Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)

From: mebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (MsciDave)

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 10:47:48 +0000

In article <1993Jun23.224707.14272@cs.tcd.ie>, rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace) writes...
>>	What happens if 200 peasants attack a good swordsman?
>
>>Then we do have some valid intuitions, namely that the swordsman may
>>injure or kill a few peasants but will be swamped by numbers.  There's
>>no need to publish a formula in this case.
>
>Alright then, how about 200 peasants and 10 swordsmen?  The peasants
>will only win if the first 30 of them are prepared to die.  In real
>life, the leader of the swordsmen will have to figure out whether this
>will be the case, based on his intuitive knowledge of psychology and the
>tacit knowledge of the area that he has picked up.  There is no
>equivalent of this when looking at a computer-generated turn report,
>hence to have a basis for a decision you need to have access to the
>rules.

No, I don't think you need access to any of the combat formulae
if the rules have been clear and the turn sheet gives the proper information.
A trained swordsman is going to be able to make the decision based on what
he sees.  So, since you, the player, aren't there to see things the turn
sheet should give some form of threat assesment.  How does the skill
of the opponents (the mob) compare to the swordsmen?  The turn sheet should
say something like

Inhabitants
10 swordsmen (your faction); elite
200 peasants (other faction(; untrained
10 'peasents' (other faction); trained

Now you know that the mob is just that, an untrained mob.  And that
there are 10 others who aren't as good as yours but do have training.
If the rules then gave the proper, reasonable information about how
elite troops will be able to kill lots of untrained people but will be
overwhelmed if the mob has enough numbers and/or a good leader you know
what to go on.  Basically, you're going to die but it will be costly for
the other side.

>Another example: suppose the game implements loss of men when sending an
>army over a mountain pass.  In real life, you could *look* at a mountain
>and use your intuition to make a reasonable guess at your chances.  You
>can't do this in a PBM.  Putting vague waffle like "sometimes armies
>incur serious losses" in the rulebook is not a substitute; it only
>forces people to get wiped out a few times while accumulating enough
>data to infer the actual probability.

If the player can't, without a formula, decide what to do you
aren't giving enough information.  If mountain passes differ in the
amount of damage they do they should be differentiated.  The player
should see something that tells him that this is good, poor, dangerous,
or impassable (or somesuch).  And, of course, the rules should clearly
spell out the modifiers.  Does having additional pack animals help or
hurt you?  What about units trained in mountaineering?  Give examples
or differing units going through differing passes in the rules.

>We both agree that formulas should be published where intuition will not
>suffice; my point is that intuition will essentially never suffice in a
>computer-moderated game.

No, intuition will never suffice if you are the type of person
who must know everything.  However, with proper examples and a well
designed game its very possible to have intuition be enough.  Also,
I'm not sure if others feel this way, but I make a distinction between
releasing certain values and releasing whole formulae.  Knowing that
an basic force (untrained, no special equipment) will lose 10% going
through a poor pass is fine (although its more reasonable to give a
range since little in life is exact).  But there is no need to know
exactly home many life will be saved if you do x or y.  In real life
this isn't known; why should you the player have a better idea.

Dave
__________
Dave Bonar
mebonar@lsuvax.sncc.lsu.edu
__________

References

PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sat, 19 Jun 1993 18:12:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:00:33 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000