Newbie's first impressions

[PCarroll]

Zooko said:
Illwinter recommended Dungeon Crawl on their web site one time, and I got hooked on it. I really prefer it to the others that I have briefly tried, because

a. It has balance.
b. It has a consistent world (not a myriad of independently developed levels, each one attempting to be sillier than the last).
c. It has a pleasurable skill system.

Also I've written several patches to Dungeon Crawl, mostly to re-invent the personality of the god Xom.

Thanks for that tip. I'd heard of the game but never tried it. Now I have, and it's very good. My wife's hooked on it too. Her only complaint is that she can't cheat by saving at critical points; it's hard losing a character you've carefully worked up to a high level.

Surprisingly, neither of us has any complaint about the interface (we're using the basic one, not the "tiled" one, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to get the tiled version to work in English--and I don't read Japanese).

My wife thinks it's great, because she has control over everything--casting a spell or using a wand or whatever, and seeing the effect.

--Patrick

[Scott Hebert]

Patrick (if you don't mind my calling you that),

I do read Japanese, as a matter of fact; if you need any help in that area, just let me know.

Scott

[PCarroll]

Since our discussion drifted off to such games as chess and cribbage, I thought I'd just post this invitation here, FWIW:

Just started a group to discuss classic games like backgammon, checkers (draughts), chess, cribbage, and dominoes. If you enjoy such games and care to talk (or read) about them as well as play them, please visit:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/timelessfavorites/

--Patrick

[Zooko]

Cool! What platform -- Windows? Let me know if you or your wife want to try my new improved Xom. :-)

[FarAway Pretender]

Very interesting thread, all of you! I don't think I've ever seen so many of my favorite games posted in one place, ever, and certainly not such a wide variety.

MoM, AoW, Heroes, Settlers of Catan, Dom 2, and so many others.

The Go example you cite is interesting. Almost all of us bring our own personal/cultural views into the gaming experience. I'm oversimplifying a little here, but let me make a few comparisons. Chess is a pretty Western game--clearly defined rules, combinations and permutations of differing abilities and weaknesses, straight and clean lines of power projecting onto the blank field of a game board, and dramatic moments of victory often come when a mighty opponent is toppled by a destructive attack.

Go is rife w/more Eastern themes. Notions of space are as important to winning the game as are the pieces. Rather than viewing space as an empty nothingness that pieces move through as they assert their power against other pieces, space is as vital a part of winning as are the pieces. The whole duality of Western thinking is replaced by the seamless integration of the whole.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself right here--I have no graduate education in Philosophy at all, but I've lived in both parts of the world, and I recognize parts of each culture in those games.

In many senses, the games we play are both a reflection and an example of our own culture's philosophies. But that is a bit far out from the original topic here!


Dom2 is a complex game, but it's a lot like an onion. Depending on the difficulty level (of SP or your opponents), you can keep peeling the onion back further and further to find another layer of challenge and understanding. From a "mastering the game system" standpoint, it's as complicated as you want to make it.

This also makes things very open-ended. Think your phalanx of Long Spearmen might do well against overwhelming numbers of low-morale militia who would hesitate to brave those long pointy sticks? You're right. Think Crossbowmen are a good match for the heavily armored Infantry of Ulm? You're right again! Want to put off attacking the Undead Trees until you've learned Fireball in hopes of setting them ablaze? That could actually be a very good idea!

Casting Lightning Bolts a good way to stop heavily armored cavalry? Yup. Priests turning undead? Correct again. Shortbowmen proving a cheap and effective way to dispatch crazed Religious Zealots who go into battle with only the Faith in their God as armor? You betcha, unless their God is a God of Air! Nimble Barbarians in loin cloths being a good match against hard-hitting but slow-moving Giants sound worthwhile? Right once more.

Not trying to beat a dead horse, but figuring these little match-up things out is a lot of fun, at least for a certain type of player. I found that one of the most pleasant aspects of Dom2.

BUT, one of the more common complaints about the game is the level of micromanagement required. Most of the folks on this forum don't mind sweating the details, but it is VERY annoying to have my star hero killed because I forgot to change his orders when I moved him to a new stack. In the endgame stage, things do get more than a bit unwieldy.

Some of these are UI issues that will hopefully be addressed in Dom3, but others are inherent in such an open-ended game that allows players to do so many things. I've sometimes wondered whether fewer provinces might solve these problems, but I suspect that would change other things?

In any event, Dom2 is a great game, but not for everybody.

