Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary

From: saschreu@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)

Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1993 13:05:46 +0000

>Graham Matthews <gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk> writes:
>> I never said that knowledge of the formulas didn't give you a
>> serious advantage. Obviously it does. I just said that I think it
>> screws the game up. If people know the formulas they tend to :-
>> a) write scripts/programs etc to find optimal settings for the
>> formulas.
>> b) spend hours maximising formulas, adjusting tiny details etc.
>> Now my complaint with a) is that it turns the game into a game of
>> who can write the best programs, who knows awk, mathematica etc.
>> Thats particularly fair on players who are not computer gurus
>> isn't it! In short the problem that a) causes is that it allows
>> people to bring in far too many skills from *outside* of the
>> game-world *into* the game-world if you see what I mean.
>
>desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) answers:
>>I don't understand why so many people seem to be ignoring what I
>>think is the fundamental issue here.  If people don't know the
>>formulas, they do _exactly_ the same things that you have described
>>above.  They read and analyse their turns, they discover the formulas
>>and algorithms that the program is using, they then analyse the hell
>>out of the formulas, and find super strategies.
>>[example from Legend]

gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews) writes:
>You are not going to be able to back engineer *exact* formulas from
>output if either the formulas have some randomness in them, or
>if the result of evaluating some formula effects the value of
>one of the parameters to that formula (eg: think about combat - the
>result of a combat depends on the experience of the combattants,
>but the experience of the combattants will change as a result of
>the combat).
>
>Moreover you have missed the most important thing, namely that you
>might be able to guess an approximate formula, but not the exact
>one. Why is this important. It means that the people without the
>maths degrees or the CS programming skills are going to be able
>to compete on the same terms as those with those skills.
>Care to answer this point? You just ignored it last time!

I think that NOT giving away the formulas gives an advantage to
good mathematici: they are able to figure those formulas out.
I've done it myself: In a small trading game, each planet had
fixed prices for several goods. After analising them, I knew the
formula, even though there was a large portion of random in it!
(Randomness tends to disappear when one averages similar results first)

Making this diffilcult by using randomness, etc, more data is needed
or better mathematics will be used. So mathematics will even have
a greater advantage: Everyone can draw a line through some points,
but not everyone can fit a fourth-order polynomal through 10 uncertain
points, and still know how good the results are!

Concluding: Hidden formulas will be guessed faster by good mathematici,
and you wanted to hide them to stop those same people from using those
formulas! Now they will even have a stronger advantage, because
other players aren't equiped to find out the formulas, so they can start
exporing the formulas before other have found out them.

And the suggested remedy to make the formulas more complex won't work,
by the same reason.

>As I said last time, as a game designer I don't like people bringing
>too many skills to bear from outside the game world. It rather
>defeats the purpose of having skills in the game world. Care to
>answer this point? You just ignored it last time!

I've showed above that HIDING the formulas does the same. The only question
left is, which alternative does it the most. My answer must be clear by now.

Another point: I want to start to play a game. In the first turn,
an experienced player kills me because I've made some mistakes.
I start again, and again I'm killed within a few turns.
After being killed several times, I'll stop playing, and look for another
game. I don't think that is the purpose of experience.

My point: The balance will be gone if a newbie plays against an experienced
player. And that's what I like about galaxy: I don't need to get
much experience to survive. I won't win, but still I'll have a good
chance to live long.

If you don't believe it, ask Russell about Galaxy 7: It is my first
galaxy game, and I am the highest ranked player for many turns now.
And there are some experienced (former winners) players in that game.
So in Galaxy, it doesn't matter much whether one is experienced or not.

Of course, I needed to read the rules and/or formulas well, but I've
been playing on "auto-pilot" for many turns by just using my intuition.

Of course, by not analising the rules, a newbie will still be killed
within the first few turns. When the formulas have been published,
he/she has been able to prevent it, but s/he didn't realize how they
could be used.

One last remark: When the game is public domain, as Galaxy is,
some players will have access to the formulas, so it is better that
every player has access to them. It is forced by publishing the source.
Maybe you don't like it, but I like it to be able to run a game with
my friends.

Sjoerd Schreuder
saschreu@cs.vu.nl

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Thu, 01 Jul 1993 11:15:09 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:33:28 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 20:13:49 +0000