing the starting colour and the other player choosing which colour to play is that it is not actually obvious how much of an advantage going first is in this game. It uses a 1234* protocol, so in principle, the game should be decently fair in terms of first player advantage, with each player getting two dividers on the board more than the other on each turn.

Yeah it doesn’t matter that much on BGA, but you know, one can dream of some of these games getting global recognition where we get to spectate GM level plays. It’s wishful thinking, but the fairness of the initial setup would probably be quite important if it ever gets to that stage.

[Romain672]

Oh right, I forgot about that 1234 rule, mb.