11 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

6-5 is NOT a win. It is a draw.

Understand that and the bitterness will go.

This is an well constructed argument fyi. Dont need essays to present a logical case.

3 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

This is an well constructed argument fyi. Dont need essays to present a logical case.

This is one of the most important lessons. I lost two games at a 5 round tournament with 64 players, but both losses were 5-6s, and while I didn’t win BIG, I managed 14th with 3-4 point from the top 8 cut. This is what people need to understand:

win big, cut your losses. Sure, in a 3 round tournament a draw most likely put you out of the driving seat for first, but everyone has the same chances.

34 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

This is an well constructed argument fyi. Dont need essays to present a logical case.

Great, I would like to know more. Could you elaborate on why a draw is good for the game?

8 minutes ago, Qark said:

Great, I would like to know more. Could you elaborate on why a draw is good for the game?

Acknowledgment that it is a draw is good for the game.

Sometimes casual gamers claim bragging rights and hierdom to the galaxy after a 6-5. The problem is this mindset isnt synchronised with the tournament system, and quite frankly neither should it be. Getting a couple of points more than your opponent isnt a resounding victory. Crush them 8-3 or more, and thus enjoy real bragging right.

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Acknowledgment that it is a draw is good for the game.

Sometimes casual gamers claim bragging rights and hierdom to the galaxy after a 6-5. The problem is this mindset isnt synchronised with the tournament system, and quite frankly neither should it be. Getting a couple of points more than your opponent isnt a resounding victory. Crush them 8-3 or more, and thus enjoy real bragging right.

I agree that it is good from a sportsmanship standpoint. Is it good from a tournament standpoint though? It seems to me that it punishes the top players who get paired together early.

16 minutes ago, Qark said:

I agree that it is good from a sportsmanship standpoint. Is it good from a tournament standpoint though? It seems to me that it punishes the top players who get paired together early.

I recently paird against Madcat round 1 of a regionals. We were arguably the two best players there. He went on to win Swiss and I got 6th.

I came out the wrong side of a 7-4 round 1 but that meant it was easier to get strong wins to jump back up the rankings. Thats how swiss works.

44 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

I recently paird against Madcat round 1 of a regionals. We were arguably the two best players there. He went on to win Swiss and I got 6th.

I came out the wrong side of a 7-4 round 1 but that meant it was easier to get strong wins to jump back up the rankings. Thats how swiss works.

Sure but we don't play swiss. There aren't enough rounds for the full swiss structure. I have seen your above example happen. I have also seen situations where two of the best players essentially take each other out of the tournament round 1 because a third really good player gets easy match ups in the first few rounds and can't be caught by the other two. This is taking me back to my point of trying to reduce the round length to increase the number of rounds.

The tournament structure rewards big wins and you have to play according that. It's a battle game, which rewards the utter annihilation of the enemy forces and saving yours. This is the baseline and you need to understand that. You can play boring games and but if anyone goes for a draw it hurts BOTH players. Yes, it happens at the end of the tournaments, because it's a STRATEGIC DECISION to save points (man power) and deny points from the opponent which also risks, that a lower table gets a big win and leaps both of you. Most of the time it's a last resort tactic to mitigate your losses. So the "problem" you found is only part the game's strategic depth and part of the challenge you need to face everytime you create a fleet.

Maybe if you wouldn't look at your plastics as disposable models, you would care more if something gets shot down.

Your problem is mostly fun vs results and I agree, that sometimes the most effective methods are not fun ways.

You can always decide which way you want to play, but it's not the game's problem. It's yours. If your community agrees with you, there's nothing stopping you to do it differently. ****, we are a small community ourselves, and the local tournaments are nothing like the international games. We like to play wonky combos, or funny objectives and we all accept that we play suboptimal for the sake of fun. Even if there were 1 guy with 134 Sloane going 30 point for 3 month it's MY decision to take the challenge or play the fun way.

15 hours ago, Qark said:

I have three arguments for why the tournament point system is just plain bad.

The first issue is that losing has different penalties for how bad you lose. If you only just lose you can still score 5 tournament points, if you lose badly you only score 1 tournament point. The problem with having a bigger penalty for a bigger loss is that it creates a disincentive to actually play the game. If I sit down and see that my opponent's list has an advantage over mine or I fall behind in the fist few rounds I am likely to disengage to try and preserve tournament points. This is incredibly frustrating for the winning player because it deprives them of the ability to score those 9-10 points they need to make it to the top tables but more importantly it makes the game you are currently playing boring. Who wants to play a match where one player is spending the entire game running away and so significant shots are exchanged? I sure don't!

