Land Grant Pattern

[Soldier Ant]

The strategies in land-grabbing are interesting (if you miss the last plot, you are screwed; you have more choice if other players grab their plots early, etc...); but I feel like the left-to-right-up-to-down cursor scrolling pattern has no logical meaning and is predictable. My proposal is to implement 12 cursor-scrolling methods and use them randomly one for each game. The scrolling methods would be announced briefly before the Land Grant (maybe using a symbol), and the start. Some examples:

1. the original one, with a random (permanently marked) starting square
2. from the store as a starting square, it evolves as a spiral, randomly clockwise or counter-clockwise (all random changes are announced)
3. from a random corner square to the store with a spiral pattern, randomly clockwise or counter-clockwise

etc...

Another option: After a countdown of 5 seconds, the black cursor starts highlighting completely random plots. Plots already highlighted are marked with a grayish cursor, while the plot currently "active" (waiting for player input (button press)) is marked with a bold, black cursor. When someone chooses his/her plot there will be a 5 seconds pause (to let players think about the plot they want), and the phase continues. The cursor will never pass over an already "gray" plot.

How does it sound?

[zaphod77]

The land grant system is balanced around the current order.

That said, i think one interesting idea is to have every even land grant be a backwards one.

For game balance, it MUST sweep perpendicular to the river.

But there's no reason it can't go the other direction half the time.