Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?

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

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 03:59:10 +0000

In article <20akfu$714@tang.ccr-p.ida.org>, desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
|> William Bruvold <wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu> 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.
|>
|> Well, I don't know who said that Atlantis is _supposed_ to be an FRP
|> game.  I think that most people who read the rules could see that
|> Atlantis was going to be primarily a wargame, not a role playing game.
|> That's why a lot of us went out loaded for bear on turn one.  (And, at
|> least for me, why I signed up in the first place.)

I disagree.  There is enough mention of trade, and the very fact that the game is
supposed to be open ended to suggest that it is no simple wargame.  It would
appear the it was designed to allow people to wargame, or roleplay, or set up
trading empires as they desired.  Unfortunately in this respect it has failed, as
only the first seems remotely possible.

|> I strongly disagree that Atlantis is "largely determined" by what
|> happens on turn one.  Certainly it is the case that if you end up in a
|> mountainous area, then you are going to have to produce swords, and if
|> you end up in a forested area, then you are going to have to produce
|> bows.  To me that is the mark of a good game---that one has to adapt
|> one's strategy to the situation in which one finds oneself.  However I
|> strongly disagree that there is a "single" strategy that makes sense at
|> that point.  At least for me, there have already been several
|> interesting strategic decisions in Atlantis, including where to fight,
|> where to concentrate forces, when to invest in growth and when to invest
|> in combat potential, and so on.  And there have also been several
|> interesting tactical decisions, including where to recruit, what skills
|> to train in, what units to merge with what other units, and so on.  I
|> would say that there is less of a single strategy than in, say, Galaxy.
|> (Colonize planets, build industry until fully developed, then research
|> until you have a tech edge, then build warships, then bash someone to
|> get more space, then repeat.)

But it _is_ largely determined by the first turn.  Those that moved south in
force first found the first mountain, and from that point on, ownership of that
mountain and proximity to it have been important factors in the game.  I think my
main comment here is that while ownership of strategic resources makes a good
game, making it an all or nothing decision (you own all of the mountain or none
of it as it only occupies one location) is bad.  Ownership of the mountain is a
huge advantage over those who don't own a resource.  Those of us who didn't find
a resource early seemed to be grouped into the 'cannonfodder' or 'people to be
ignored/slaughtered' group of those fortunate players who have resources.  In
that respect, the first few moves, where ownership of these resources is set up
are _cruical_, and a few bad decisions in these moves will wreck your faction for
good.

In Galaxy too, there is a rate at which you can expand and industrialise.
Someone who is good at this will have an edge against someone who isn't, but not
against others who know how to do it.  You could easily remove the initial
expansion phase without removing much from the game.

|> > Some of this discussion can be cleared up by noting that good
|> > strategy games build in randomness AND flexibility.  They offer
|> > players with numerous "what if" chances and paths that, due to
|> > either responses by opponents, are made either advantagous or
|> > idiotic.  What good games do NOT have is straightforward mini/max
|> > solutions (the problem with Atlantis) in which a simple
|> > understanding of the rules indicates the best possible response.
|>
|> Gee, I wish I had you to run my position.  I guess you could make these
|> decisions and plans that take me hours in a matter of seconds....

Gee I wish I could run your position where I had decisions to make...

Besides I'm fairly sure you didn't take hours to decide whether to sell the
swords you're making, or to keep them yourself and tax with them.

|> I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "straightforward minimax
|> solutions."  If you mean that building swords is better than, say,
|> becoming a specialist in armor before you have any swords, well then of
|> course.  It doesn't take formulas to figure that out.  But if you mean
|> that it is easy to figure out exactly how many men to devote to which
|> different functions, than I really do disagree.  If it were all that
|> easy, I would have lost interest and quit by now.
|>
|>                                         David desJardins

I think the point is that there should be several different paths one can travel
down, which are more or less equal in overall effectiveness.  However, they are
not all equal when matched up in pairs, and so an advantage can be gained.  For
instance in Atlantis people with bows and people with swords are fairly even.
Both will lose to someone with both however.  The complaint in Atlantis is that
to go along one of these paths one must be able to produce swords or bows, and it
is fairly clear than only a small minority of factions are able to do this.

Anyway.  I suppose I should really address the point of this whole thread.

Rules and formulaes are not the point of PBM games.  They should be a framework
by which people can interact, and intimate knowledge or lack of it shouldn't be a
factor in deciding who wins.  Simple things like how much food a peasant
produces, or how much he eats should be known - these are easy to find out by
trial and error, and would be tedious to do so.  However the exact effects of a
fireball spell could (and should) vary enormously depending on the conditions -
if you fire it at 100 peasants, you might well kill 30/40 of them.  If you fire
it at a bunch or armoured knights, you might expect to kill less of them.  The
exact formulae isn't really important, and probably contains a random factor
anyway - as long as you know when you cast it that it won't kill more than 50
people, then you won't be too surprised at the outcome when it kills 37.
Similarly the exact formulae for determining when a force will break in battle
should be completely hidden.  Ideally it will be complex enough and depend on so
many factors that even extensive research and trial and error won't determine the
_exact_ formulae.  However you should be able to deduce that more training is
good, better leadership is good, and not paying the troops is bad - that sort of
thing - without having to worry about exactly how good or how bad.

Personally, when I want to play a game which involves perfect information, I play
a simple game like Diplomacy, where the calculations are fairly simple, and the
point is to work out the reactions of other people.  When I play a game without
perfect information, I don't want to have to spend hours working out approximate
formulae to be able to minimax, but I do want to be able to trust my intuition to
be right most of the time.  10 knights are more likely to win a fight than 5
knights, for instance, is a fairly safe bet.  Playing large games with lots of
rules, where you have to spend significant time to work out what the best move to
achieve objective X is strikes me as completely pointless.  How boring when
instead of outwitting your opponent, you're outcalculation him.  Yawn.

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:12:14 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
sjc@cs.purdue.edu (Steve Chapin)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 18:49:06 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 19:08:28 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 20:38:52 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:12:14 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
sjc@cs.purdue.edu (Steve Chapin)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 18:49:06 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 19:08:28 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 20:38:52 +0000