The second issue is that you can win all of your games and not even come close to placing in the tournament overall. A few years ago I placed 6th at a nationals level competition after I had beaten two people in the top 5! I came up against brilliant opponent after brilliant opponent and all of my games were close. I won with small margins of victory and so didn't score many tournament points. Some of my opponents who I defeated then played an easier opponent and won with a big margin of victory giving them enough tournament points to leapfrog me. My placing in the tournament overall was actually hurt because I won my early matches. A tournament system which rewards players that get matched against poor opponents and punishes players that match against good opponents is not a good tournament system.

The third issue is that someone can score so well in the early rounds that no one else can catch them. This situation normally occurs when the field is mostly comprised of experienced players with a few new players mixed in. If an experienced player is matched with an inexperienced one they can score a 10-1 game. If two inexperienced players also match in round one the outcome of that game can also be a 10-1. In the second round the experienced player on 10 points is then matched with an inexperienced player on 10 points and the experienced player obtains a second 10-1 win. This will put them on 20 tournament points going into round 3. If all the other matches in those two rounds are close it is possible that they end up matched against someone on 12-14 points on the final top table. The result is that unless the 12-14 point player wins really really big there is no way for them to win the tournament even if they win the match. And worse is when the 20 point player is aware of this, chooses not to engage, and lose 8-3 on objectives. The top table doesn't actually have a decent game going on which isn't fun for anyone. The 12 point player ends up placing second after winning 3 games, losing the tournament to someone who they won against on the final table.

First of all, it is really wrong to say the tournament point system is plain bad. It has its flaws, but it is, from my view, one of the best systems that you can use for a game like Armada.
And it is way better than a Win/Loss/Draw system that most other games use.

First issue:
Is this bad? 😉 . Aramda support a good or bad play more than any other game (that i know). In X-Wing you can only change the MOV, but not the score. In Armada it is up to you, to change your score. Even when you are losing. If you see that you are in a bad position, and that you will lose, you can still get as many points out of as possible. And maybe, because the opponent has to rush in (because he really want or need the points), you can even turn it into a win.
Aramda is, as many said, a reflection of a Chess game. If you dont need the points and your opponent cannot react on your defense, and has no plan for it, you won already.
And on the other side, if you cannot react on anything your opponent does (like hidding), you do not deserve a higher win as well.

Aramda does have a really strong risk/reward system. If you risk alot, you can win high or lose high. But if you are always only sitting in a corner, and are hopping that your opponent is playing dead for you, you will not win high enough, and not be the winner in the end.

Second Issue:
This is a big mistake. @Ginkapo already said it. A 6-5 is not a win. Even a 7-4 is not a real win. When it was a "few years ago" it was even 5-5 (the old system had 0-10 points).
You need this many points (1..10) to get a good variation and difference. Less points would only reduce the sytem to a plain Win/Loss/Draw. The change toward 1-10 from the 0-10 was already a reduction, but a good one. because it changed the draws to a better relation. In the past system the only difference between the two was the MOV. But this was not this important. Now the winner of the draw has a little bonus over the other.
A game in Armada takes to long, to just do a plain Swiss Win/Loss (as many already said). This is the biggest problem (imo) in Legion. You cannot do a Win/Loss with 2-3 hour games. You would need way to many rounds for a clear winner.
At the last Legion Prime or Grand (not sure anymore), they were doing 3 rounds. With 40+ Players. There was even one player with 3-0 who was not in the top 4 cut. And Legion does not even has a MOV. It has direct SOS as first tiebreaker (if i remember right, @xanderf , they have this problem with SOS). This means, that you have no influence at all if your SOS is good or not. And even if you won all your games without loosing a single unit and killing all of your opponents, you could still be out of the cut. THIS is by far the worst system that you can use for such a game (only my view on this!).

And on part of "leapfrogging". If the top table is only doing a 6-5 (maybe because they didnt want to risk anything, or because they thought it is enough), and a lower table get a 10-1, this lower player DESERVES to be before this "top" table. After all, he has more points than these on the top table (one or both).
There are so many variations, that i had so far, that i have seen nearly every combination. And most were fair in the end, when you think about it. I went past the top table with a big win in my last round, and i got passed by someone from behind that i never played. But all these cases were fair and deserved.

