"Gamey" tactics like "Rock, none" races

[Grandpa Kim]

Balance doesn't take away strategic options, it gives you more. What you want
are tactics that are good in situation 'X', but not so good in 'Y'.

And that is the secret. Choosing a high construction rate should cost me something of equal value whether it be research speed, happiness or to hit probability. Determining that "equality" is the rub. For instance:

but it is not as good as any of the Big Four (Adv. Storage,
HI, Propulsion, Ancient Race).

In my opinion, you can drop Ancient Race and give me Natural Merchants. Does this mean you are wrong, Spoon? No, it may mean we have wildly different styles! Or perhaps one is better than other. I don't know... but I will continue using Natural Merchants while not even considering Ancient Race.

If we had all of the several hundred regulars on this board set down on paper, their "perfect" balance, we would not get two the same. Simple differences in style and outlook would overrun the "perfection". ... But we would discover a dozen or more things that everyone thinks are too strong or too weak. Perfection is unattainable but improvement is very possible.

[geoschmo]

Equating Se4 to Rock/paper/scissors is a compliment for Se4, not a criticism. It demonstrates that every strategy you could choose in SE4 will beat some strategy, and lose to some other strategy. There is no perfect strategy.

It's a good analogy and is particularly appropriate for a discussion about balance in the game.

Of course Se4 has a multitude of strategies and techs to choose from, and RPS only has three. But it's an analogy. It's finding a common point between two things that appear different and using their commonality to demonstrate a particular point. Nobody is trying to say they are the same game, or should be.

For me this discussion about balance always ends up being a disagreement over semantics. I think different people have different things in mind when they say balance. Because to me balancing SE4 would mean that you could choose any weapon and have a chance of beating any other weapon in a straight up fight. I don't think that is something we should strive for. If balance means something other than that to you, then we may not be disagreeing, even though we think we are cause one of us wants balance and the other doesn't.

Weapons have strengths and wealnesses in different areas that make a damage per KT comparison difficult at best, and meaningless at worst. Cost to research and cost to construct and maintain particularly.

So weapon A can't beat weapon B in a straight up fight, but it can beat C. And C loses to A, but it beats B. Rock/Paper/Scissors.

But most of the differences in weapons don't even have to do with that tiny example. It isn't about beating some opponent in a straight up fight. It's about using your weapons choices advantages to put your self in a posiiotn where you aren't in a straigh up fight. Cause you have more ships than he does in a particular place.

Victroy doesn't go to who has the better ships. Victory goes to whichever one destroys all the other guys ships first, by whatever means nessecary.

Geoschmo

[ December 26, 2002, 12:21: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[SamuraiProgrammer]

I think part of the challenge is finding a way to make the most of what you have. A good player can win with one set of racial traits and then take the losing race and beat you again.

This is due to the ability of finding the best way to use what you have.

[PvK]

Well, I have great contempt for the game "rock/paper/scissors", for people who waste their time for it, and I am dumbfounded by people who see it as a principle of game design. The principle I see as worthwhile is that no one approach should dominate all others, and every technique should have weak points and counter-tactics. I would never call that "rock/paper/scissors" though, because what "rock/paper/scissors" stands for to me, is thoroughly pointless game design, where the elements are superficially labelled as something interesting, but in fact are all exactly the same. I guess it's just a semantic pet peeve of mine, rather than a real disagreement with the actual concepts involved.

At least, most of the time. I have however noticed that often (not necessarily in connection with SE4) that people who do talk use the expression "rock/paper/scissors" as if it were a fundamentally good concept, also tend to come up with some game design ideas that I really don't enjoy. Especially, games designed with really obvious artificial balance techniques that don't make any sense but make it clear to unsophisticated players what the strengths and weaknesses of each element are.

Ah well,

PvK

[ December 27, 2002, 04:52: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Thei R'vek]

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
Choosing a high construction rate should cost me something of equal value whether it be research speed, happiness or to hit probability. Determining that "equality" is the rub.

Then play a 0 Racial Point game.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, I have great contempt for the game "rock/paper/scissors", for people who waste their time for it, and I am dumbfounded by people who see it as a principle of game design.

There is also the card game of "War", and betting on coin flips.
Rock/Paper/Scissors can be useful, too; not as a game in itself, but as a random number generator for "SE4 on Paper" during a car ride, it works well.

To the point:
The RPS analogy can validly be used to describe the idea that there should be no UberTech.

That dosen't nessesarily mean the speaker wants to make a pointless RPS mod. Don't get too upset over the use of RPS in a non-derogatory sentence

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Thei R'vek:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
Choosing a high construction rate should cost me something of equal value whether it be research speed, happiness or to hit probability. Determining that "equality" is the rub.

Then play a 0 Racial Point game.

---

That doesn't address the issue of determining what is relatively more valuable than what (ie: what should cost more, what should cost less). All it does is give you fewer points to spend.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by PvK:
Well, I have great contempt for the game "rock/paper/scissors", for people who waste their time for it, and I am dumbfounded by people who see it as a principle of game design. The principle I see as worthwhile is that no one approach should dominate all others, and every technique should have weak points and counter-tactics. I would never call that "rock/paper/scissors" though, because what "rock/paper/scissors" stands for to me, is thoroughly pointless game design, where the elements are superficially labelled as something interesting, but in fact are all exactly the same. I guess it's just a semantic pet peeve of mine, rather than a real disagreement with the actual concepts involved.

I agree with you that RPS is not a principle. If we think about it, it is only an example of how the principle operates.

You describe the operative principle well when you say "The principle I see as worthwhile is that no one approach should dominate all others, and every technique should have weak points and counter-tactics."

However, we humans are such lazy creatures. It is so much easier to say "RPS" to identify the principle rather than have to describe the operative principle over and over again in the way you have done above.

Tomorrow, "RPS" may lose favour and we may use something else to identify the principle. Maybe it will be something like FWS (fire, water, sponge).

[Gryphin]

Pvk, Suicide Junkie, Thontob,
You all say it so much betterer than me.
Thinking back, I have played games simulating warfare since 1975. I can only think of a few exceptions where there was not in effect some form of a Play Balancing System.
Rock, Paper, Scissors component selection
In a WWII game the main elements were Infantry, Armor, Artillery. I’m over simplifying here. Each had distinct advantages and each disadvantages. It really came down to selecting the right units for the job and deploying them correctly.
I can also remember the endless "competitive discussions" on whether this or that was "Realistic". Since many of the games were "real world" simulations such as WRG's Ancients or their WWII (forget the name) miniatures game there was a strong emphasis on making them “more realistic”. So we changed the rules or added more. In SEIV we don’t have many options to change the hard code. We can Mod and make Gentleman’s Agreements on restricting the use of a perceived exploit.

[SamuraiProgrammer]

WRG Ancients

Talk about problems with game balance.

Try taking the sea people vs Alexander's Macedonians (1500 points each).

(Actually I loved WRG ancients. It just took toooooo long to paint those lead suckers.)

[ December 28, 2002, 05:35: Message edited by: SamuraiProgrammer ]