coan.net:
I want to play every one of those games

Oh my gosh, these awesome ideas makes the Battleboats game way more interesting! Especially Moving and Choice... well for vhoice I know maybe something better... why nog have some four-boat configurations too? Those will be a hard way to find, but an opponent should know has has hard times, he even has one more shot!

pedestrian: I LOVE that idea - let the sea monster attack 1 square at random each turn.

One of the things I know I don't like about regular battleboats is it takes longer (many users like faster games), so having this 2nd square always getting attacked will also speed up the game. Plus like you said, for me - I usually follow a "pattern" to search for boats, and that would force me to adjusted continually during the game.

coan.net: Nice ideas, I like the Moving Battleboats best!

Here's another: We already have Behemoth Chess, so why not Leviathan Battleboats? It would be like "plain" Battleboats (one shot per turn), except the "beast" strikes at a random square on each turn, so effectively you have two shots. The random factor means you would have to adjust your shooting pattern during the game.

AbigailII: I would say no, that should not be allowed to happen (in my opinion) Since in the real world (yea, like this game is really based in the real world) - but in the real world you would not see boats be able to do that, so I would say not to let it happen in the game also.

coan.net: As stated, with diagonal boats, you can have boats intersecting each other. (Say one boat on a1-b2-c3, the other on b3-c2). Is that intended?

Lets make it at least 3 posts this year. This site needs more Battleboat variants. Below is a list of variant ideas - some are my idea's, others are ideas from others below.

Ideas - comments - thoughts.

Tricky Battleboats (Plus & Dark) – This is where three (3) dummy items are also placed on the board to trick the other user who might hit it to think they hit a ship. (The dummy item does NOT need to be sunk to win the game.) They dummy item could be a piece of driftwood, a mine, a life raft, or something similar.

Sphere Battleboats (Plus & Dark) - Rules & everything is the same, but game is played on the sphere – like the Froglet games, where a boat can be placed off the edge onto the other side..

Bonus Battleboats – One shot each turn, if you get a hit when you “submit this move”, the game is back in your hands to make another move.

Dark Battleboats Plus – You start with 5 shots each, but you lose 1 for each of your ships that are sunk. NOT ONLY do you not see which ships you sunk, you DO NOT see your own board either (that is once you set up your own pieces) – This is to solve the problem of seeing your opponent shooting 4 shots and then knowing you sunk a ship that way.)

HexBoats – Game is played on a hex / honeycomb type of board, so instead of boats being places either up/down or left/right – they will be able to be placed in 3 different directions.

Super Battleboats / Diagonal Boats (regular,plus,dark) – use same board, same rules – only different is you are able to place your boats diagonal. (I would think this wouldn’t be too hard to program, the hardest part would probable be getting new graphics of the boats on the board going diagonal.)

Moving Battleboats Plus – A variant of the Plus game. During a turn, you can use one of your “shots” to move one of your boats 1 position in the game. (So if your piece is from left to right) – you could use one of your available shots to move your boat 1 square over to the left or right. (or use 2 available shots to move your boat 2 squares.) You can not move past the edge of the board, you can not change the up/down to left/right position of your boats…. but you CAN move to a place that has already been shot. (So you can re-shot a square that has been shot at before.) So you can try to hide your boats some, but at the same time you lose one of your shots to try to find your opponents boats.

Choice Battlebaots Plus (Choice Dark Battleboats) – You can choose what boats you will place on your own board. The choice of 10 configurations & your opponent will not know which configuration you picked. The choices:

1 5-ship, 1 4-ship, 2 3-ships, 1 2-ship (classic) (17)
2 4-ships, 2 3-ships, 1 2-ship (16)
1 5-ship, 1 4-ship, 1 3-ship, 2 2-ships (16)
2 5-ships, 2 4-ships (18)
1 4-ship, 2 3-ships, 2 2-ships (14)
2 5-ships, 2 3-ships, 1 2-ship (18)
5 3-ships (15)
1 6-ship, 1 4-ship, 1 3-ship, 2 2-ships (17)
1 6-ship, 1 5-ship, 1 4-ship, 1 2-ship (18)
3 4-ships, 1 3-ship, 1 2-ship (17)

Each choice has between 14-18 hittable spots. Some of the lower 14/15 will mean it will take less shots for your opponent to beat you, but you also mostly have more smaller harder to find boats.