Third Issue:
This can happen, but it is not really common. And as some said, on big events there are more rounds. As more rounds you are playing, as lower get the average that you need for the cut. On top, more rounds means a better variation of the points. You are, normally, able to play all other top players, and get a good mix.
Don`t forget that the pairing are done in order of their score. The high score player play against each other. And they, normally, cut themself down really fast. But yes, someone who won the first two games with 10-1 is in a better position than someone with only two 7 point wins. And these two can play against each other in the 3rd round. But guess what, he deserved to be in a better position. Especially when all other games were only close ones. He made two good games, and is rewared for it.

A few words on my own about it.
Yes, the Aramda system has a few flaws. Especially when it comes to combat or non combat matches. If the MOV is only 10, it does not matter if this comes from mass destruction on both sides (big pew pew with boom boom 😉 ), or hidding on both sides and not doing any combat. Both are 6-5, even if the games were totally different. This is one of the biggest changes i would like to see, but we already had a discussion about this. It is not this easy.

Armada has one really big bonus with its missions. And some that give a big boost in the points. You can change quite a lot with these. But you have to change the fleet for these. Solar Corona is nice for placement, but not for points (placement can lead to points via kills, but this is something different).
You can change so much, and change the outcome of a game this well, with the missions and your fleet.

Armada is way more strategic than it is dice based. You can change so much with tactics. The missions, the fleet, the Meta, the deployment, the first turn, the endgame, the targets (what are you attacking first). All these can affect the outcome of the match.
If you have a fleet that cannot lose high (and trust me, it is possible), you are already in a good postion. But normally these fleet cannot win high as well. So it is a balance act between winning for 7-8 points, but doing this constant.
Or you use a fleet that can wipe out the opponent really easy (and get 10-1 this way), but normally these are as well on the edge of losing in the same way (1-10).
At the first european championship, i lost a game in turn 1. Just one wrong move from a ship, and the game was lost. It was only a question how high i would loose it (in this case it did not matter, it was an elimination game from the cut).

Elimination rounds and the cut are another big part that i dislike in Aramda. In this case, you are winning with 6-5. A "draw" is suddenly a full win. But Armada does not really support this kinds. You can (and have to) play totally different in the cuts than you have to in the swiss rounds. You can suddenly be second player and hide. And it is helping you.
But i prefer these top8 cut with 3 more swiss rounds. They are way better, and give a way better, and more clear winner (well, most of the time 😀 😉 ).
At the last German Grand, we had a top8 cut with 3 rounds of swiss. First, second and third had 19 points, and the fourth had 18 points and never lost a game. Now take a guess how these matches were 😜 .

There is, more or less, a golden rule (well, my golden rule...). In tournaments with a cut, you can get in the cut with an average of 7.5 points. Without a cut, an average of 8.5 means you win (8 might be enough as well, but it is close). But this means, that if you lost one game high (1-10) it is nearly impossible to get back (in normal 3-4 round tournaments). This is why it is really important to know how to reduce your loss.

And sorry for this wall of text (for these 2 that read this far 😁 ).

4 hours ago, Qark said:

Sure but we don't play swiss. There aren't enough rounds for the full swiss structure. I have seen your above example happen. I have also seen situations where two of the best players essentially take each other out of the tournament round 1 because a third really good player gets easy match ups in the first few rounds and can't be caught by the other two. This is taking me back to my point of trying to reduce the round length to increase the number of rounds.

Well, Armada is using Swiss.
The best players are paired against each other in each round (each round but the first..). This is the pure defintion for swiss.

In the last round, the two players with the highest score, are playing against each other. If several player have the same score, they are treat equal (MOV does not count for it).

If there were 4 player with 10-1 after the first round, these 4 will play against each other. And this will cut down the average. If the two winner are coming out 10-1 again, these 2 (the only two that can have 20 points) will play against each other in the next round.
And yes, this could mean that on a tournament, with only 10 players, you could end second with 29 points, and you never had the chance to play against the first. This can happen on small tournaments, but is not really common.

I am still no wiser as to what 'Swiss' is. Is it something to do with chocolate and mountains?

