ENTRIES FOR IDEAS CLOSED: THE FOUR NEW ONES ARE MAGIC NUMBER (3 supports), LOCKDOWN (2 supports), BLIND ATTACK (2 supports), and AUCTIONED HIRE (1 support). A NEW THREAD WILL BE CREATED FOR VOTING AND PARTICIPATION.

As ESG 02 is coming to a close, voting for Experiment Series Game 03 will begin!
We keep the two highest runner-ups from last vote and add four new ones.

The two highest runner ups were Westward Expansion (can only send subs to left of your screen, limited to North and South (91 degrees to 269 degrees), even if it means not getting the closest outpost, dormants included) and Specialized Combat (all subs must contain at least one specialist, including in the beginning when capturing dormants).

Please comment any ideas you have, and edit your comment with quotes to support another idea. The four most supported ideas will be voted on later.
Try to make ideas concise and easy to follow. You may submit as many ideas as you like.
Please have Name, Description, and Science (possible game/behavioral changes).

Name: "Auctioned Hire"
Description: For every hire except the first, a person must put up one of their specialists on auction (starting bid 20 drillers, promoted specialists 50 drillers) which anyone can bid on for nine hours. Person selected to auction a specialist is set by predetermined order. The winner then must exchange a gift of drillers to the person with the sold specialist, and no other player may capture or interfere during this process including the origin and receiving outposts. The movement of the pay and sale must happen one hour after the bidding period. If an auction happens between two allies, the driller and specialist transfer still has to occur. If no one auctions within 9 hours, the auctioneer retains their specialist. Winner of the specialist is determined by the highest amount at the end of the nine hour period, announced in alternate public chat (a "private" message addressed to all players like in ESG 01).
Science: Will people try to auction a specialist in order to get a temporary driller boost, or will they try to convince allies to jack up the price so other people can't get that specialist?

Name: "Forced trade"
Description: At any moment, a player may trade one of their specialists for another player's as long as both players can see both specialists in question. Those specialists may not be traded by those two players anymore, however, repeated change of ownership of specialists can reset this restriction. Any specialist that is on the same sub or outpost as the Queen or Navigator may not be traded. The trade doesn't have to be in a straight line, as long as the trade occurs, it is valid (ie trade can happen on opposite sides of map).
Science: Will people hire more assassins and saboteurs as trading tokens? Will people store their specialists with Navigators or pile them on their Queen to prevent them from being traded?

Name: Lol what
Description: All subs must be gifted, so mobility is key. Not much point other than for science

Name: Northward expansion
Description: Same thing as westward expansion, but NORTH! Winter is coming

"All subs must be gifted"

Lol what. Sooooo no outposts can exchange owners then except by diplomacy? Lmao

Idea:
Every day during the game one player within your sonar range has to give you a free outpost of their choice on your front exclude day one. Must be publicly announced in the first 12 hours of that day.

What about:

Magic Number

- All subs (attack/defense/transport/etc) must have exactly a certain number of drillers that each player must publicly announce on the first day. No more, no less.
- You may change your 'sub number' in the public chat every day, but must be publicly announced.
- No subs can be launched with the new number until you have announced it.

Invisible Shield

- Everyone has to drop shields at the start of the game
- You must drop shields the second you take an outpost (even if you will lose it soon)
- Shields created by the King/Queen can remain standing

Separation and Integration
An even number of players per game will be divided into half, one being Fs and the other being Gs.
Fs may only own factories and mines, and Gs may only own generators and mines.
At the start of the game, Fs must evacuate all generators and disable any shield, while Gs must keep their factories as close to containing nothing as possible, also with the shield disabled.
Gifting between factories and generators is allowed.
The science behind this is pretty self explanatory but there are some deeper ideas which I won't reveal for the sake of preventing external intervention of game ideas if this game is played

Sudden Switch
Gameplay starts at 10 players, with a strict 5v5 system. So 2 teams, each with 5 players. This will be represented as (2x5). These teams will be predetermined. All subs arriving at a team member's outpost must be gifted.
When 1 person is eliminated, there will be a (3x3), which the host will publicly announce at the time the person is eliminated. These will consist of the places of 1, 5, 9, vs 2, 6, 7, vs 3, 4, 8 ( because they all add up to 15) shown on the intelligence panel at the time of the elimination of the 10th player.
This process repeats as follows.
8: (2x4) - Places 1, 3, 6, 8, vs 2, 4, 5, 7
7: (1x7) - Places 1 vs 2 vs 3 ... Vs 7
6: (3x2) - Places 1, 6, vs 2, 5, vs 3, 4
5: (5x1) - Places 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 vs 5
4: (2x2) - Places 1, 4 vs 3, 2
3: (3x1) - Places 1 vs 2 vs 3
2: (2x1) - Places 1 vs 2
Mines are not allowed until there are 3 players left.

Elimination
Mining mode but no mines allowed. A player must have at least 2 outposts. If down to 1 outpost, he/she must resign.

Lockdown
No dormant outposts may be taken

Blind attack
Your subs may only arrive at an enemy/dormant outpost which is not in your sonar range. Subs may arrive at your own outposts without limitations. If your sub was travelling to an outpost which did meet these conditions before but doesn't anymore the sub could arrive the sub must be gifted or,if possible, redirected, before arrival. However, you are not allowed to purposely gift drillers to an outpost which does not meet the conditions at launch.

Minesweeper
After the first day, you are only allowed to own 4 factories/generators for every mine that you own. If you exceed 4 per mine at any time, you must resign.

blanc wrote:Magic Number

tw2000 wrote:Lockdown
No dormant outposts may be taken

Blind attack
Your subs may only arrive at an enemy/dormant outpost which is not in your sonar range. Subs may arrive at your own outposts without limitations. If your sub was travelling to an outpost which did meet these conditions before but doesn't anymore the sub could arrive the sub must be gifted or,if possible, redirected, before arrival. However, you are not allowed to purposely gift drillers to an outpost which does not meet the conditions at launch.

I like these three

blanc wrote:Invisible Shield

- Everyone has to drop shields at the start of the game
- You must drop shields the second you take an outpost (even if you will lose it soon)
- Shields created by the King/Queen can remain standing

The king stack is real