[Freeciv-Dev] wonder balance (was: Blitzkrieg patch)

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On Tue, Aug 01, 2000 at 02:26:18AM -0400, Reed Meyer wrote:

[some very good points, including:]
 
>      Most of the points for arguing against Blitzkrieg argue against
> other powerful Wonders, and perhaps in fact the very concept of Wonders in
> general.  In particular, those Wonders that are "eternal and global"
> (to use Jeff Mallatt's term) are the most scrutinized.  Wonders such
> as Hoover Dam and Magellan's (the Pyramids needs to be added to his list,
> and is probably the most blatant example since the Pyramids can be built
> very early in the game).

The Pyramids are rarely built by experienced players, because

  - early on, it's cheaper to double your number of cities instead!
    the Pyramids cost 200 = 5 settlers = 5 cities; more, actually,
    since shields will sit idle until the last of the 200 has been spent
  - later, there is usually a more interesting wonder to target

> It is precisely BECAUSE they are such powerful entities in the game that
> they add a rich, fun aspect that the game otherwise wouldn't have.

Very true, but balance is very important.  If having a particular wonder
decides the game, the wonder might as well be called End of Game.
(Come to think of it, an Apocalypse wonder?)

>      (2) Any nation can always TAKE the Wonder by force, by capturing the
> host city.  In fact, it's not uncommon for me to declare war on some other
> nation that otherwise I have no quarrel with, only because they have a
> nice Wonder that I covet.

Well, if you're going to war anyway, wonders are a good reason, but
the wonder would rarely pay for the war, except in special cases
(a very weak opponent).

>      (3) Perhaps most importantly, Wonders help speed up game play.
> you have a "stalemate" between several nations all of approximately equal
> power, it could take a long time before a clear winner is determined (let
> alone someone truly "winning" the game by conquering the world).  In this
> sense, one nation whose power rapidly accelerates is a GOOD thing.  That
> nation builds most of the Wonders, and its power accelerates even more.
> The game is over faster.

This is good unless you have met the same opponent in your 10 previous games.
 
>      Based on this last argument, I think I'd have to reverse my original
> opinion and say that "the rich getting richer" is a GOOD thing more than
> a bad one!!!
>      Keep in mind that in this thread, *TWO* different types of "balance"
> have been talked about.  I don't know what to call them exactly, but let's
> say one is "game balance" and the other is "balance of power".  What I
> want is "game balance", but I don't necessarily want (and in fact, I would
> sort of want to avoid, based on argument (3) above) "balance of power".

Indeed ...  The goal, I think, is to have a game in which many
different ways to achieve victory are possible, in which players can
surprise their opponents by their tactics.

> What I mean by "game balance" is, in a nutshell, is this: that a player is
> forced to choose between several different plans of action.  The different
> plans of action should be ROUGHLY equal to each other in terms of relative
> advantages to disadvantages.  When I mean ROUGHLY, I mean "on the same
> order of magnitude"; there SHOULD be one plan that is "slightly better"
> than the next one, that the experienced player would take.  But the
> choices should not be cut-and-dried, and would take time to weigh the
> positives and negatives.

I agree, if the best plan isn't always the same in any game.

> [...]  The question then becomes what is the working
> definition of "isn't INCREDIBLY powerful".  I would say "anything that
> doesn't instantly determine the fate of the game within the next few
> turns".  In other words, anything that doesn't make the player an "instant
> winner" (to use a phrase from the lottery/sweepstakes world).

I ask for a little more: anything that doesn't make the most powerful
player an instant winner if he decides to pursue it.

> If Nation A
> and Nation B are equal, and Nation A suddenly got a great Wonder, well,
> it wouldn't be a bad thing unless that meant that the chance of Nation A
> winning the game suddenly jumped from 50% to nearly 100%.

(This was Magellan's position in 1.10.0 on generators > 1.)

> If the chance
> of winning went from 50% to 51% or 52%, which is how I would characterize
> even the best actual Wonders in the game, then it's no big deal.

Now that I've read this a couple of times, I realise my confusion:
do you mean 50% chance of winning, or an equal chance for all players?

I would put the estimate for the best wonders at 10-30%, and they are
often built by a player who has a 50% percent chance of winning already.
But this depends on the map size.  On smaller maps wonders are much less
important.  A greater land mass also helps to balance the wonders, because
tactics become much more important.

> Do you think that if Nation A's boats suddenly got to move 1 or 2 extra tiles
> per turn, its chance of winning would climb to anywhere near 100%?

Yes, definitely, if the game is still in the expansion stage.

> Cheers,
> ---Reed Meyer
>    please respond to rdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
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