21 minutes ago, flatpackhamster said:

I am still no wiser as to what 'Swiss' is. Is it something to do with chocolate and mountains?

Swiss is the pairing structure for a tournament. In Swiss pairing you will be matched to an opponent with the same (or similar) score. In terms of Armada, the first round is random pairings. The next round will be paired based on the highest total scores (so far just from the first round). The two highest scoring players will be matched, then the next two highest, and so on. In the third round, you pair on the highest total scores again (first round + second round), but making sure that two players that met in a previous round aren’t matched. So on and so forth.

This structure does also go well with chocolate.

1 hour ago, Astrodar said:

Swiss is the pairing structure for a tournament. In Swiss pairing you will be matched to an opponent with the same (or similar) score. In terms of Armada, the first round is random pairings. The next round will be paired based on the highest total scores (so far just from the first round). The two highest scoring players will be matched, then the next two highest, and so on. In the third round, you pair on the highest total scores again (first round + second round), but making sure that two players that met in a previous round aren’t matched. So on and so forth.

If there was a national player record set, you could theoretically pair even the first round using players' current standings, which might address a few of the OP's concerns - that is, right out the gate, nobody is getting 'easy pairings' with a practically automatic 10-1 assumed or harder pairings, but START OUT matched against their equal.

Tricky to do, of course, and time consuming to police it (what stops a top-tier player from registering at a local event they aren't known to with a new login starting out at the baseline score?)

I love the Armada game, but I hate the tournament scoring for it. I've gone through all the stages, and am now at acceptance.

When I show up to play Armada, I accept that my final ranking is going to be somewhat random. I'm not such a great Armada player that I crush everything, but usually end up somewhere in the upper half of players. I'm basically a 2-1 player (or 3-2 in 5 round events). The results of other games that I'm not playing matter a lot more to my final rankings than I'm honestly comfortable with, but I don't have a great method of fixing it.

I liked the idea of sneaking in Strength of Schedule, by adding 1/10 (or some other fair percentage) of the sum of your opponent's scores to your score at the end of the event.

1 hour ago, pheaver said:

I love the Armada game, but I hate the tournament scoring for it. I've gone through all the stages, and am now at acceptance.

When I show up to play Armada, I accept that my final ranking is going to be somewhat random. I'm not such a great Armada player that I crush everything, but usually end up somewhere in the upper half of players. I'm basically a 2-1 player (or 3-2 in 5 round events). The results of other games that I'm not playing matter a lot more to my final rankings than I'm honestly comfortable with, but I don't have a great method of fixing it.

I liked the idea of sneaking in Strength of Schedule, by adding 1/10 (or some other fair percentage) of the sum of your opponent's scores to your score at the end of the event.

But others’ scores mattering a lot to your ranking is going to happen in *any* structure other than round-robin

5 hours ago, Tokra said:

Well, Armada is using Swiss.

Yes it is a swiss structure but it doesn't use enough rounds for a proper swiss tournament.

Thanks for all the constructive input. I have been convinced that the tournament system is close to working well. I now think the only change that needs to take place is increasing the number of rounds (which I realize isn't exactly practical for smaller tournaments). An increase in the number of rounds would stop those run-away players who get those lucky early match ups from not being able to be caught. It wouldn't hurt your overall tournament placing as much if your opponent decides to disengage in one game preventing you from getting the high scores you need to make it to the top.

25 minutes ago, Qark said:

Yes it is a swiss structure but it doesn't use enough rounds for a proper swiss tournament.

Thanks for all the constructive input. I have been convinced that the tournament system is close to working well. I now think the only change that needs to take place is increasing the number of rounds (which I realize isn't exactly practical for smaller tournaments). An increase in the number of rounds would stop those run-away players who get those lucky early match ups from not being able to be caught. It wouldn't hurt your overall tournament placing as much if your opponent decides to disengage in one game preventing you from getting the high scores you need to make it to the top.

Or, again, have players that want to play competitively sign up for FFG/Asmodee accounts and their ELO ranking (or whatever) is tracked globally. So you can stick with 3 rounds, and not worry about round 1 having any substantially lopsided matchups, as everyone gets matched to someone that should be an equal challenge for all 3 rounds.

Bonus: makes it a LOT easier for FFG to track what lists/objectives/upgrades/etc are over- or under- performing (currently a purely-voluntary community-led effort), what their true competitive player population is, distribution of their player base, etc.

