On game fixes

[Mazer Rackham]

Howdy.  Lynxes posted a decent thread about bidding for the game.  Since we have enough playing experience to start thinking about fixing game problems, I wanted to post some info not about specific changes, but on principles that result in good changes.

Instead of just thinking up random thoughts to “fix” the game, first figure out what makes for a good fix.  The full CSub article on rule fixes (Paper #03) has a long discussion about good fixes, but here’s the crux of it:

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Here are the principles the renowned Caspian Sub uses [though we weren’t renowned when we wrote the paper  :-D].  You will find that these rules are wise, elegant, judicious, and damn sexy.

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Rule Changing Principles
1. The Minimalist Principle:  The minimalist principle says “Make the least changes necessary to fix actual flaws in the game.”  If someone who is good at the game with the out-of-the-box rules becomes bad at the game using the new rules, you’ve changed the game either too much, unnecessarily, or inappropriately.  Part of this principle is that new rules should follow the ‘spirit of the rules’ and not change basic game concepts.

2. The Market Principle: A bid system is the most precise game-balancing tool; a good bidding market will result in a balancing remedy within 1 IPC of a perfect balance.

3. The Expertise Principle: Changes should encourage creativity and expertise, not just reward brute force or simplicity.  A good game balancer will add quality dimensions of game play, not result in a Crane Kick* or empty rules with little strategic value.

*Crane Kick: If do right, no can defense.  Mr. Miyagi said it, so it must be true.

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I do have one specific thought with the bid.  There tends to be “bid inertia” in games such that bids stay artificially low for a long time.  People don’t like to give up big bids, so the balancing bid can take longer to find.  Here’s one very simple way to accurately and quickly raise the bids: use a bid-down system instead of a bid-up system.

Say you know three things: Player Big thinks the balancing bid is $12, player Cheap thinks the balancing bid is $4, and the actual balance for the game is closer to $8.

If you use a bid-up system, the bid goes like this:
Cheap: I bid $1 given to the weak team so I can take the strong team.
Big: I bid $3 given to the weak team.
Cheap: $4
Big: $5
Cheap: I’ll take it.

So both players are happy with the $5 bid.  Big thinks the bid is $7 low so he’s happy, Cheap got an extra buck so he’s happy.  But the bid is artificially lower than the optimal balance and the cheaper players will hold the bid down.

Now look at a bid-down system:
Cheap: I’ll take $40 to play the weak team.
Big: I’ll take $30.
Cheap: $15
Big: $12
Cheap: $11
Big: You bought it.

So again both players are happy.  Cheap got $7 extra, and Big thinks he stuck Cheap for an extra dollar.  But notice that with the exact same set of preferences the bid increased from $5 to $11 just by changing the bid mechanism.  The fastest way to overcome “bid inertia” is to use a bid-down system.

Have at it.

[Lucifer]

I certainly agree with the bid-down mechanism, much better than bidding upwards.

When discussing balancing principles, there are several players who will change the NOs, or make direct rule changes to units, like 1 DD blocks 1 sub etc. Such changes are house rules, and although house rules are common among f2f player groups, I’d like to discuss balancing changes and changes to game rules separately.

As for OOB rules, even if the classic, revised and AA50 are great games, the finish part of the game design process was not very good in all cases, so they needed some modifications after the product was released.

There are some “house rules” that should be implemented to the official game rules by Larry Harris, but until that happens, I prefer to discuss house rules and suggestions in specific threads, and necessary game balancing issues in other threads.

Imo, it’s not the same “department” to change unit rules as opposed to change the number of starting units or if one side starts with extra cash, as long as this is as small change as possible to make the game “balanced”, b/c game balance is also about skills and experience, and in contrast to chess, we don’t know exactly how many units/cash in which places will balance the game as good as chess.

Many players wanted and still wants to play with tech, and many players do not play with tech, period! So we have different preferences, and it’s possible to argument that games w/o tech in revised is technically a house rule, but we don’t speak of such practice as house rules.

Many players prefer to play with LL, and this can also be argued to be some kind of “house rule”, but I don’t see LL as a house rule, just a change in combat mechanics. The name of the topic is “Game Fixes”, and I want to add that although LL isn’t a fix pr se, it is a change to the game mechanics where the luck and randomness is reduced, and by this makes it a better, more serious strategy game.
In AA50 it seems that LL changes the balance towards the axis, this isn’t a good thing, but I’d be very surprised if we’re not using some kind of bid (in ADS games) within a years time, not only for deciding who plays which side, but also b/c a bid is probably needed for balancing purposes.

I can understand very well why many players want to change some things in A&A games, but I don’t understand how it is so difficult to talk about modifications/improvements and balancing separately. Those are not the in the same departments. I strongly agree with the minimalistic approach. And for general “game fixes”, either we like AA50 and the forthcoming AA42, or we don’t like it.
I think revised is a very good game, and so I would not do any major changes, the three specific changes to the revised OOB rules I been playing with is, no tech, bids, and LL. That’s the all the changes that are needed to make revised even better than the the release version.

For AA50, the only change I’ve been doing from the official rules is that I usually play with LL. Apart from this, I think there is a need for a small bid, regardless of ADS or LL.

[axis_roll]

C-Sub is dead

didn’t you read the obituary?

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