Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary

From: gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:33:28 +0000

Graham Matthews:
> My personal opinion is that if a player needs to "know the formulas"
> to play well then one of two things is happening :-
>
> a) he/she is a bad player
> b) the formulas are bad.
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
>This is entirely subjective.  It depends on what you mean by "play
>well." I can play very well without knowing any formulas.  I can play
>much better still once I do know them. Many people in this discussion
>have said that they hope by hiding the formulas, to make it more
>difficult for competitive players like me to find good strategies. So
>clearly I am not the only one who thinks that knowledge of the formulas
>can give a significant advantage.

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.

My complaint with b) is that it turns the game into a "who has the
most free time at present" or a "who is prepared to sacrifice their
social life for the game" type of game. Galactic Bloodshed is the
classic example of this. The winner is usually the person who can
spend the most time playing, and not the person who is the most
skillful. Also I would say that allowing players to tinker with
tiny details is (in most games) very unrealistic. Take GB again as
an example - you can look at the individual sectors of a planet to
get an optimal population distribution. That strikes me as pretty
unrealistic. GB is supposed to be a simulation of universe-wide
war game. Now how many planetary rulers can order their people
to live on a certain spot on the planet. Population dynamics just
don't work that way. People live where they find it most advantagous
to live, not where somebody orders them to live. Now thats a long
and specific example but it typifies complaint b).

desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
>If you don't think that knowing the formulas helps one to play well,
>then you must surely be in favor of publishing them all.  Because it
>doesn't hurt anyone, and the players who enjoy playing with that
>knowledge can do so.

As I said before I never said that knowing the formulas doesn't
help you play well. Rather I said that it ruins the game for the
reasons I outline above.

Graham Matthews:
> Arghh - this may sound old-fashioned but personally I prefer to
> play to the "intent" of the rule/formula and not exploit the little
> bugs. Moreover, why is it "necessary to use them [these little
> bugs in the formulae]"? Is it to win?
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
>I guess I prefer that too.  would strongly prefer that the "bugs" not
>exist. Nevertheless, if I am engaged in a serious competition against
>another player,where we are both playing very hard to win,and both of
>us know about "bugs" in the rules,it is going to be very difficult
>for us to resist taking advantage of the things that we know about.
>And once we start doing so, we might both gain a big advantage over
>other players who are not so analytical.

Firstly it is very easy to not exploit the bugs. Just remember that
if you win by exploiting the bugs then its something of a Pyric (sp?)
victory. That should stop you exploiting the bugs. Secondly you
are not gaining an advantage over "other players who are not so
analytical". You are gaining an advantage over the people who are
not prepared to stoop to bug exploiting to win.

desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
>Also, there is not an obvious line between "bugs" and "features." One
>might well learn from the formulas that certain plausible-looking
>strategies are in fact always inferior.

To my mind this is a game fault. If the strategy is "plausible
looking" then it also should be plausible.

As to the line between bugs and features you can always ask the other
players, or the game master, or whatever. And if the worse comes to
the worse you can make a judgement call!

>Sometimes I do find things that I would describe as true bugs, for
>example certain problems with the Intercept command in Galaxy.  I
>generally don't take advantage of those.But there are players who do,
>and if I were competing against one then I probably would.

Why? So you can win a (silly little) game by cheating.
Sorry but I don't get that.

graham
--
Graham Matthews                   Go west, go west
Dept Comp Sci, Univ Edinburgh     Where there's work so I'm told
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk                  California's never cold

References

PBM design and formulae - a summary
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:53:02 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:30:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:55:07 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:24:09 +0000

Referenced By

PBM design and formulae - a summary
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:53:02 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:30:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:55:07 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:24:09 +0000