I recently had an idea for domains at war battles and was wondering what people thought of it. Communication was always an issue with commanders so what if before even initiative has been rolled the general sends out a short missive with his orders and than on each commanders turn they follow their orders as best as they are able and try to capitalize on opportunities using their own initiative. Any Thoughts?
I think that could be done particularly well in roll20.
Give the commanders only vision of areas from their own units; only the commander gets to see the whole allied board. Before initiative, the general gives individual orders and then sits back.
You could even make the orders private so the commanders don’t know what each other’s orders are.
Limiting communication over the internet is hard, though - too many side channels if your players already know each other, or have any way to find each other.
(I like thinking about limited-information games like this, but in practice I think the only good way to preserve limited information between players / get players to keep secrets from each other is to motivate them against each other / put them into conflict)
the hallmark of the best co-op games are traitor elements. Best examples are Shadows over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica
I think it’s a pretty neat idea, speaking as player. I wouldn’t even feel obligated to cheat via side-communications. Then again, I usually don’t, so maybe I’m abnormal.
As a general rule, with anyone I would actually be willing to play games with, ‘don’t cheat’ is enough to stop people from cheating.
If they’re willing to cheat with side communication, they weren’t really interested in playing it anyway.