[FT] Demo and Tournament Games

As promised, here are some comments about tournament and demo games
based on 
what I saw at GenCon.

Demo games:

My feeling is that demo games almost always last too long. There is no
sense of 
objective with them. Of course, the idea is to play the game and learn
the game 
and just have fun. The problem is that with Full Thrust the games can
take a 
long time with nothing much happening.

Case in point: the vector game I played. At one point all of the action
was 
down at one end of the table. However, due to the nature of the figure 
placement I couldn't fire my ships without impacting opponent's ships
that 
could fire at one of our other fleets. The main fighting was on the
other end 
of the board, but we had to wait until that was all done before I could
get a 
chance to do anything.

So, here are some proposals.

Demo Game Objective: Usually the demo games I've seen consist of 4
players a 
side, and the objective is to destroy the other side's fleet. In this
variant, 
every player gets the point total of a ship the destroy. Even if all
they did 
was fire the very last class 1 beam weapon for one point of damage that
knocks 
out some superdreadnought, they get full points for it. If you've ever
played 
the fun Avalon Hill card game "Naval War" you have the idea.

If a player is eliminated, he gets more ships! However, anything
destroyed by 
these new ships is only at half the point total. This keeps everyone in
the 
game, but still rewards the better player.

Demo Game Ships: Everyone wants to put a large capital ship in the fleet
mix. 
This, of course, means that the games take forever. I suggest 750
points, 
mostly in escorts and cruisers. MAYBE a battlecruiser or battleship.
Lots of 
things that go "pop", but with enough of a mix to keep things
interesting. 
Maybe give everyone 1 or 2 squadrons of fighters for support, just to
give them 
a feel for the fighter rules.

I would also have ship records for the big ships available. Gives them 
something to drool over.

Initiative: Initiative passes back and forth between two players in a
regular 
game. In our demo games, we had it pass back and forth between each
side. 
Instead, each player should get to shoot at something in order. Say side
one 
has players 1 and 3, and side two has players 2 and 4. Everyone rolls 
initiative. Highest player goes first. Say that's player 1. Player 1
fires, 
then player 2, then player 3, then player 4. If player 1 can't fire, too
bad, 
the next person to fire is player 2. 

This gives everyone a chance to play equally. You won't ever have to
wait until 
everyone else is done before you get to fire all your ships.

Now, about tournaments...

Our double elimination tournament was a success, I believe. Certainly
most 
players seemed to prefer playing 2 games for the event instead of just
one. 
However, I did notice a couple of things.

We had 15 players participate, with Lew Stoneking bowing out to make the
total 
an even number. All players played 2 initial games. The point total for
the two 
initial games gave us our top 4 players. These top four players were
then 
seeded so that player 1 played player 4 and player 2 played 3. The two
winners 
of these games went on to compete for first place. 

In order to get into the semi-final round, a player had to have a
combined 
score of over 3700 points. That is, the total point value of ships and
fighters 
destroyed + the total point value of the player's own ships and fighters
left 
alive for both games had to be more than 3700 points. That wasn't a
rule, 
that's just how the totals shook out. If a player and an opponent did
not 
destroy any ships, they would get a score of 1500 per game. I believe
the 
lowest point total for someone who had won both games was 3600+ points.

What this means is that a player didn't have a chance to make it into
the final 
round if they lost their first game. It was theoretically possible that 
everyone who won their first round game could lose their second round
game, 
except that with the random choice of competitors for the second round
some 
first round winners played other first round winners. This made it very 
difficult to get into the finals if you had a bad first round.

I've been thinking about this, and I think I have a way of keeping the
game 
competitive for all. This is based on the fact that we had three prize
levels 
(first, second and third). It could also work for 2 levels.

Option 1: After the first the winners would be placed into the
"championship" 
side, and the losers would be placed into the "consolation" side. The
champions 
would then play off to find the top 4 players (or, in a smaller
tournament, top 
2 players directly). The top four would get into the semi-finals with
the two 
winners of the semis playing for first and second place.

The consolation players would play to choose two "consolation finalists"
who 
would then play off for the third place prize. 

This means that if you won your first round, you were in the running for
1st or 
2nd, but if you lost your first round you could still win 3rd place.
Yes, this 
does mean a player in the championship side could win both games and
still not 
get 3rd prize.

Option 2: Use the first game only to seed the players for the second
game. 
First plays last, etc. Then, top 4 with the second game score ONLY makes
it to 
the semi-finals. The problem: by definition, and our scoring system, the
first 
place player WILL play the last place player in the second elimination
round. 
Not exactly the best thing to do.

Option 3: First game used to place players in two groups like option 1.
Group 1 
has 25% to 40% of the players in Group 2. Two players from group 1 will
make 
the semi-finals, two from group 2. This means that the second game is
more 
important than the first, but the first group will dictate the ease with
which 
you get into the semis. 

Of the three, I prefer the third option myself. 

Comments welcomed as usual (as if I had any choice...). I'd also be
interested 
in hearing how others play.

Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
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