I am currently designing a game with simultaneous movement.
Basic Overview:
Baby - 3 AP, Small - 4 AP, Med - 5 AP, Large - 6 AP
On the count of one all players use their first AP regardless of size. Resolve actions then count 2, resolve, 3, resolve, 4, resolve, 5, resolve, then finally 6.
Action resolution isn't the problem that I have run into but rather action selection. After finding how other players are acting or seeing the resolution to your action it might have been much more beneficial to use the action in a different way causing the tendancy to cheat: 'Oops I meant to move here and do this' or to just redo the action altogether in the chaos of everyone moving and hope no one notices.
To try and avoid that I created Action Selection Tokens that had to be chosen by everyone before the actions are performed and resolved. This made players commit to an action before carrying it out simultaneously with everyone else. This extra step adds in extra components and extra playtime which isn't totally necessary.
In playtesting a few groups didn't even use the Action Selection Tokens which resulted in some 'cheating' but they still enjoyed it.
I would say the game is light to medium so it isn't super serious to where cheating completely ruins the game but at the same time who likes to play with cheaters?
So, should I keep the Action Selection Tokens to inhibit this behavior or let the players deal with cheating/cheaters? Or is there another more elegant solution all together?
Can anyone think of a more elegant solution that would perform the same function but not add components or time?
To further clarify:
So, in the first phase all players simultaneously use one AP to perform an action. The main actions causing issues are to move 2 spaces or move 1 space and explore. Because all the actions and movement are done simultaneously there is a lot of confusion. Up to 6 hands are on the board moving their figure 2 spaces or moving and exploring. As an example lets say one player wants to move 2 spaces North to an unexplored region. On the same turn another player closer moves one space and explores that unexplored region. In the chaos of six hands being on the board and moving/exploring, the player who was moving 2 spaces North now decides he doesn't want to go after that target (now explored) because he doesn't need it and instead decides to move 2 spaces West.
Even with my Action Selection Tokens it only indicates that his intention is to move 2 spaces but it doesn't make him specify to where or in what direction. I would really hate to have to spell it out for everyone such as:
During Simultaneous Movement everyone must act in the following order:
1) any players wishing to Explore do so.
2) all players moving, move 1 space.
3) any players wanted to Explore after their 1 space movement do so.
4) all players moving 2 spaces move their second space.
5) ....
Those are only 2 of the possible 4 actions that can be selected and performed by the players, again 'simultaneously'.
I think it would kill the design (boring technicalities) and drastically increase the record keeping as well as play time to add extra stuff in to regulate that.
Is there anyway I can avoid having to spell out (add in features for)action selection and action resolution order down to every possible circumstance?