Talk:Play by geohash

Battleship

I like the idea of PBGH games. Battleship sound like a fun game for starting, I'll watch the pilot game with interest. But when playing battleship one vs one, taking a "shot" half a graticule away from one's home might be difficult for those with limited means (money/car vs walking/bad terrain like 49,-2). So I propose "multiplayer battleship" where every player shoots at all other boards and the last one swimming wins. - Danatar 18:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I support being able to play against multiple opponents with the same shot, but if I'm understanding you correctly, if everybody is in the same "last man floating" game, how would you deal with people wanting to join the game late? I'd rather each game be 1 on 1, but one successful hash could shoot at everybody you're playing against, if it's your turn in each individual game. That way latecomers can start fresh with a new game, and not be either excluded or at an unfair advantage. If you're proposing this in addition to the 1 on 1 version, I fully support the idea. People could form multiplayer PBGH battleship groups at will. -Rhonda

I agree that any hashpoint visited should count for all applicable games (even of differing types) the geohasher is currently playing. It will not count for games when it is not that geohasher's turn, or if they don't meet the requirements for it being a turn for that game. With the Battleship game, that would mean your visited hash would not count if you don't have a battleship "board" with the applicable move being made.

As far as multiplayer. I already had thoughts of teams gathering to play against each other where each team selects their ship locations, and any of the geohashers moves on the team count as missle strikes against the opposing team. There could also be, as Danatar stated, a "free for all" type of game where many geohashers all select their boards at the same time and its a "last geohasher standing" type of game. In that case, once a person is eliminated (has no ships left) they can no longer take shots at other players.

All in all, I see this as a definition of the basic framework for a PBGH battleship game. More specific things like number of players and such can be defined on a per-game basis. All that is really required is two or more people agreeing to the rules ahead of time! --aperfectring 22:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

1) I just checked the centicule distribution of all the hashpoints I have visited so far, and even after >100 expeditions most of the Spanish Armada could be hidden in the unvisited parts, so 1 on 1 could become a lifetime occupation. Rhonda's remark about latecomers in a free-for-all game is true, so there should not be only one multiplayer game for everybody, but everybody could play in multiple games, 1 on 1 and multiplayer. Teams are a very good idea.

2) Misses should be blue on the board like the water at Trafalgar, not green like the fields of Bannockburn. - Danatar 19:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

1) But there may be some more influence to visit previously unvisited centicules with this game. I agree, however, that this game could potentially take a very long time.

2) I had thought of that, but blue doesn't work so well with links... --aperfectring 20:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

but "lightblue" does - Danatar 20:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Teams are pretty much necessary, otherwise it's simple to hide in the deep ocean or inaccessible mountain regions of your opponent's graticule. - Robyn

But, but... that's what we've been doing all the time! ;) -- relet 09:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

For some graticules (like Vancouver, BC), I definitely agree. However, in places like relet and I are playing, you CAN get to pretty much every centicule, but some will definitely be harder than others. Part of the challenge is picking the right places to place your ships. The other part is that you will likely have to go to the less accessible parts of your graticule in order to actually get a hit on your opponent's ship! It is all about encouraging geohashers to be MORE adventurous in their expedition selection. --aperfectring 15:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Battleship algorithm

What happens if the visited geohash is a globalhash? :) --Vswe 18:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The algorithm should still work in that case. --aperfectring 18:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Baseball

That's totally insane. It sounds like Calvinball closing in on endgame. I have no objection to anyone playing that, but I never would. How do you govern how the strike zone is set? -Robyn 23:44, 7 March 2012 (EST)

When you put it that way, I suspect baseball is a specific instance of Calvinball that started as "hitting a thrown ball with a stick" and got more specific over 200-odd years :-).
As far as picking the strike zone, the players would have to agree on them, so anything too hard to calculate would get simplified. It's the players' and umpire's responsibility to determine if a geohash is in the area. For me, I'd use the center half-grat of 40 -74, which is easy to see. Nobody said it had to be centered on a point specified to six decimal places; we're not Vulcans. It could be simplified as the whole graticule, and you get three (or more) days for an at-bat, period, but I wanted to preserve the balls-and-strikes aspect. -- Jevanyn 11:07, 8 March 2012 (EST)

