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.)
Nothingness:
1) play tournaments
2) play stairs
3) play pawns
4) play fair players, who don't do that
5) appeal or join the group of players who want to change the rules to consider setting the board in such games as first move, so after showing the board or first shot the deletion is disabled
mctrivia: I knew that. I've challenged top players at other games . . . and I explain in the invitation that I'm challenging them for that reason. To send an invitation with no message is a little odd (if not rude).
Sphere battleboats, You could have the back of the 5 shot boat on a3 b3 while the front 3 parts of the boat are on h3 i3 and j3, or the two shot boat could have one part on on f10 and the other part on f1. Make it so there is no edge to the board, it just loops around to the other side.
mctrivia: we should suggest such a variant to Fencer and then we would be able to test this theory. I think it will give black an advantage but I'm not that good at this game (rofl). We'll just have to see . . . btw, I play mostly matches to avoid the "luck" of the game and let skill come into play.
ColonelCrockett: White has a better chance because they get an exter turn since black is not allowed to shoot once all are gone. If you wanted to equal it out completely farely make it so that the number of shots each player has does not change until the round is up. So for example if I am white and I shoot down your last 2 ships you still get 2 shots. You would get a lot more ties with this way. A good way to make fare without changing the rules is to always play 2 game matches.
jurek: since these games have alot to do with luck you cannot conclusively say that one side has any significant advantage. (no matter what the numbers say). However, making a variant that works this way isn't a bad idea at all. Just don't change existing rules based upon mild observations. Just a thought, but, won't your idea of giving Black three extra shots give him the advantage?
I've noticed that white has a 3-2 win advantage over black in all of the games so far for BB+. As a possibility to make things a little more fair for black, I propose the following:
On turn 1, white gets 1 shot, black gets 2 shots
On turn 2, white gets 3 shots, black gets 4 shots
On turns 3 and after, both sides get 5 shots.
Perhaps this could be another variant, or it could just supplant the existing rules for BB+ (I see the former as being the most likely)
Do you love chocolate? If you do you should join us in Chocolate Lovers United all you have to do is send me a request to join. All chocolate lovers accepted and there's a battlboat tournament where you can win a box of tootsie rolls.
mctrivia: I could see where these options would add a new element of strategy . . . you could in theory box in a ship and then try to hit it so that it couldn't get away. What happens to a ship that is hit? does the hit square move with it or is it then stationary?
Or how about the age old child cheat trick. You are allowed to move all your boats at the begining of your turn to any space that has not been shot. Would force people to keep there serch patern looking random
BIG BAD WOLF: How is this for unique? Battle Boats Plus with a few new rules. Each boat can move forward or backwards 1 space on each turn or they can shoot. Once a boat had been hit it is no longer allowed to move as it has been damaged. 3 Only the 2 long boat is allowed to turn. When it does its back end stays in place and the front end moves to another square.
Your aponent of course would know that you moved a ship as though you could have shot say 5 shots you only shot 4.
mctrivia: Yea - but that is already available on another turn-based game site - trying to figure out a unique way to have BrainKing to have its own version.
BIG BAD WOLF: Only problem with this is half the skill of Battleboats is the placement of the parts. Would probably be best if each player had there own board and you got to shoot one shot per board. The other players can see if it is a hit or a miss and shoot acordingly.
Modifisert av coan.net (12. desember 2005, 04:48:03)
If I were to make a multi-player (more then 2) version of Battleboats:
One big board - maybe 15x15
All players pieces goes on the SAME board
The computer randomly places ALL pieces on the 1 board. (Player can not place them since 2 players might accedently place a piece in the same space.)
The more players, the less pieces that can fit on the board - so maybe something like one "4 long", two "3 long", and two "2 long" pieces for each player.
Each player gets a chance to shot on the board - of course they will know where their own boats are on the board, but are able to shot anywhere else on the board.
Each player gets to see where the other shots - when a hit is made, you do NOT know who's boat it is until it is sunk. (So player one makes a hit, player two sees that and shots around it to get a second hit, etc...)
..... This can also be set up to be teams - 2 against 2 - where the 2 team mates get to share notes and try to sink the other players boats. If one of the player loses all their boats, they are out and the 1 player has to continue. (They can still "win" the game if their team mate continues to sink all their opponents ships when they are not even playing anymore.)
Yea, Fencer knows about the bug, but the last I heard is that the database admistrator (Liquid) was not around to "completly" fix the problem. Fencer has fixed it for now, but he does not guarentee that it will not be back until Liquid is able to take a look at it.
blue duke: the same thing happened to me yesterday at home. However, at my college no such thing has happened. Perhaps it is a setting issue? I'd like this looked at myself.
i was playing battleboat plus..when i got 5 bomb to use, i clcik one on game grid then suddely the game went proof** (gone).. the only option is to click on chosse other piece, so i click on that do other move but same thing happen???
I requested that once, ColonelCrockett. (Actually it may have been a different site, now that I think about it.) I called it Super Battleboats. Except, I would only do it as a "plus" game, because with diagnol ships, a "regular" one-shot a piece game could be way too long and boring..
ColonelCrockett: I'm not sure, but I have a beter discussion topic.
Can anyone think of some interesting variants of the game that would be good on this site?
Here are some I posted about awhile back:
# Bonus Battleboats - One shot each turn, if you get a hit when you hit "submit this move", the game is back in your hands to make another move.
# Outline Battleboats - A sort of "anti-battleboats" - goal is to outline the boats without hitting them. 5 hits and you lose. My question: What is an outline - just the 2 sides, and above - or the 4 corners also? And if it's near a side, you just need do the 3 sides?
# HexBoats - Game is played on a hex/honeycomb type of board - So instead of a boat being about to be placed either up&down, or left&right - it will be able to be place 3 different ways.... making the game a little more interesting
# 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! (This is to solve the problem of seeing your opponent shooting 4 shots and hence knowing you sunk a ship that way)