Balance without a Mod? A Discussion (Long)

Velusion · #1 February 16th, 2007, 12:50 AM

Quote:

danm said:
One thing to keep in mind when assessing results from this format is that you might eventually be determining which nations can do best with limited design points, instead of which nations are "best" overall. The effect probably wouldn't be too pronounced, but there are certainly nations that are less affected by pretender/scale choices than others.

So, while for "teh ubar" nations, you may get a hard bidding limit at a dual bless barrier (for example) you might have other "less powerful" nations that get bid up extra high because they just don't "need" the points as much, and people are more willing to bid them up rather than accept a single-bless hellheim or whatnot.

Other than that, I think it's a wonderful idea, and I'd be fascinated to see what kind of stats would come out of it. Even if you never get enough games in the system to provide statistically significant data, it'd be an interesting exercise.

I don't think the expereinced players are interested, so I'm not going to be running this anytime soon.

jutetrea · #2 February 26th, 2007, 11:30 PM

Interesting topic - I think it would get the most bang for the buck out of having a (hypothetical) full field of players. If you're option is to bid the maximum for your "best" build is overtaken by someone else you drop down to your "next-best" build and so on till you land. How much do you spend "NOT" to take a bad nation?

Some players view a basic nation as better irregardless of pretender and may keep just enough points for scales, or just enough for an early SC pretender they know will fade late game.

Maybe this would work out with some sort of mod that actually rewarded players for taking generally considered "worse" nations - maybe a 80/20 or 90/10 split. Actually give extra points to those willing to take MA agartha.

StrictlyRockers · #3 February 27th, 2007, 07:55 AM

I think the Heims are overrated. Every good strategy has a good counter.

The bidding system still sounds like a good idea to me.

SR

Ezco · #4 February 27th, 2007, 11:57 AM

Nice topic. I like this kind of discussion/argument too. So here's is my input.

1. I think you would have to play at least 100 medium games with every nation (every player would take turns playing different nations). On a medium random map to make any kind of statistical information and claim one pretender point strategy/nation is better than another. Versus having just more skilled player playing the game.

2. Diplomacy. Like I said in one of my earlier post. Smart guys try to eliminate their biggest threat. And because it in this game usually is the nation closest to winning.... How can you possible try to eliminate that in an non-AI game?

3. Luck. I mean it is so deeply in this game you can never completely remove its effect. What if someones SC pretender gets killed by Bogus and his band early in the game? Does that make SC pretender strategy bad? Certainly chance of it does make it worse.

4. And at last the almighty: How I would do it. I would make a wraparound map with all independents set to same strenght, no magic sites, every nation having as many neighbours as far as everybody else and every province/capital having same pop, res etc. That would lessen the effect of luck (but I'm aware even that would make some strats less effective than others than in a normal [is there really such thing] game). Then to test those bless strats/pretenders. Make them for AI and tweak it so it would use them. After that you would only play endless amount of test games to make any kind of claim that one of yours starting strategy is superior to others. Quite difficult. Almost impossible to be sure.

Bottom line: How did they manage to make this game so balanced I don't understand. Maybe its just because there's so many variables.

And there's some who complain about stupid AI. Well in chess good computers nowadays always beat average players. Soon (I think) they beat average players at GO. So when will they beat average players at a game that has endless amount of move possibilities from turn 1? And that grows exponentially as does your nation. I really hope Illwinter programs that real artificial intelligence soon.