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[Cernel]

@TheDog said:

Added various FFA to the FFA, PVP, Solo tab/column.

Interesting addition about FFA, but it has several issues.

1. FFA is not alternative to PvP: it is rather a subset of PvP but really also of PvAI.
2. FFA may be understood as 3+ players and no teams: meaning a game in which every player (meaning power/polity/country/faction...) is on its own (and typically always at war with everyone else), so a map with 3 or more alliances (of which at least one has more than one player) could be seen as not being a FFA. According to Google, the prevailing meaning of FFA is indeed a no-teams game.
3. Anything like being or not being a FFA is a very much a game-related thing (not a map thing). For example, in the Napoleonic Empires map, you have 3 games, of which one is a 2 sided team game and the other two are FFA.

Instead of having FFA as part of that column, I rather suggest having an other column with the number of sides (For example, if the only sides are Axis and Allies, the number would be 2: passive neutrals like those of World At War or of 270BC Wars are of course not counted: these games are also 2 sided ones.). In its narrowest (and prevailing) interpretation, a FFA would be any game with 3+ sides inasmuch as the number of sides is equal to the number of players (which could be an other column).

Still, you would have to decide what to do for maps having multiple games with different sides. (For example, for Napoleonic Empires, the number of sides would be "2" (if you only look at the main game) or "2/5/8" if you look at each of its games.)

[RogerCooper]

@Cernel To me FFA (free-for-all), means everyone permanently at war with everyone. Some mods have relationships that can change in the course of the game, and can't be easily summarized as alliances.

To me FFA mods are uninteresting. If you are in the middle you can't accomplish anything, while if you are at the edge, you can often pull off an easy victory.

[Cernel]

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel I actually would prefer the terms "areas" as "spaces" is ambiguous. The rules for Axis & Allies used the terms "territories".

I think that per se the best term is "Zones". The "Sea Zones" are always called as such and TripleA does not have stuff like the "Mobilisation Zone", so it should be quite obvious that "Zones" means territories plus sea zones. However, I've checked the rule-books from Classic to Global, and the official term is "Spaces" or "Game Spaces".

Areas does not sound quite clear to me. An area could be a group of zones or a cosmetic area with no zones at all (like the one that World At War has between 118 and 124 Sea Zone or the many cosmetic islands of New World Order, having not only no ownership but neither existing at all beside visually). Moreover, I would argue that those pacific islands with multiple islands (or Turkey when the European and Asian parts are the same territory) are each a territory/zone/space with multiple areas, meaning multiple areas part of the same territory/zone/space (and I think it would be hard to argue against this).

(Obviously "territories" is a terrible term if non-convoy sea zones are comprised, and just one of the several cases in which TripleA technical terms are just bad. Let's keep them under the hood as much as possible.)

Definitions from Cambridge (first definition given):

Space: an empty area that is available to be used

Zone: an area, especially one that is different from the areas around it because it has different characteristics or is used for different purposes

Area: a particular part of a place, piece of land, or country

Territory: an area of land or sea that is controlled by a particular country

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At the end, I think the easiest pick is just the official one: space (or game space).

[Cernel]

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel To me FFA (free-for-all), means everyone permanently at war with everyone. Some mods have relationships that can change in the course of the game, and can't be easily summarized as alliances.

Yah, what I was saying is that FFA is very ambiguous a term. Practically, it can mean one of 3 things, from the wider to the narrower interpretation.

1. A FFA is any game with 3 or more sides (either 3 or more players with only one player per side (so no actual sides) or 1 or more players per side).
2. A FFA is any game with 3 or more sides where every side is composed of only 1 player (so no actual sides).
3. A FFA is any game with 3 or more sides where every side is composed of only 1 player (so no actual sides) and every player is always at war with every other player.

Personally, I tend to understand it as definition 2, but I can totally see @rogercooper and other people understanding it as definition 3, as well as some other as definition 1.

---

A FFA can be an amazing game, but it is very hard to make a very good FFA (especially with ever-growing TUV dynamics like basic TripleA).

[xxXEddieXxx]

@thedog
How is the sorting for Spaces supposed to work?
Currently it seems a little off to me. One Sort option shows 100 first and the other shows -99 ? Shouldn't the big maps come first in the second?

