Re: Olympia Turn Length

From: skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)

Date: Sun, 31 May 1992 00:10:02 +0000

Carl's workstation wakes him up if something important happens to his
empire position.  But he doesn't accept the fact that someone who plays
weekly in a game where everyone else is playing daily is at a disadvantage.

Let's zoom out that other way.  Olympia is really a game with one turn
per month, but I send four updates per turn.  You should send in enough
orders at the beginning of the month to last until the next month.  Only
problem is, some players will choose to update their orders weekly.

Mr. once-per-month is clearly at a disadvantage to players who submit
orders once-per-week.  Were Olympia to allow daily updates, the weekly
players would drop out, and the daily players would all be fired or
kicked out of school.  So there wouldn't be any players left.  :-)

> _Today_ you can be attacked without having any
> chance of defending yourself for a game-month.

Yes, but it's perfectly balanced, since all of the players move
at the same rate.  Getting the balance in mundane systems like combat
and the economy is an Olympian (cough) challenge itself.  I don't
think simultaneous different turn speeds could be balanced unless
one were playing fundamentally different kinds of positions (7-day players
play the mighty Tree People; 1-day players issue orders for elves; 14-day
players control the Sprit Forces).  But that's another game...

> But under my proposed change
> you have something from an excellent chance to a certainity depending
> on your mail connection, to be able to strike back and retreat within a
> few game-days and so to prevent the worst.

Yes, and if you only want to play once per week, you aren't able to
retreat and prevent the worst.  You get trounced by the day players.

> IMHO, the real problem is that Rich would have to make the update much
> more automatic than I understand it is right now. Right, Great God
> Atnerks ?

The update could potentially be very automatic.  But then I wouldn't
be there to fix syntax errors in your orders, or toss in GM-sponsored
nifty events.  The quality of the _Times_ would suffer without human
editing, also.

> BTW, most foreign countries also have instant email. What causes delays
> is UUCP.

When mail is working, it is fast to just about everywhere.  olympia.rt.com
is a uucp site; the longest round-trip response should be 1 hour, and
is often far less.  What causes delays are 1) real life 2) machines
which go down.

--
Rich Skrenta

References

Re: Olympia Turn Length
cedman@714-725-3177.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Sat, 30 May 1992 23:00:47 +0000