"Gamey" tactics like "Rock, none" races

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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I'm not familiar with this one as I have never actually played with Maintenance Reduction as a characteristic. What is the problem with it?

It would be better if a 10% reduction actually reduced the maintenance paid by 10%, not the % of ships cost to pay as maintenance. Currently, 110 makes you pay 15% maintenance instead of 25% maintenance. A better system would be where 110 makes you pay 22.5% instead (which would actually be a 10% reduction in maintenance costs). Multiplication instead of addition (or subtraction)

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I posted this earlier today.

Hmm... I don't think I have ever quoted myself before...

[ December 22, 2002, 07:38: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[SamuraiProgrammer]

Thanks Imperator,

I knew that the calculations were non intuitive. I agree that it would make more sense to talk about the numbers the way you suggest.

I am also aware (unless I am wrong) that there is a hardcoded 5% minimum value.

When someone said 'broke', I thought that there was something wrong in how the effects were applied by the program.

It seems to me that the complaint is more one of balance (i.e. cost of changing the trait) rather than execution (i.e. the function does not work as intended).

In that light, I understand your comments about how it behaves differently based on the size of the map. However, it seems to me that most of the racial traits and ability adjustments are more or less cost effective in light of the rules package in place. For example, spending points to improve research ability is useless if you are playing with max tech.

One of the biggest 'wake up calls' I have gotten while learning to play this game was finding out how you could go in tampering with the abilities. For example, running cunning (ability to run intelligence missions) down very very far when you are not allowing intelligence.

[Fyron]

Puke spoke about the map size, not me.

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Originally posted by Skulky:
why don't the ppl thinking that there is a solution, or several indispensible traits, go for those, and then several others take the opposite and play a game, then we will see

Ok, I'll take:
research 120
construction 120
defense 120
offense 120
minerals 120
maint reduction 110
Advanced Storage
Hardy Industrialist
Ancient Race

You get 80's in all those, and let's have at it!

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This is a good point. I'd say fine, if we use Proportions mod, where I balanced the point costs. The listed advantages in Proportions cost 12000 racial selection points.

This can actually (barely) be acquired in a 5000 point start, for instance with the following disadvantages:

Slow Builders
Cursed
Supply Guzzlers
Physical Strength 50
Repair Aptitude 50
Cunning 60
Environmental Resistance 60
Political Savvy 60
Farming 56
Refining 60
Reproduction 91
Happiness 60

That is, almost completely maxed down in everything else. In Proportions, you'd be hurtin'! Probably your population would riot pretty quickly, and then maybe your homeworld would split in half. That might make it hard to win.

My guess is that other 5000-point choices would tend to find they had reasonable compensating advantages. For one thing, the 10% maintenance reduction is only going to actually get you 10%, not 40%. Buying up to 40% in Proportions would cost an additional 1570 points, which can't be paid off - with everything at minimum (three at 25%), there would still be a 254 point deficit.

Which is a long way of saying (again) that yeah, the point costs in the unmodded set aren't very well balanced in many ways. They can be modded for balance, though.

PvK

(edited typo)

[ December 22, 2002, 11:23: Message edited by: PvK ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by spoon:
Well, that is the point I'm trying to make. There are "gamey" things you can do to give you an edge. I guess I have to repeat this in every post, but I never claimed that there was a way to guarantee a win. That's silly.

Spoon, I think that your position in total is fairly reasonable. You don't appear to believe that there is one "Uber weapon" or that there is "One way" to win at SEIV. Although others in the past have tried to make that claim. Please pardon our zealousness if we felt as if that is what you were saying at the begining.

I still don't accept the idea that these things you speak of are "gamey". They are part of the game. These are choices, either in empire setup or in game tactics. If you choose one you likely are not choosing something else that may help just as much, or nearly so. So it's all about tradeoffs and what makes you the most confortable.

Every game depends heavily on decisions you make before the game, or very early in the game. People don't claim that taking the center square in tic-tac-toe is gamey because it gives the player an advantage do they? Gaining an advantage is what games are all about. SEIV just gives you a lot more ways than the average game to do that. And it gives you ways to overcome disadvantages and poor decisions more than just about any game I have ever played.

There are two dozen things or more that you can do at game startup to get an advantage over an opponent. If you do all of them it will require a lot of racial points, even in the stock game. If you do them though and your opponent doesn't, you will have a big edge. That much is frankly undeniable. I would be an idiot to claim otherwise.

What I reject is the idea that any one of them makes you unbeatable. So you didn't make that claim, many have at one time or another.

Here's how it goes. Someone steps up and says, "PPB are unbalenced uber weapons!". I chime in and say, "Bah, there are no UBER weapons. The skill of the player is what matters most." Then the PPB cultist and I have a long discussion about why someone usign PPBs can or can't be beaten. In the end the person is always saying, "Well if you do this and that and this AND have PPB, you will be unbeatable.", at which point I simply laugh because the player that has the skill to do the "this and that and this" will do well regardless of weapon choice. That's was my point to begin with. They all come around to it in the end, wheether they know it or not.

Geoschmo

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
This is a good point. I'd say fine, if we use Proportions mod, where I balanced the point costs. The listed advantages in Proportions cost 12000 racial selection points.

And you are a good man for fixing it. I guess my only complaint towards MM is that they don't do enough in the way of post-release balancing. And that's not much of a complaint, since the game is still so enjoyable without it...

[spoon]

Spoon, I think that your position in total is fairly reasonable. You don't appear to believe that there is one "Uber weapon" or that there is "One way" to win at SEIV. Although others in the past have tried to make that claim. Please pardon our zealousness if we felt as if that is what you were saying at the begining.

I still don't accept the idea that these things you speak of are "gamey". They are part of the game. These are choices, either in empire setup or in game tactics. If you choose one you likely are not choosing something else that may help just as much, or nearly so. So it's all about tradeoffs and what makes you the most confortable.

Ah, good, then we are just down to semantics. I consider min-maxing a "gamey" thing, and that's what you have to do to get the optimal race set-ups. The characteristics I listed earlier (research, ship combat, mining, construction, maint., Adv Storage, HI, Ancient Race) are so important, that you don't have any points left over (in a standard 2k game) to tweak the lesser traits too much. PvKs solution (balance the costs) leaves you, I think, with a lot more in the way of Choice, since you can no longer simply choose Everything That Matters. In fact, the biggest choices bow seem to be between choosing between Propulsion Experts, Defensiveness, and some Racial Tech. And if to choose Warrior, Bezerker, Engineer, or Merchant. And if to push Construction to 125 somehow, and if to drop Political Savvy to 80% or lower. (see, not denying that there are still hard choices to make - just that I don't think there are enough of 'em)

Also, I don't consider "gamey" to be a bad thing, either. (except maybe for role-playing). Playing with the numbers is great fun, to me.

-spoon

[spoon]

When someone said 'broke', I thought that there was something wrong in how the effects were applied by the program.

Heh, you must spend too much time hanging around with programmers and other such literalists...
Anyway, by "broken", I meant "does not work the way you think it does" (both undocumented and counterintuitive) and "is also out of whack balance-wise" (shouldn't be able to spend 500 points to get a 66% fleet size advantage)

[rextorres]

The only truly equitable situation would be for players to have to start with the same set up - sort of like Chess. But what fun is that?

Personally I think any strategy, tactic, or component that beats my playing style should be patched out.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by rextorres:
The only truly equitable situation would be for players to have to start with the same set up - sort of like Chess. But what fun is that?

Actually it might be interesting for a change of pace once in a while. Sort of an IROC SEIV. We had the neutral challage game awhile back. That was kind of like that.

Geoschmo