[TheDog]

@xxXEddieXxx
Try again the -99 are now 0-99 and this should be a logicial sort order.

[Cernel]

@xxXEddieXxx Noticed too but did not bother. Yah, the -99 goes after the 800+. Makes no sense

This can be easily solved by changing the "-99" to "099-".

However, then what to do when having 1000s? Would that go before 100s?

To reiterate, my suggestions then would be

099-
100s
200s
300s
400s
500s
600s
700s
800s
900s
1000s

or

001-100
101-200
201-300
301-400
401-500
501-600
601-700
701-800
801-900
901-1000
1001-2000

However, I now see the additional problem that 1000s would not go after 900s and 1001-2000 would not go after 901-1000.

Is there no way to define the up-down order? Is it forcibly dependent on alphabeta-numerical order left to right?

If there is not, then I guess something like this:

01 (99-)
02 (100s)
03 (200s)
04 (300s)
05 (400s)
06 (500s)
07 (600s)
08 (700s)
09 (800s)
10 (900s)
11 (1000s)

(Also, really no idea why wanting to have 800+ instead of going up to 1000s or having 1000+. I don't think there being few (8?) maps at 800+ is enough of a reason for not completing it up to the thousand but leaving it hanging unfinished at the 800 mark.)

[TheDog]

@ All
So I have settled on the current Spaces column values and its heading.

Using as few characters as possible to convey the intent of the numbers.

0-99, yes you will never have 0 spaces, but used for sorting the values
100s, 100-199 spaces, players can pick their favoured sized maps
etc
:
800+, there has to be an upper limit and this is a reasonable limit, there are under 10 of these maps, also it avoids 1000s sorting problem.

---

What do people think of the current FFAs, PVP, Solo column?
We could

• remove the column ?
• add to the values, like having maximum number of players listed ?
• remove it and add another column, if so what ?

A map like Another World, has 18 players, Shogun Advanced has 16 players as examples, some players want, some avoid these large player maps.

This could be folded into this hybrid/multi use column.
Most fields will be blank, as they will have say 10 or less players and is considered normal and so not worth recording.

Thoughts?

[Cernel]

@TheDog said:

@ All
So I have settled on the current Spaces column values and its heading.

Using as few characters as possible to convey the intent of the numbers.

0-99, yes you will never have 0 spaces, but used for sorting the values
100s, 100-199 spaces, players can pick their favoured sized maps
etc
:
800+, there has to be an upper limit and this is a reasonable limit, there are under 10 of these maps, also it avoids 1000s sorting problem.

How about

800s
900s
over999

That way, the upper limit of the penultimate category would be 999, which seems more natural.

[Cernel]

@TheDog said:

What do people think of the current FFAs, PVP, Solo column?
We could

• remove the column ?
• add to the values, like having maximum number of players listed ?
• remove it and add another column, if so what ?

A map like Another World, has 18 players, Shogun Advanced has 16 players as examples, some players want, some avoid these large player maps.

This could be folded into this hybrid/multi use column.
Most fields will be blank, as they will have say 10 or less players and is considered normal and so not worth recording.

Thoughts?

I would definitely leave that category reserved only for telling against whom/what the game is supposed to be played, not turning it into a salad with FFA and whatnot. Meaning the categories of PvP (Human vs Human), PvAI, PvP+AI (like Feudal Japan, which is both this and PvAI), Solo (for those rare games like Labirinth) and Tutorial.

For telling stuff like FFA or Team Game or 1v1, that should really be done at the game (not at the map) level, however we can have two information which may help understanding that at the map level. You can have a column for maximum number of playable players and maximum number of sides with playable players. The former would be 5 and the latter 2 for Classic, Revised, v4, v5 and v6.

The question would be what to do in cases like Napoleonic Empires. This map has 3 games which, as a matter of players/sides are 8/2, 5/5 and 8/8. I've no idea how you would convey that reasonably at the map level.

I think you just want to do things at the map level which should be done at the game level. Also the PvP or PvAI should be done at the game level, because you can have a map with two games, one PvP and the other one PvAI.

(When I say at the game level, I mean that those information should be given when you are in the "Select a Game" window.)