"Gamey" tactics like "Rock, none" races

[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

[Suicide Junkie]

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?

I have a chess scenario, and its pretty cool. An 8x8 grid of systems, a resource-generating king (if he dies, you lose because your ships get scrapped) A powerful queen, Heavily armored Rooks, repairship bishops, fast & powerful knight cruisers, and a bunch of pawn destroyers.

Hunt down the enemy king, while protecting your own!

[capnq]

Charts and formulae are the proof.

Only if they are accurate, and the person you're trying to convince understands them well enough to interpret them and verify that they are accurate.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- Mark Twain

[LostCommander]

Why are agressiveness and defensiveness (combat only bonuses) being considered very important? Just wondering as I have never touched them. Yes, I know exactly how they work, so is it not just a personal choice for either more ships or better ships? Sorry, I can't seem to find who originally posted on this...