Thom27: it sounds good

battleboats plus is usually a fun game, but it can be tedious near the end, when both players have only one ship left and thus only one shot per turn.

I'd suggest to give the players an additional shot i.e. the number of unsunk ships plus one.

Also, the first player should have only 3 instead of 6 shots in the first turn, this should make the game almost balanced.

As I just had 10 turns and 34 shots without hitting a single boat in this game of Battleboats Plus: Battleboats Plus (Gordon Shumway vs. geissbock) I wondered if there is any record keeping like in Ludo, like most misses, best hit/miss ratio or stuff like that?

Been playing the boats more & more there now

Those diagonal ones make it a great game as the board is based on squares, therefore boats can go across each other (A1, B2, C3, D4 & D5) and the other (D1, C2, B3 & A4) for example.

You can set the games to include diagonal boats or not, and also have boats that just use ONE space, would be like having one Frog in the game OR we could call it Life Raft (great idea monkeyboy lol)

In fact what is great about BugCafe, well a few of there games, is you can create your own rules as such, like design your own Scrabble boards, any size you wish, and set bonus squares anywhere you wish them, how ever many tiles you want.

Would be great if we could do that here with Boats here, decide how many of which boats we use in a game

In fact be great if we could do it for any game here that Fencer can not find time to make even the smallest changes for

* copied to 'Other Game Sites DB' *

rod03801: No BB+, please. Better X shots per player's turn, say 3.

rod03801: yes, i am just playing it on BugCafe. Considering how supposedly backward that site is, they are getting some great new games

I will mention it on Feature again

MadMonkey: MMM, yeah, I asked for that 3 years ago.. LOL.. I called it Super Battleboats.

Battleboats (rod03801, 2004-10-25 04:32:01)

I think it would be fun. As long as it was a "plus" version.

Just a thought about variants in boats, lets introduce diagonal ones as well like they have on BugCafe

ColonelCrockett: There's a bigger advantage of going first in dark battleboats than in battleboats, because there are more shots in dark battleboats than in battleboats. The more shots you can make per turn, the bigger the advantage the first player has. (Taken into extreme: with 100 shots/turn, the second player would never win).

just to be clear . . . the advantage of having the first move in either battleboats or Dark Battleboats seems about equal. Even if such a claim were true the simple solution would be as suggested . . . playing more than a single game with reversed colors. I am near the top of the Dark Battleboats ladder and I play multiple game matchs almost exclusively (unless an opponent of approximate equal rating level requests differently). Also, I fail to see how a simultaneous move would help in BB or Dark . . . the advantages in BB+ are obvious though.

coan.net: To rule out any advantage of one colour, you have to make the moves simultaneously, just like in Logic. (In the implementation, the moves aren't simultaneously, but from a game aspect they are). In Battleboats Plus, the number of shots one has in move N is the number of boats one has in move N - 1.

IMO, also Dice Poker and Triple Dice Poker could benefit from having simultaneous moves, as those games give a slight edge to the player going second. But not as big as Battleboats and its variations give to the player going first.

coan.net:
I thought maybe it would just be based on how many ships black had left the previous turn, like if white takes out a black ship on turn 1, black would still get 5 shots on turn 1, but then 4 on the next turn, exactly the way white would if black took out a white ship on turn 1. That would make sense right?

Though, if this has been said 'no' to before, then I guess it doesn't matter... I didn't actually see where it was asked before but I thought someone else might have had the sense to ask... : /... oh well

Kunoichi_Power: I've suggested this in the past as well, but Fencers answer was 'no'.

Kunoichi_Power: The advantage is mostly in the Battleboat Plus version. Current stats:

Battleboats:
White: 15017 (50.55%)
Black: 14574 (49.06%)

Dark Battleboats:
White: 28740 (54.62%)
Black: 23838 (45.31%)

Battleboats Plus:
White: 50978 (60.49%)
Black: 33227 (39.42%)

Now the important question: How do you let black take one more move in Battleboat Plus when the number of shots is determined by how may ships they have left?

