Time limit variant for finals

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Ankha wrote:

]This is an extra incentive for ousting players during the final round. Testing will tell if it changes something or not.

Could you explain your thinking on that? An extra ten minutes is an extra ten minutes for everyone. I'm not sure it incentivizes me to get a VP if it gives everyone ten extra minutes. That may help me, it may hurt me. Early-mid-game - say I get an oust 80 minutes in to 120 (now 130) minutes - I probably can't predict that. In the dying moments - minute 119 of 120, possibly soon to be 130 - I may well be thinking "Yeah, but if I get an oust now, that probably means my predator gets to come at me again..." which might well be bad for me. It may of course mean I get a few extra minutes to oust my grand-prey (now prey) who is also teetering on the brink of being ousted, but that's not a given - it'll obviously depend on the situation.

I'm not saying the change is good or bad, but I'm not seeing the incentive here. It feels like a very mixed blessing that could hurt you just as much as help you.

The extra time has an importance only in the late game (let's say the last 40 minutes) . A simple example:

Let's say I'm first seed and I have a VP. The clock is ticking, there's 15 minutes left (including the extra time from my first VP if we used that rule) and my predator and I are in a bad shape. In fact, my predator is going to get ousted. My best chance of winning is to reach the time limit, so I begin to play more slowly, without stalling. My grand-predator ousts his prey, and we reach time-limit, I win.
With the suggested change, my grand-predator has a chance of killing me too, and if he does, he probably deserves winning the final over me playing slowly to ensure victory.

If the top-seed position had been the other way round (him being first seed, me being a lower seed), then it would probably have forced me to play faster instead, so I can get another VP, since he would win otherwise.

Either way, time is added when something important is happening. If someone is ousted, the whole balance of the table changes and other important things can happen now. Adding extra time allow those things to happen and make the game more interesting and rewarding.

(At some level, I realize it's a bit like a Last Stand effect, except that if you have an extra turn but no time to play it, it's pointless).

thelonius wrote:

We did apply it on Saturday but all the 4 oust were in the first 90 minutes...

That's a good final