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

From: bruno@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu (Bruno Wolff III)

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 21:02:40 +0000

From article <20af0sINNsou@network.ucsd.edu>, by wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold):
] In article <20a9nc$5q2@growler.ccr-p.ida.org> desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
]
] David (i think) misses the point at least if people have
] Atlantis in the back (front?) of their minds.  In this game (along
] with some others) the game may largely be determined by one simple
] random event on turn one, which factions moved in which direction
] from the starting square.  Those that randomly chose south (assuming no
] private knowledge) have what I believe will be a game spoiling
] advantage, acess to a prime resource.  After that the game is simply
] one in which the player(s) that opened with the advantage chose the
] ONE strategy that makes sense.  All other responses are _largely_
] second best responses. What has been pointed out is that the ability
] to try different styles of play, experimenting and developing along
] vastly different lines makes no sense and the game turns into a slow
] version of UCSD empire, a very good war game, but NOT a PBEM
] fantasy/role playing game.
]

I was discussing what makes a game fun to play, not Atlantis in particular.

There also seems to be a fallacy about optimization. The people arguing
against optimization seem to think once you see the formulae used for a game
that the single best strategy is easy to figure out. In games with multiple
players and hidden information this isn't going to be true in general.

]
] More examples?  Compare 7 card "baseball" with "hold 'em" or
] "omaha".  In baseball the game largely depends on pure luck.
] Betting is simple, straight forward and few decisions by a good
] poker player have to be made.  "hold 'em", by contrast, is a game
] with limitless possibilities and wonderful strategic interaction.
]
] Erik
]
]

If you think that baseball is mostly luck, if I were you I wouldn't play
poker for "real" money.

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 20:38:52 +0000