Coalition: The Game

[deathofcheese]

So, brief recap of the rules:Coalition:


A Game by Zach Weiner

Setup:
Gather 5 or more people around a table. Give each person a concealable surface on which to write.

Gameplay:
One round has 3 steps:

Step 1:
Without conferring, each player writes down whether she will join coalition A, B, C, D, or E.

Step 2:
Each player reveals what she wrote.

Step 3:
All the members of the largest coalition get a point. If the two largest coalitions tie, no points are awarded.

Winning:
First player to 10 points wins. In case of tie, the members of the winning coalition receive no points and must pick different coalitions the following round. Whoops, I lied. That's the entirety of the rules.

Ok, round one start. PM me your choice of coalition. Your choices are:
The Whorelickers
The Twatrockets
The Testiclebreaths
The Cuntpunts
The Fuckbuggers

You have 24 hours to do this before the round ends at 10:30 am eastern, June 17.

Try to get in before the deadline, but don't worry if you miss a round. Game's not over until someone gets to 10, so you could feasibly miss a round or two and still come out on top or close. If you have to, come up with a list of your choices and send them to me, or get my personal contact info (I know my AIM and email are listed, I don't mind giving out my cell as long as it doesn't go public) and bother me there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CURRENT ROUND: 10
ENDS AT: Saturday, June 26 at 11:59 pm eastern
STANDINGS:
9 pts.: BC
7 pts.: Ary
5 pts.: Tiger
4 pts.: CS
3 pts.: Seeg, KM
2 pts.: Gio
1 pts.: llama, chef

[deathofcheese]

There's currently a two-way tie, so I'll keep it open for a while until I get a tie-breaking vote or everyone that's indicated interest has voted. After the first couple of rounds, I'll just follow the rules and award no points.

EDIT:
There's been a tie-breaker, so unless someone else brings the groups back to a tie, this round will end with points. I've been trying to page Gio, he's unresponsive. I'll wait until 10:30 eastern tonight to end this round and start the next, to give KM enough time to check the forums and vote.

[Killer_Man_]

Sorry I didn't know we even started.

[deathofcheese]

With 3 players joining, the Twatrockets have become the largest coalition. llama, Arainach, and Tiger all get a point!

Second round is open. Round ends at 10:30 pm eastern, Friday June 18.

Here's a reminder of what you can vote for:
The Whorelickers
The Twatrockets
The Testiclebreaths
The Cuntpunts
The Fuckbuggers

[deathofcheese]

A couple computer mishaps and long movies later...

The Cuntpunts have lead the charge with three votes. KM, BC, and Gio gain a point.

Next round closes Sunday, June 20 at 12:01 am eastern.

[Arainach]

Could you update the first post when a new deadline is posted?

[deathofcheese]

By my reckoning, the Cuntpunts are again the biggest with two members, Arainach and BC. A point goes to each.

Next round closes Monday, June 21 at 12:01 am eastern.
This is a bonus round, so the coalitions with the fewest members get three points each.

Not that it looks like it's happening, but I'd like to take this moment to reiterate that there is to be no conferring between players, in-thread or out-of-thread.

[Tiger]

oops I was thinking the NIGHT of the 20th not the mornings of...haha

[deathofcheese]

By my reckoning:

whorelickers - bc
cuntpunt - chef
cuntpunt - arainach
cuntpunt - km
twatrockets - cs
testiclebreath - seeg
fuckbuggers - tiger

Which means that the smallest coalitions, the Whorelickers, the Twatrockets, the Testiclebreaths, and the Fuckbuggers, each grant their members three points. So BC, CS, Seeg, and Tiger now have an additional three points bringing the standings to:

Bloodcinder: 5
Tiger: 4
CS, Seegtease: 3
Arainach: 2
llama: 1
KM: 1
Gio: 1

Next round closes Monday, June 21 at 11:59 pm eastern. (Easier to understand? :P)

[Tiger]

Yes it is, thank you very much!!

[deathofcheese]

By my reckoning:

cuntpunt - bc
cuntpunt - gio
cuntpunt - arainach
cuntpunt - km
twatrockets - chef
testiclebreaths - tiger
testiclebreaths - seeg

The Testiclebreaths put up a valiant effort, but once again, the Cuntpunts swell to victory! A point each to BC, Gio, Arainach, and KM, bringing the standings to:

BC - 6
Tiger - 4
Ary, CS, Seeg - 3
KM, Gio - 2
llama - 1

Next round closes Tuesday, June 22 at 11:59 pm eastern.

