Re: PBM design and formulae - getting hotter

From: js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1993 11:47:15 +0000

In article <199307061112.AA15435@orion.lnec.pt>, bc@lnec.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira) writes:

This isn't disputed.  Note the cunning use of the word 'longterm'.  Longterm in
this case is the length of time it would take a new player to get to grips with
the system, work out how the rules interacted and gain sufficient experience that
he wouldn't be at a significant disadvantage compared with the older players in
terms of skill at playing the game.  In this case, one would hope that the new
player would have an equal chance of setting up a great empire and maintaining it
as someone who had started earlier.

|> 2) This is, in fact, quite realistic! Consider a nation like Portugal,
|> which doesn't  even  have any  nuclear  power  plants.  If we tried to
|> build a nuclear spaceship in competition with the Americans (say, both
|> countries  did  realize   that  having  the  _first_  nuclear  powered
|> spaceship would get them first to that gold mines on Pluto :-)  ), who
|> do you think that would win? :-)
|>
|> Obviously, starting earlier  gives you an advantage; that's  true  for
|> real life, and that's true for games, too.

Just because something happens in real life does not mean that you want to
simulate it in a game.  You seem to be arguing that in many games people who
start at the beginning do well and those who don't don't and that is the way it
_should_ be?  If so, is there any point in rejoining Atlantis if you get killed
of, or is there any point in someone joining it now, as some factions have been
playing it for a game year and will have that years lead on everyone by now?

Besides real life shows that trying to rule a huge empire from a single location
doesn't work - the American war of Independance highlights some of the problems.

Realism is all very well, but playability is more important.

|> What DOESN'T automatically follow from this is that a newbie is always
|> in disadvantage.  You  can  be a stupid player like myself, who'd play
|> the same game  for  five years, but  never really could figure out the
|> rules! :-) Thus, any newbie could beat me easily... :-)
|>
|> 3) If you're penalizing experience, something is inherently wrong with
|> your system.

A scheme such as the one I detailed doesn't penalise experience.  It rewards it.
It just rewards it by making the game more challenging.

|> - At present,  there are two  solutions which  I  know of, and both of
|> them are present at Russell's games (so, after all, he can't be such a
|> bad guy... :-) ).
|>
|> 1) Start many new games,  with a limited  amount  of  players on each.
|> This is what  happens in Galaxy, and  also in Diplomacy. GMs generally
|> point out  the level  of experience they're expecting  the  players to
|> come with.

Not feasible with ongoing games.  Thats the whole point.  You run out of players
fairly quickly, as the games don't end.

|> 2) See Russell's own post:
|>
|> >The way I do it in Atlantis is simply to start up batches of newbies at
|> >a sufficient distance from older empires so that the older empires can't
|> >just come along and overrun them.  (I would only start up a new player
|> >in the same region as an established player, if there wasn't going to be
|> >competition between them, e.g. if the new player didn't want to go into
|> >the empire-building business, and the established player was prepared to
|> >leave him in peace.)
|>
|> eg.   have  a  mega-hyper-super-large  game  map, and  put  players in
|> clusters, according to their experience. At the time a large empire is
|> established, and  it spreads over  the map, time has  elapsed  and the
|> newbies on the other side of the map will most surely be apt to defend
|> their lands for themselves.

I've already posted on this topic.  I disagree.  Besides as the average empire
size increases, they will become tedious and timeconsuming to play, without
giving any increased reward in terms of strategic challenge.  Judgement Day was a
bit like that - I was inputting several hundred orders per turn at one point,
merely to keep my empire ticking over.  Its much less tedious now that I've been
reduced in size.

And that _was_ on a relatively small map.

|> 	- Luis Sequeira

John

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - getting hotter
bc@lnec.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira)
Tue, 06 Jul 1993 09:13:36 +0000