What about interactive Tactical Combat ?

[Hullu]

Well, still that's something I wouldn't be bothered to do. But with a simulator I might be

[Agrajag]

Hullu said:
Well, still that's something I wouldn't be bothered to do. But with a simulator I might be

Why not? You are at a disadvantage to someone who does bother

[Hullu]

Because I'm a kind of person who values comfort over work If something is easy/comfortable enough for the gain, I do it, if it's not I skip it.

If using such an advantage is mandatory to be competitive and it causes too much discomfort, I quit playing. I doubt we'll ever reach that situation, although a careful planner AND user of this feature (simulating incoming battles) would have an enormous potential advantage over people who don't do it.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think a battle simulator would be a great advantage, to certain players. And a bad thing for the game overall.

That said, did anyone notice that I posted a link to a battle simulator? I dont think Johan needs to bother making the editor simulator into something user friendly and adding it to the game tools menu.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think a battle simulator would be a great advantage, to certain players. And a bad thing for the game overall.

There is no possible way that a battle simulator could be construed as a bad thing unless you don't want the players of the game to have accurate information on the capabilities of various units. Accurate information is not a bad thing in a strategy game, no matter how much the anti-powergamer crowd wants it to be. Accurate information is the only thing that makes a strategy game worth playing, as without it your decisions are not meaningful and might as well be randomly assigned.

That said, did anyone notice that I posted a link to a battle simulator? I dont think Johan needs to bother making the editor simulator into something user friendly and adding it to the game tools menu.

No, you did not post a link to a battle simulator. You posted a link to a map that can be used with some difficulty to create potential battles directly in the dominions game. It's nothing like a properly featured simulator that could be used to run the few thousand test casts that are needed to properly balance the gold costs on the vast number of overcosted units in Dominions.

[Hullu]

There is no possible way that a battle simulator could be construed as a bad thing unless you don't want the players of the game to have accurate information on the capabilities of various units. Accurate information is not a bad thing in a strategy game, no matter how much the anti-powergamer crowd wants it to be. Accurate information is the only thing that makes a strategy game worth playing, as without it your decisions are not meaningful and might as well be randomly assigned.

Accurate information is good you say? This taken to the extreme -> The game tells you "You will win" or "You will lose", even before you submit your turn (if orders/army compositions don't change). That's accurate information, and it would utterly ruin the game.

An easy to use battle simulator would be one step towards that. Certainly not even close to all the steps, but one step nevertheless.

[Maltrease]

With the amount of option in Dominion is unlikely that a "Perfect" strategy will ever be found. Sure there are optimal strategies in specific situations. Finding these and being able to actually create the scenario to your advantage is what strategy gaming is all about.

I think Graemes post sums it up perfectly. I would simply add that there are already people that ENJOY building custom maps to run battle tests. So in essence that advantage already exist to the dedicated (obsessive) player... having an easy to use simulator will lower the bar on the how much effort it takes to learn the "tricks" and allow more players access and UNDERSTANDING of the mechanics.

[PhilD]

Hullu said:
Accurate information is good you say? This taken to the extreme -> The game tells you "You will win" or "You will lose", even before you submit your turn (if orders/army compositions don't change). That's accurate information, and it would utterly ruin the game.

No way, because this is a simultaneous turn game. If you can see your opponents' orders, then you can potentially (theoretically) prepare an optimal strategy against them, and a very powerful simulator would help you with that.

But we're not proposing a cheating device, we're proposing a tool that would make it possible to ask, "hey, what would happen if I had an army of X, and gave it such and such orders, and pitted it in such and such conditions vs an army of Y". This is completely different, and would be used, to various degrees, by people, depending on how much they want to get a feel for how the units' stats turn into performance on the battlefield. Depending on how much they wanted to get better at the game, some people would spend a lot of time with the simulator, and others wouldn't - and it's absolutely not certain that those who spent the most time with it would end up winning more, because some have a better tactical or strategic mind than others.

But it would make the option available.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

There is no possible way that a battle simulator could be construed as a bad thing unless you don't want the players of the game to have accurate information on the capabilities of various units. Accurate information is not a bad thing in a strategy game, no matter how much the anti-powergamer crowd wants it to be. Accurate information is the only thing that makes a strategy game worth playing, as without it your decisions are not meaningful and might as well be randomly assigned.