[Endoperez]

With fewer provinces, games won't get so far, and as an example, you couldn't have as good SCs as you can in a long game. It changes the gameplay, but leaves out some options others couldn't play without.

But yes, it still isn't for everybody.

[PCarroll]

FarAway Pretender said:
Very interesting thread, all of you! I don't think I've ever seen so many of my favorite games posted in one place, ever, and certainly not such a wide variety. . . .

The Go example you cite is interesting. Almost all of us bring our own personal/cultural views into the gaming experience. I'm oversimplifying a little here, but let me make a few comparisons. . . .

Thanks. I love reading stuff like that. And since this thread has wandered off in that direction, here are a couple of my favorite articles on comparisons of classic games like chess, go, checkers, and backgammon:

http://www.bobnewell.net/comp.html

http://www.kiseido.com/gatg.htm

--Patrick

[Whollaborg]

FarAway Pretender said:
Very interesting thread, all of you! I don't think I've ever seen so many of my favorite games posted in one place, ever, and certainly not such a wide variety.

MoM, AoW, Heroes, Settlers of Catan, Dom 2, and so many others.

The Go example you cite is interesting. Almost all of us bring our own personal/cultural views into the gaming experience. I'm oversimplifying a little here, but let me make a few comparisons. Chess is a pretty Western game--clearly defined rules, combinations and permutations of differing abilities and weaknesses, straight and clean lines of power projecting onto the blank field of a game board, and dramatic moments of victory often come when a mighty opponent is toppled by a destructive attack.

Go is rife w/more Eastern themes. Notions of space are as important to winning the game as are the pieces. Rather than viewing space as an empty nothingness that pieces move through as they assert their power against other pieces, space is as vital a part of winning as are the pieces. The whole duality of Western thinking is replaced by the seamless integration of the whole.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself right here--I have no graduate education in Philosophy at all, but I've lived in both parts of the world, and I recognize parts of each culture in those games.

FarAway Pretender,
I am stupified to find out that you took the words out of my mind even before i had read this discussion.

My point is all about GO, which just has the Crown of games for me in this Hall of Fame of computer / classical games we all enjoyed. As a lowly apprentice in Greek / European philosophy I cannot but agree you FarAway Pretender!

I see it in the way that the game of GO offers more intuitive type of strategy game instead bit more calculative and rigid system of chess. This means a kind of holistic approach instead of Aristotelian type of categorising objects of world according to rules that are created by that gategorising.
GO for it!

About Dom2,
I just recently joined the multiplyer community after enjoying years of single playing with both Dominions. I recommend you trying mp as well.

[Reverend Zombie]

FarAway Pretender said:
Notions of space are as important to winning the game as are the pieces. Rather than viewing space as an empty nothingness that pieces move through as they assert their power against other pieces, space is as vital a part of winning as are the pieces.

Not to drag this thread hopelessly off-topic, but I can see the above being said about chess as well. A large part of chess is about controlling said space, perhaps that is where the difference lies? I don't know enough about Go to say. But the board in chess is far from an "empty nothingness."

[PCarroll]

Reverend Zombie said:
Not to drag this thread hopelessly off-topic, but I can see the above being said about chess as well. A large part of chess is about controlling said space, perhaps that is where the difference lies? I don't know enough about Go to say. But the board in chess is far from an "empty nothingness."

Space is certainly a prominent feature in both chess and go. Some writers boil chess play down to three basic principles: force, space, and time (to these, Seirawan adds pawn position). I think the game of go could also be understood in terms of force, space, and time.

But if we zero in on the concept of space, it seems to play a different role in each game.

In chess, the idea is to develop your pieces and advance your pawns so as to control more space on the board (especially the central space or, later in the game, the space around the kings). Doing so maximizes your army's mobility while minimizing your opponent's. And since mobility is mainly what makes one piece more valuable or powerful than another, by dominating space on the board, you weaken the enemy's force. Thus, force would seem to be the main concept--one that's modified by how much space you control.

In go, space would appear to be the dominant concept. Space (eyes, or vacant spaces) gives life to your stones, and space is all (except prisoners) that counts toward victory. Since the stones are immobile, they have no force in the chess sense; what force they do have is determined by their relative position in space. A group of stones, properly placed and connected, can exert unassailable force--but it's more a "force field" which contains the space it surrounds and depends upon for life.

To win at chess, you must exert inescapable *force* against the enemy king. To win at go, you must fence in the lion's share of *space.*

Have we forgotten about the third factor, time? There must be a game in which time (or timing) is the dominant concept. Maybe checkers (draughts) or backgammon or mancala. I'll have to ponder on that.

--Patrick