[deathofcheese]

By my reckoning:

cuntpunt - bc
cuntpunt - km
cuntpunt - tiger
testiclebreath - seeg
whorelicker - chef

Once again, the Cuntpunts swarm the opposition and gain a point, bringing the standings to:

BC - 7
Tiger - 5
Ary, CS, Seeg, KM - 3
Gio - 2
llama - 1

Next round closes Wednesday, June 23 at 11:59 pm eastern.

[deathofcheese]

By my reckoning:

cuntpunt - bc
cuntpunt - cs
testiclebreath - seeg
twatrocket - chef

I feel I should extend this round until I get at least five votes, but I think others want this to end as much as I do.
The Cuntpunts remain victorious, awarding BC and CS a point each.

New standings:
8 pts.: BC
5 pts.: Tiger
4 pts.: CS
3 pts.: Arainach, Seegtease, KM
2 pts.: Gio
1 pts.: llama

To (hopefully) wrap this up, let's have a bonus round. Again, in bonus rounds, the coalitions with the least members get three points each.

Next round closes Thursday, June 24 at 11:59 pm eastern.

[Tiger]

Gah you didnt poke me on AIM and i forgot...lol

[deathofcheese]

My bad. Wasn't really paying attention until it was time to write the post. Kinda like how I've been all this evening, too.

Results:

whorelickers - bc
whorelickers - km
testiclebreaths - chef
testiclebreaths - seeg
twatrocket - arainach
cuntpunts - gio
cuntpunts - tiger

Twatrockets stand alone with a single member, and none of the other coalitions are as sparse. Three points to Ary!

Next round closes Friday, June 25 at 11:59 pm eastern.

Standings:
8 pts.: BC
6 pts.: Ary
5 pts.: Tiger
4 pts.: CS
3 pts.: Seeg, KM
2 pts.: Gio
1 pts.: llama

[deathofcheese]

cuntpunt - bc
cuntpunt - ary
cuntpunt - chef
testiclebreath - seeg

Cuntpunts win. Point to each.

Next round closes Saturday, June 26 at 11:59 pm eastern.

New standings:
9 points: BC
7 points: Arainach
5 points: Tiger
4 points: CS
3 points: Seeg, KM
2 points: Gio
1 points: llama, chef

Hey, chef's on the board now. Congratulations!

[deathofcheese]

cuntpunt - bc
cuntpunt - chef
cuntpunt - tiger
testiclebreath - seeg
twatrockets - gio

Cuntpunts win. A point to each.

And that makes it game. Bloodcinder wins with 10 points. Final standings:
Bloodcinder: 10 points
Arainach: 7 points
Tiger: 6 points
Colonel Skills: 4 points
Seegtease: 3 points
Killer_Man_: 3 points
Gio Takahashi: 2 points
chefTENGU: 2 points (I'm so proud)
llama_egg: 1 point (wtf llama?)

[Seegtease]

You guys realize you totally handed BC the game, right? I was watching it happen round by round. Earning a point is meaningless if you're also earning a point for the current leader.

That being said, good job Ron. We had the same strategy, but I guess people liked your name better. I was hoping people would realize they were making you win and start noticing my consistency and join accordingly, but they did not :(

[Arainach]

Postmortem: I think 3 points in the bonus round skews the game way too much.

[Bloodcinder]

My strategy basically dictated how I picked the team I would use for the regular and bonus rounds. After the first couple, the only thing that my strategy dictated was: keep doing the same thing, because everybody else will too. So I got a couple points lead, and that's all I needed.

When choosing things "randomly," people tend to pick the next-to-last item in a list. Then for the bonus rounds, I knew they would consider the first item to be "too obvious." So that's how I picked my teams for each round. Once my pattern became apparent, people continued to stick with it because they knew it was a consistent win. So... yeah.

Anyway, it worked, but it would never work again.

[Killer_Man_]

BC... You do realized that I picked Cuntpunts in the bonus round because I thought no one would since everyone was picking it to score points.

[Bloodcinder]

I realize lots of things. I also won... so apparently whatever I realized was valid in the long run.

[deathofcheese]

BC: more valid than j00.

[llama_egg]

My strategy basically dictated how I picked the team I would use for the regular and bonus rounds. After the first couple, the only thing that my strategy dictated was: keep doing the same thing, because everybody else will too. So I got a couple points lead, and that's all I needed.

I was actually talking to DoC about this, the game needs to be made so you can't vote for X group within X turns; otherwise people tend to stick with safety nets.

Who's going to change groups when people keep voting for his group?

[Arainach]

If you prohibit people from voting for the same group multiple times in a row the game becomes basically a guessing game.

[llama_egg]

Wasn't that the point of this though? It's a game for shits and giggles, not for extensive strategy, even DoC says this at one point in the previous thread.