Exactly. That IS what I think. Dont forget that I play it solo and I love randoms. So as far as Im concerned less strategy in facvor of more randoms is not a threat. But as far as MP gaming, Ive seen games destroyed where every little thing could be so completely tested that a slight benefit amounted to defining the ultimate absolute winning strategy. There was no more reason to buy it, play it, discuss it. Or it turned into a continual give and take between player-testers and developers that it also wasnt worth really playing the game. As far as Im concerned that would suck and it would be stupid to give that ability to the players. Yes, keep them in the dark and make them PLAY the game to find their strategys.

Oops. Sorry for that. What I meant to say was in MY opinion there are some factors which might make.. nahh screw that. You wont play diplomat so why should I.

No, you did not post a link to a battle simulator. You posted a link to a map that can be used with some difficulty to create potential battles directly in the dominions game. It's nothing like a properly featured simulator that could be used to run the few thousand test casts that are needed to properly balance the gold costs on the vast number of overcosted units in Dominions.

Such a flat factual statement? Maybe you meant to say that in your opinion that was..
Scratch that also

No, I posted a link to a Battle Simulator. It works. It works better than Johans as far as Im concerned. You might like something fancier like some other games have but I see little benefit in having the devs work on one. Especially since the link I gave allows for well over 90% of whatever tests anyone wants to do and what little is left over Id doubt would show up in any other simulator.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
Exactly. That IS what I think. Dont forget that I play it solo and I love randoms. So as far as Im concerned less strategy in facvor of more randoms is not a threat.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing a game to win. If playing to win means that people use "unthematic" or "cheesy" tactics, then the problem is that the thematic and "non-cheesy" strategic elements aren't powerful enough. I also don't know why you feel that your games against the unintelligent AI would be threatened by the availability of a powerful learning tool to multiplayer players.

But as far as MP gaming, Ive seen games destroyed where every little thing could be so completely tested that a slight benefit amounted to defining the ultimate absolute winning strategy. There was no more reason to buy it, play it, discuss it. Or it turned into a continual give and take between player-testers and developers that it also wasnt worth really playing the game. As far as Im concerned that would suck and it would be stupid to give that ability to the players.

I'm glad that you feel that chess is a worthless strategy game thanks to its complete lack of randomness.

Personally, I'd also like to see some concrete examples of games that you think were ruined by such balancing.

Or it turned into a continual give and take between player-testers and developers that it also wasnt worth really playing the game. As far as Im concerned that would suck and it would be stupid to give that ability to the players.

It's _stupid_ to let players make meaningful decisions in a strategy game? If we follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion, it's clear that we must remove all decisions from the game. Everything shoud simply be a collection of random statistics where it's impossible to figure out any relationship between them. After all, it's stupid to let the players figure things out in the game.

Yes, keep them in the dark and make them PLAY the game to find their strategys.

I don't know why you feel that it's necessary to insult every player that wants more strategic decisions in their strategy game. I'd like to learn by playing the game. I'd even more like for new players to be able to learn by playing the game. Simulating battles is part of playing the game. It's merely one way of taking one of the most important parts of the game and working on learning that part without the distractions from the other parts of the game. Would you tell somebody who repeatedly practices a single measure of a difficult song to perfect it that they aren't playing properly? I'd hope not, because they are doing exactly what is needed to learn as effectively as possible.

Such a flat factual statement? Maybe you meant to say that in your opinion that was..

Some statements are simply correct or incorrect. There is no question of opinion when somebody makes a statement of fact.

No, I posted a link to a Battle Simulator.

I don't see any program that you posted, and I'm not sure why you want to argue the semantics of what the term "battle simulator" means. You provided a link to a map file that can only be used to get an extremely rough approximation of the capabilities of a true simulator. There are dozens of critical variables that can't be controlled on that map that effect battles. You can't control who has dominion in the province, whether there's a magic or drain scale, the heat scale, what spells are available to the nations, what globals are in effect and how strong they are in the particular province, what afflictions the units have, etc.

You might like something fancier like some other games have but I see little benefit in having the devs work on one. Especially since the link I gave allows for well over 90% of whatever tests anyone wants to do and what little is left over Id doubt would show up in any other simulator.

I want to test 1000 (or 2000, or 100,000) gold worth of every national infantry unit against every other national infantry unit in enough battles to produce statistically significant results. Such results would be extremely useful in providing players with concrete information about the actual capabilities of the units that they have available to them.

Now, I'm not sure why you think that your opinion of what the devs work on should rule the day, while those people who disagree with you have opinions don't matter. After all, you're the one who constantly tells us all that every opinion is equally valid.