I like the idea, and I have a suggestion re: shortening innings. How about, instead of everybody batting in an inning, the third out ends the inning, and the teams switch? If you play a 9-inning game, everyone will still get to bat at least 3 times, and the game probably won't be quite as long. You could even play a "quick" 3-inning game, just to make sure everyone gets to bat once. -- Sempaispellcheck 1:02, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

That's a good idea for a shorter game, cutting it off at three innings. I'd imagine if a game ran several months, there's no reason one side or the other might not call it off anyway. The original suggestion was to change sides after three "outs", but that gives me the idea of only allowing three "pitches" per at-bat, just to keep it moving. And there's no requirement to have nine players on each team; I planned on having one to three players each. They don't even need equal numbers if that's accepted by both teams. -- Jevanyn 11:58, 20 March 2012 (EDT)

I'm neutral on the idea, and definitely can't complain about it taking a long time, since relet and I have been working on our Battleship game for quite some time now. =P How do you determine who "gets to a hashpoint first"? Is it based on time of day, or an absolute thing? In either case, how do you adjust for the fact that a European/Aussie/etc. geohasher has an advantage based on the fact that they can geohash at any point in the day every day, or that their time is "ahead" of those in the Americas? --aperfectring 08:03, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

That sounds like a good reason to use the "fly ball" rule for any ball in play. -- Jevanyn

Cricket?

Maybe cricket is a better model? Once the batter "hits", he gets a run for every day it takes the defense to reach a geohash?

Calvinball

I notice it says a rule cannot be reproposed. Does that apply to every hasher ever, or just those involved with the game in question while it is going on? If the first one, we should have a list of proposed temporary (consumable/discardable/disposable) rules somewhere on the wiki. Arlo (talk) 07:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC) and 14:59, 14 March 2012 (EDT)

Every, ever. I'm sure we will set up a list of rules and non-rules, as well as the achievements, as soon as anyone reaches a geohash following rule #1. -- relet 15:23, 14 March 2012 (EDT)

Once a game gets going, the list of rules should probably be moved to a separate page and linked to from each graticule participating. That way, games that have finished can be archived instead of just deleted. AeroIllini 17:34, 13 August 2012 (EDT)

Darts

I just added the proposed game of darts. It's similar to the Battleship game proposed above, but with accumulated points instead of shots, and not every centicule is equally sized. In fact, I would encourage players to develop their own maps to take advantage of the complexities of their particular graticule. Discussion of this game is welcome. AeroIllini 19:46, 12 August 2012 (EDT)

I love that. Would that be one dart board per graticule then? I'm just asking as a great many players live between two graticules, or might be happier with a definition that works for all graticules... but then, having the Great Lake or the military base covering the entirety of the Triple 20 or the bull's eye would suck a bit. -- relet 02:18, 13 August 2012 (EDT)

It depends on how you set up the board. The example board I built could be used across many graticules since the regions are randomly placed; in my home graticule of Seattle a lot of the center regions would be unavailable without a boat, because Puget Sound runs right through the middle, but the triples lie along the urban corridor and would be easier. The players would have to agree on a board before they start, or maybe a set of boards (one per graticule in the game?). The board I added to the page was just an example/reference implementation and can be easily modified. AeroIllini 12:15, 13 August 2012 (EDT)

Page name change

These games are an awesome idea, but the page title with the acronym is a bit cumbersome. I'd like to propose changing the title of the page to something easier to remember. Possibilities:

• Geogaming (this is my favorite)
• Hashgames
• Geohash Games
• Play by Geohash Games
• Games Using Geohashing

I like Geogaming the most because it lends itself to a naming scheme for the other games; namely, prepending "geo" to the name of the game. Thus we'd play GeoBattleship, GeoBaseball, GeoCalvinball, and GeoDarts. --22:12, 13 August 2012‎ imported>AeroIllini

Agreed. Even expanding the acronym and dropping 'games' off the end (since 'play' covers that) would make it less jargony. In fact, let's make this section a move proposal / discussion. Arlo (talk) 07:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

...I just did it. It doesn't affect much anyway. Arlo (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)