So what does one do? Do you make a game where people basically sit on the winning group and never move unless required? Might as well say in you're PM "for the whole game I'll pick group A except for the bonus round which put me in group C" as soon as you find out what group everyone's in/

[Seegtease]

Wasn't that the point of this though? It's a game for shits and giggles, not for extensive strategy, even DoC says this at one point in the previous thread.

So what does one do? Do you make a game where people basically sit on the winning group and never move unless required? Might as well say in you're PM "for the whole game I'll pick group A except for the bonus round which put me in group C" as soon as you find out what group everyone's in/

See, the problem is, there shouldn't BE a winning group. BC was picking the same team every time except bonus rounds. It was only the "winning group" because other people also picked the group. If other people wised up, as they should have, and stopped "donating" points to the person with the highest score, it would no longer be a winning team and he would stop earning so many points. But this did not happen. People just saw "hey, if I go in Cuntpunts I can earn a free point" without considering that the current leader will also gain a free point.

That's the strategy. Of course they're a lot of luck involved, but there's still strategy. There should be no restriction in picking the same team every time. That should happen naturally as people look at the results and scores and pick their team accordingly.

You're just all butthurt because Ron outsmarted you.

Of course, I lost too, but I didn't contribute a single point to Ron, so I was doing my part :)

[Bloodcinder]

You're just all butthurt because Ron outsmarted you.
:D

And anyway, the way I see it, there are pretty much two options:

1) Never play it again. You can watch Fight Club a second time and still enjoy it, but when you know the trick there's no surprise.

2) Allow for communication between players, so that they can plan with and betray each other.

[llama_egg]

You're just all butthurt because Ron outsmarted you.I played 2 rounds I believe then decided to watch instead. So I'm butthurt over...what? Not winning something I stopped playing?

My problem is that why would someone join a different group when they are getting freebie points, this means all someone has to do is win the bonus round, so once every 3 rounds a person picks a random group then goes back.

You want other people gaining no points while you on the other hand are gaining them, the problem is that the game doesn't work this way. Do you try and start a new group and not gain any points or do you stay and hope you win one of the upcoming bonus rounds?

It's nothing more then my two cents, the game seems broken to me.

[Killer_Man_]

I'm with Llama, after the first round I saw what was going on so I went iwth cuntpunts the whole time and then gave up when I saw BC was going to win.

Though, the bonus rounds are a little iffy because of so many people, after everyone chooses each one, the only one the bonus round, I felt like I was screwed because I picked Cuntpunts thinking no one would pick that cause -everyone- was picking it to win. Thus being I figured everyone would choose anything but cuntpunts because it was racking up points cause it was popular.

Theo nly way the bonus round would work is if everyone was allowed to chat because say if everyone picked a coalition and there is only 6 people. So 5 people all pick one, say BC is up ahead and I could be like oh I'll just screw with BC and join his coalition and make him lose out or get someone else to join his and i take that person's spot. *shrugs*

[chefTENGU]

The game works fine. I don't think there needs to be any special restrictions on how people vote.

Although I could pretty much see defeat staring me in the face when I read that Ron had a strategy and I couldn't see how the game involved anything more than just guessing.

[Seegtease]

My problem is that why would someone join a different group when they are getting freebie points

Because there are two goals: Make as many points for yourself as you can, and prevent the current leaders from gaining any more points. Sticking with the team the winner is picking is not meeting both of those goals. It's really that simple. If you're not attempting to meet both of those goals, don't do it.

You want other people gaining no points while you on the other hand are gaining them, the problem is that the game doesn't work this way.

Wrong. You understand that other people must gain points, but you try to make sure that the people you gain points with are not the current leaders.

You make a new team, or find another member who has been picking the same team every round. For example, I was picking the same team every round, and I was doing poorly in the standings. Thus, it would have been wise for people to join MY team because they'd gain points and not be giving BC points. If at some point I got ahead of BC, they should switch to BCs team, and then back to mine. Doing this will cause both BC and myself to get points at half the speed you do, assuming both of us pick the same team every time and your change of vote causes the team to win.

Really, it's not a complex strategy. The most complex part of the game is trying to figure out which people will pick what. In this case, that was obvious in BC and my own situations, we were consistent.

[deathofcheese]

The only thing I would change from what we did was to add that you can't vote for the same coalition more than two rounds in a row (bonus rounds excepted). Or maybe three rounds.

Also, I like the effect of the bonus round, but a good change might be to add some randomness to it. At the beginning of the game, and immediately following every bonus round, two d4 are rolled. One determines the next round that's bonus (1 = next round, 2 = 2 rounds, etc., 4 = reroll), the other determines the point value (1, 2, 3 or reroll).