(NOTE: Best thing in my opinion is to do is make sure you play 2-games, switched colors when you play)

I noticed that White has an advantage in all Battleboats games... couldn't this be fixed rather easily by making it like the game Logic, where both players get an equal amount of turns?

Starting March 26--Battleboats Plus
Seek and Destroy #7--Battleboats Plus

One for the Boat players:

MadMonkeys 'Boat' Battle' (9)

Anyone know of the most moves without a hit? Or any games wwith a lot of them?

Does anyone feel for Inaccurate Battleboats and Inaccurate Hostage Battleboats?

El Cid: wow! i almost expect you know where the boats are .. but you play with your opponent by missing them on purpose :)

Hrqls: And this one? Batalha Naval Plus (purplehawke vs. Allison)

i posted something similar on the espionage board

4 players playing battleboats, 2 players per team, 2 teams per game
(maybe less ships per player)

players are allowed to communicate, teammates can discuss their tactics (as in real life 'battleboats')

first player 1, (team a), then player 2 (team b), then player 3 (team a), then player 4 (team b)

as soon as all shops of 1 player have been sunk that team loses and the 2 players of the other team win. each player gets his bkr adjusted individually

what problems could there be ? (aside from the problem of 4 players being able to use more time before everyone has made 1 turn)

furbster: what about this one ?
http://brainking.com/nl/ShowGame?g=1915711&i=11

What the most moves it has ever took someone to hit a boat is on this site? I'm having a bad time in this game so far lol http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1896892

BIG BAD WOLF:
I think that at the end of the game, you should find out where the other player's boats were. Maybe it's just me, but I'm curious like that. what does everyone else think?

azeria: The only way is to ask your opponenet - sometimes they will tell you.

Is there any way of knowing where the opponent's final ships were when a game is done. I'm a curious person and would like to know.
Thanks :-)

Pedro Martínez: and maybe even a fourth one

BIG BAD WOLF: I have no idea + we're both on each other's enemy lists so I can't/won't ask him.

Pedro Martínez: Does he use the "random" place boat option? Just wondering if it is "broke" or something - possible giving the same "random" option for different people.

Check out the Czech board, it happened to him again, for the third time in the same tourney! Unbelievable indeed...

freaky

Hrqls: That really is quite strange!

ashley: ah thanks :)

its quite amazing indeed :)

hrqls: It says: I understand, that sometimes I have the same setup as my opponent. But TWICE in half a day? And in a single tournament. Unbelievable...

i just read this czech post ... well i couldnt read it .. but i looked at the links

its funny that in both games both players have the exact same setup ...

could someone please translate londo's post to english ? :)

Sound like a fun variant!

Czuch Chuckers: Yes, that's definitely a way that this variant would be different than the others. But, then, variants are supposed to have differences, eh? ;-)

For some players, it might even be a preferred difference. While it does give up a bit of competitive advantage (say), it also changes the "feel" of the game. Speaking as someone who does lose now and again, there's always the "oh! I was so close! I wish I could go another couple of turns" feeling at the end of a game...

--The Dagda Mor

The Dagda Mor: The one down side that I can see.... in a normal game, if I beat you, you would no longer have an opportunity to know where any of my ships are that you haven't found yet. In this new variant, it would allow the loser to still be able to see how i place my ships! This is not a huge drawback, but it would have an effect.

The Dagda Mor: Sweet!

The game of "battleboats" has an interesting feature that sets it apart from the majority of other games on this site:

While it is a turn-based game, the strategy of how to play your turns depends very little on what your opponents do on their turns.

I think that this feature is worth exploring in an additional Battleboats variant which I propose being named "Dark Battleboats Barrage".

In this variant, play would be as in normal Dark Battleboats, however neither player would have to wait for the other player before continuing on to their next turns.

As soon as both boards are set up, each player can take as many turns in a row as they like. The winner will be the player who sinks her or his opponent's ships in the least number of turns. (If they take the same number of turns, then the game will be a draw. As such, neither white nor black should have any statistical advantage.)

Any thoughts?

--The Dagda Mor

before , only two shots and sunk the number two boat ?
http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1627889

I just set up a battle boats plus live tournament starting at 9 pm in half an hour!