Battleship Free-For-All

[bsmith]

Back when I was active in the DROD forums I ran a multiplayer Battleships game once in a while.  Since I am now active over here I thought I would see if there was enough interest to play a game at this forum.

Battleship game rules:

- I will not play, instead I am the moderator.
- Everyone will have their ships on a 15x15 grid. Opposing ships may touch but will never overlap.
- All the ships are three-tile length ships. I already have a grid with 30 of these ships spread out at random. Which ones a player will get is decided at random.
- The number each player gets will be determined as follows: 5 players=5 ships; 6-7 players=4 ships; 8-10 players=3 ships; 11-15 players=2 ships.
- Five players is the minimum. If more than 15 people sign up then I will draw a larger grid; a 20x20 grid for up to 25 people or a 25x25 grid for up to 40 people.
- At the beginning of the game I will send each player a PM stating where their ships are located on the grid.
- Each round will take two stages:
--- Stage 1: Each player sends me a PM specifying coordinates of the squares they want to attack, 3 squares per player per round. The number of shots may increase as players are eliminated. There will be a time limit for players to make their submissions.
--- Stage 2: I will post a composite list or image of all the shots and whether the shots were hits or misses. I will then announce the beginning of the next round.
- A player will be active as long as he has at least one ship still afloat. As soon as all of a players ships are sunk he is eliminated.
- If a player misses a submission deadline, then that person's shots will be chosen by a random number generator. The RNG does not care if a shot has already been called or if you hit yourself.
- If a player misses two or more consecutive deadlines, then only one random shot is made for that round.
- I will be tracking the game's progress using a spreadsheet made for that purpose.
- One Shot at a Time Rule:
--- This rule will only come into play once there are two or three players remaining.
--- The rule is I will check for eliminated players after each person's first shot, then again for the second shot, and then again for the third shot. Effectively three one shot rounds will play out.
--- Players still send all three of their shots at once for the round.

I will wait a week to see how many people are interested and if any questions come up.  If I see enough interest then the game will start on October 14th.

[Simon]

Fun idea, I'm in!

When a ship is sunk, will this event be announced? Will the ship owner be announced? Will the ship's exact position be revealed (to disginguish the sunk ship from touching hits against different ships)?

-- Simon

[mobius]

ooh ooh. I'll join, sounds like fun.

[bsmith]

For each round I will make a short writeup announcing if a player has a ship sunk or anything else I find notable.  Also I will attach a screenshot showing the hits and misses played so far; hits will identify whose ship was struck.

I have attached a screenshot from one of my DROD Battleship games as an example.

[Dullstar]

How long would each turn last (i.e. how often would I need to check on this if I were to play) and about how long would you estimate a game could be expected to take?

[bsmith]

I plan on having each round last 2 or 3 days, if people are prompt in submitting their shots I will try to stick to 2 days.  I estimate about 10-12 rounds to complete the game.  So about about a month long total.

[bsmith]

Only 3 people interested so far?  I think I will extend the signup deadline to the 16th, see if anyone else checks in over the weekend.

[bsmith]

No more signups, so we will go with three players: Simon, Mobius, and Dullstar.  With this few players, each person will have seven ships and in each round players will make four shots.  I am sending PMs to each player with your respective ship positions.

The deadline to submit shots for the first round will be Thursday October 19th, at 12:00 noon Central time.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 1 results are attached.

A reminder that the grid goes from A1 to O15.

For round 2 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the second round will be Sunday October 22nd, at 12:00 noon Central time.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 2 results are attached.

Only one person submitted shots in the last round, leaving the others to let the RNG choose.

For round 3 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the third round will be Wednesday October 25th.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 3 results are attached.

Dullstar found a mistake in the ship placements at O9.  That has been corrected for this round.

For round 4 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the third round will be Saturday October 28th.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 4 results are attached.

This is the second time only one person submitted shots for the round.  If this occurs again I will cancel the game due to lack of interest.

For round 5 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the third round will be Wednesday November 1st.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 5 results are attached.

Everybody got their shots in this round already, so I am posting now.

For round 6 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the third round will be Friday November 3rd.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

Round 6 results are attached.

For round 7 we will again have four shots per player.  The deadline to submit shots for the third round will be Monday November 6th.  Shots should be sent to me by PM.

[bsmith]

There were no submissions for round 7.  So I have decided to end this game prematurely due to the constant lack of intetest.