[Tiger]

Oh boohoo! its a dadblasted game everyone needs to stop crying over loosing and go on with life!

[llama_egg]

But I'm not crying about losing, I'm giving criticism about the way the game works.

For example, I was picking the same team every round, and I was doing poorly in the standings. Thus, it would have been wise for people to join MY team because they'd gain points and not be giving BC points. If at some point I got ahead of BC, they should switch to BCs team

While I understand where you are coming from it's not quite that simple. For the most part 2 people would have had to change to your team to get a point and prevent Ron from getting any. This is a problem as with no communication you have to idea if the other guy will move over with you.

At best you tie it and prevent anyone from getting points.

Do you go with guaranteed points or maybe points?

Dunno, I just can't help break the feeling the game wants movement.

[chefTENGU]

One of the problems might be our game size. We're pretty close to the minimum of 5 players; imagine how things would be different if we had 10-15 people playing at once.

[Arainach]

See, the problem is, there shouldn't BE a winning group. BC was picking the same team every time except bonus rounds. It was only the "winning group" because other people also picked the group. If other people wised up, as they should have, and stopped "donating" points to the person with the highest score, it would no longer be a winning team and he would stop earning so many points. But this did not happen. People just saw "hey, if I go in Cuntpunts I can earn a free point" without considering that the current leader will also gain a free point.This is game theory at its best. If we all keep voting with BC, BC wins and we lose. If I don't vote with BC and eveyrone else stops voting with me, we win. If I stop and other people DON'T stop, they get points and I don't and it's worse off for me. It's essentially a slight variation on the Prisoner's Dillema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dillema).

[Seegtease]

It's essentially a slight variation on the Prisoner's Dillema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dillema).

Pretty much, except instead of trying to win, you need to cooperate in order for someone else to NOT win. If you keep picking the ones BC picks, you're pretty much SURE to lose. You may still lose if you switch your vote to someone else, but at least you have a SHOT at winning then.

Would you rather have NO chance of winning or have a shot at winning? It seems like an easy decision to me.


Do you go with guaranteed points or maybe points?

Wrong point of view. Do you go with guaranteed giving the leader the victory, or maybe not giving the leader the victory?

It's not a hard decision guys. Don't pick the one the leader is picking. Just... don't. Don't ever do it. Doesn't matter if people don't cooperate. Maybe it'll take a round for people to get the picture. Doesn't matter. If you're contributing to the leader so that he wins, you lose. That's really all there is to it. Whether or not you earn points for 1 or 2 rounds is irrelevant, so long as the leader does not.

You just have to hope other people go along with you. If they don't, that sucks, but you would have lost for sure if you stuck with contributing to the leader's points. So the only logical thing to do is switch so you at least have a CHANCE at victory.

I'm sorry, I'm not seeing why this is so complicated.

The only thing I would change from what we did was to add that you can't vote for the same coalition more than two rounds in a row (bonus rounds excepted). Or maybe three rounds.I strongly disagree with this, because all this would accomplish is making the game less strategic and more random, and thus less fun, IMO.

[Bloodcinder]

I agree with Hunter and Brian.

[Tiger]

Its a game...if you don't like the way it works don't play it.....its not that complicated....

This is like criticizing Go Fish or Old Maid...

[Seegtease]

I'm not criticizing the game. I think it's fine.

[llama_egg]

By why settle for Go Fish when you can get Arkham Horror instead?

[Tiger]

I'm not criticizing the game. I think it's fine.

Then I wasn't talking to you... read ALL the responses before you think someone is talking directly to you just because they posted after you...

But I'm not crying about losing, I'm giving criticism about the way the game works.


This one for example

[Seegtease]

No quotes = addressing the post before you.

[llama_egg]

I honestly don't why you're making such a big fuss about a couple of us giving constructive criticism. God knows how many games exist today due to people changing rule sets because they where not happy with it.

It's nothing more then my opinion, I believe the game is fundamentally broken but has the foundations for something better. Should I just say nothing and allow the game to forever stay the same?

[Seegtease]

I honestly don't why you're making such a big fuss about a couple of us giving constructive criticism. God knows how many games exist today due to people changing rule sets because they where not happy with it.

It's nothing more then my opinion, I believe the game is fundamentally broken but has the foundations for something better. Should I just say nothing and allow the game to forever stay the same?

I agree that most games morph with time to perfection. I think this game could be MORE fun with some tweaking, but I don't think the idea of restricting team picks is one of those. If you ever tell people what team they cannot pick, then you've just broken the basic aspect of the game. It's like making a rule for monopoly that you cannot buy boardwalk if you already own any other property. You just don't make rules like that.