I've advocated for shorter round times in order to fit in that all important 4th round at Prime/Regional level and above at a minimum. My old store used to get 3 rounds in on a Friday night from 6 to midnight playing 100 min rounds. And still rarely anyone went to time. I know the Michigan players were also doing a similar thing that worked great for them.

Secondly: I've also been trying to brainstorm a kill point system...so that what you kill (including your objective points) is more important than who actually wins (which doesn't matter)...ignore that completely.

So for my example two people (player A and B) duke it out and end up with 400-350 Current system ends in a 6-5. Which doesn't reward or emphasize what an amazing game that must have been...and probably exhausting before going into their next round. I would rather they both just keep those point scores moving forward. ...2nd example ...2 people (player C and D) play for 2 hours and get a 6-5 because someone killed a tie fighter and nobody did anything. the winner now (C) has 8 points and the loser (D) has 0 points.... 3rd example...a good 8-3 win (under current scoring) say they (Player E) got 180 points and their opponent (Player F) managed to get 40...(resulting in the above 8-3). In my system. Player E gets 180 points and player F gets 40 points.

Standings after 1st round Player A has 400 and B has 350. Player E is at 180...then F at 40...then C at 8 and D at 0. This incentivises and rewards engagement over non engagement.

This isn't perfect either but I would much rather play and observe a game that is a knock down drag out that still rewards the "loser" for not just running or turtling.

Next Step: Now I would assign a 5 point system to just how many kill points you got. And that is your round points going forward. In fact you can just basically erase the titles of win and loss and apply Kill points.

0-59 = 1

60-139=2

140-219=3

220-299=4

300 + = 5.

These kill points would be carried over as well for first tie breaker and then SoS after that.

Considerations: 1) Whether you would need a more graduated tournament points (upping the scale to 1-6 or even 1-10) although the higher you go the less likely it is for people to catch up. Which then incentivises more conservative play at the top which is what we are trying to avoid.

2) This does take away a little from some people's more defensive play-style (although objective points are still very important) and only incentivises engagement while punishing non-engagement.

3) whether there should still be a penalty for losing a game. Should the loser in whichever situation (both if a tie) lose a tournament point (basically drop down a category)

4) should tabling someone be worth more. I.e. gaining an extra tournament point.

Swiss would still be the preferred format. This system only changes how points are scored per match to emphasize playing vs non-playing.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this as I have been tinkering with this for about a year or so, and it has gone through various iterations. I am also trying to avoid a situation where both players just kill themselves to boost each others point scores for a tournament which was raised to me by Ian Cross after discussing this with him at worlds a couple years ago.

Yesterdays matches at my primes was a perfect example of how the current system is very unwieldy in a 3 round tournament. In the 2nd round I played against Yik and his SSD. He deployed in a corner ..and realistically I should have just said I am not going to beat yik...I am going to run and take a 6-5 or 5-6...and see what round 3 brings me. But I came to play and opportunities to play against a superb opponent like Yik are few and far between so I went all in. (and predictably lost ha.) But it was a fun game. In the next round, In order to leap frog my opponent I needed a 9 to do it (8 would have tied)...he deployed wide apart and prevented me from ever having the possibility of ever achieving that. Bravo to him...he realized the scoring system and made it work for him (he ended up getting 2nd and the invite) and bravo to me...as I could have just said this is impossible flown my stuff off into a corner and both of us would have been screwed as someone behind us might have jumped over him or the top table might have tied and they would have stayed 1-2. But I went all in...we had a great game. Played a fun objective and tried to make it work for both of us. And had a good time even though I lost the game. Let me ask you ...which result is more "fun" and rewarding. I still lost...still wouldn't have won the tournament either way...but had a great game with a good opponent. Ironically if I had run against Yik...I still would have played the same player in the third round, although then it would have been a straight whoever won would advance. So now my lesson learned from this tournament and to anyone reading this is running is a "good" tactic. That sure makes me want to play this game a whole lot less if that is the conclusion that people draw.

On 2/9/2020 at 2:25 PM, Qark said:

Edit: Some great comments here. Thanks to everyone who made meaningful contributions to the discussion!



I have three arguments for why the tournament point system is just plain bad.

