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Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

I've been working on a semi-coop (I.e., only one can win but all can lose) called "Before the Walls of Troy," about Greek heroes overcoming challenges and opponents (and outdoing each other) while making sure the Trojans don't overrun their camp. I've been tossing ideas around inside my head and on Word & Excel docs on this since March-ish and it's now only 57% Battlestar Galactica by weight!

The idea that came to me this Monday as I was in an MRI machine with my own thoughts (not to worry, nothing abnormal came up) was a double auction game. The players are criminal masterminds. The auction-relevant parts are: each turn, players have the opportunity to recruit from a limited, revealed pool of specialists (each with specific skill ratings and a minimum bid to hire). Then, they bid on a revealed set of jobs, which have optimal required skills, a cost to pull the job, and max payoff for the job.

My thought was to have a single bid auction for recruiting specialists: go clockwise starting with player #2, each player placing a single verbal bid or passing, with player #1 getting the last bid. (Player order wouldn't be static.)

Then, for jobs, I was thinking of giving every player a double-digit spinner dial. They'd dial in their bid for the job (all jobs have a max payoff under $100 to fit the dial) and reveal simultaneously. Lowest bid gets the job at that payoff, breaking ties closest to the #2 player clockwise (who would win any tie).

There'd be some other bits to it (pulling the jobs -- automatic with enough skill points; a roll if not, which might lower payoff -- plus spending money on things to earn VPs, as well as an Orleans-style stack of "this turn, this limitation/requirement/bonus is in play" cards as a timer for the game, etc.), but most of the game would live in the two auctions.

My question is, for those who like auction games, does this sound like too much auctioning, even though the second is super-simple to run? Would it be better to write it up as a single auction and just a fixed profit from jobs (has the benefit of simplifying the cost/reward math there)? Or is there enough variety in the two types of auctions to warrant prototyping it as such?

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Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Thanks for the notes!

the holy poopacy posted:

I would assume that there is some sort of cost to do jobs / penalty for failing them.

Both, in fact -- in the version with both auctions, I envisioned jobs as having a fixed cost (gear, bribes, etc.) besides crew that you had to pay before you attempted them (and it would be a mandatory cost if you won the bid; if you say you're going to rob the diamond exchange and don't try, the underworld will never trust you again), as well as financial penalties for failure (job X might cost you, I dunno, $4 for every required skill point your assigned crew is missing -- you couldn't crack the main safe, so you're only getting paid out part of what the big score would have been).

Edit: for clarity on bidding low -- the low bid is for the payout for the jobs. Job X might cost $30 to attempt and have a maximum payout of $60. Andy dials $57, Beth dials $55, and Cat dials $58. Beth gets the job, pays $30 up-front, and earns $55 if she pulls it off without a hitch (I.e., has the right mix of skills on her assigned crew).

Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Sep 30, 2023

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Disregard; wrong thread

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