Re: Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 00:55:56 +0000

Mark L Bruneau <bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu> writes:
> I've been thinking about the battle algorithm lately.  As of
> right now, a ship with a gun has an equal chance to hit any enemy ship
> when it fires.  Wouldn't it make more sense to go for your enemies
> capital ships, and ignore little popguns or drones?

There are a lot of things that would "make sense."  It would make sense
for a ship not to fire at a target it has no chance of hitting, for
example.  However that isn't how the combat system works.

The combat system in Galaxy is certainly somewhat unusual.  However, it
works and it provides interesting gameplay.  It certainly seems to be
complicated enough that most players produce grossly suboptimal fleets,
so I don't think one can claim that it is too simple.  (I do think that
there is a more-or-less unique best strategy in most circumstances, and
if everyone were to settle on it then the game might become less
interesting.  But since almost no one else follows it now, that time
doesn't seem to have come yet.)

If one wants to change the system, I think that one has to explain why
an alternate system would provide better game play.  I don't think that
that's at all impossible to do (for example, breaking up a unique best
strategy would certainly be a sufficient reason to change the system),
but I do think it is difficult to predict a priori whether a particular
change will make play more or less interesting, and that issue wasn't
addressed at all in the referenced posting.

One comment on the specific proposal: it seems to me to be a bad idea to
introduce artificial "breakpoints" into the combat system.  Under Mark's
scheme, changing a ship design from slightly less than a multiple of ten
in mass to slightly more would significantly affect its combat results.
Galaxy currently doesn't have such eccentricities and I think it is
better off without them.

David desJardins

References

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000