The first issue is that losing has different penalties for how bad you lose. If you only just lose you can still score 5 tournament points, if you lose badly you only score 1 tournament point. The problem with having a bigger penalty for a bigger loss is that it creates a disincentive to actually play the game. If I sit down and see that my opponent's list has an advantage over mine or I fall behind in the first few rounds I am likely to disengage to try and preserve tournament points. This is incredibly frustrating for the winning player because it deprives them of the ability to score those 9-10 points they need to make it to the top tables but more importantly it makes the game you are currently playing boring. Who wants to play a match where one player is spending the entire game running away and no significant shots are exchanged? I sure don't!

The second issue is that you can win all of your games and not even come close to placing in the tournament overall. A few years ago I placed 6th at a nationals level competition after I had beaten two people in the top 5! I came up against brilliant opponent after brilliant opponent and all of my games were close. I won with small margins of victory and so didn't score many tournament points. Some of my opponents who I defeated then played an easier opponent and won with a big margin of victory giving them enough tournament points to leapfrog me. My placing in the tournament overall was actually hurt because I won my early matches. A tournament system which rewards players that get matched against poor opponents and punishes players that match against good opponents is not a good tournament system.

The third issue is that someone can score so well in the early rounds that no one else can catch them. This situation normally occurs when the field is mostly comprised of experienced players with a few new players mixed in. If an experienced player is matched with an inexperienced one they can score a 10-1 game. If two inexperienced players also match in round one the outcome of that game can also be a 10-1. In the second round the experienced player on 10 points is then matched with an inexperienced player on 10 points and the experienced player obtains a second 10-1 win. This will put them on 20 tournament points going into round 3. If all the other matches in those two rounds are close it is possible that they end up matched against someone on 12-14 points on the final top table. The result is that unless the 12-14 point player wins really really big there is no way for them to win the tournament even if they win the match. And worse is when the 20 point player is aware of this, chooses not to engage, and lose 8-3 on objectives. The top table doesn't actually have a decent game going on which isn't fun for anyone. The 12 point player ends up placing second after winning 3 games, losing the tournament to someone who they won against on the final table.

I don't know the best way to solve these issues but I have some ideas.

If the tournament point system must be used, the penalty for a loss needs to be identical no matter how bad you lose. If a loss always scores 0 tournament points people won't be inclined is disengage when things go poorly. Instead they will be inclined to fight it out to try and get lucky and scrape out a win. This change will lead to much more dynamic and exciting games because people won't be actively incentivized to run away. The margin of victory brackets will need some tweaking but I don't see that as being too difficult to balance.

If the tournament point system is to be scrapped there are many more options. The simple one is to move to a x-wing style system where number of wins determines placing with margin of victory (or tournament points) being the second tiebreaker. This change will at least stop those situations where you get leapfrogged because people you defeat have easy match-ups and those situations where you go into the final table knowing you can't win the tournament unless you 9-2 or 10-1 your opponent.

It seems to me that the tournament point system was originally introduced because the round length is so long. A long round means less rounds in a tournament. Less rounds means you end up with multiple undefeated players at the end of the day and you need some way of differentiating those players. One idea is to reduce the number of allowed squadrons to 1/4 of your list (an even 100 points in a 400 point game) and also decrease round length by maybe 30 minutes. Less squadrons will result in faster games. Faster games will allow for an additional rounds meaning less undefeated players.

1. As many have pointed out, if the tournament system was simply win/loss you'd see even more "not fighting" strategies than we see now. I've never played X-Wing, but from what I've heard from players who switched from X-Wing to Armada, it's even worse on the other side of the fence. Players building lists that aren't fun to play or play against, but win games consistently.

2. I have seen something sort of like this happen, but it's actually the opposite of what you described in issue #3. First round, my opponent defeats me 10-1. Second round, because he's now top table, he faces a really good opponent who defeats him. Likewise third round.

On the the flipside, I got good matchups against less experienced players in my second and third games, defeated them both with 8-3 and 9-2 victories, and now I'm actually 1 TP ahead of my first opponent! But neither of us are in contention for the top 8.

I do kinda like the idea of shorter rounds and 4 games. But I don't know if the squad cap will help. My first opponent had five ships and 6 squads. I had four ships and no squads. We were done with the game with 30 minutes remaining. My second opponent had five ships and 4 squads. This game only went 4 rounds. My third opponent had four ships and 6 squads. The game finished in time. Handling the squads didn't take the most time in any of these games; it was analysis paralysis when deciding which ship to activate.