Balance without a Mod? A Discussion (Long)

[FrankTrollman]

Deleted.

[Velusion]

Thanks for the input! I'll address my comments below:

FrankTrollman said:
As is, a lot of nations are somewhat niche (Middle Age Agartha and Middle Age Tien Chi, for example), and thus the bidding on them would stick to zero at all times. Does that mean that the two factions are equal? Probably not, it just means that neither is especially desirable.

Well the goal is to bid the least for a nation compared to the other bids, not to pick your favorite nation. If it comes down to playing Agartha or Tien Chi someone might think it is worth 10 Pretender Points to pick one over the other, or perhaps not. A number of the nations might be won with a bid of zero, that *should* mean that those players don't think it is worth a bidding increment to go over to the other side. Perhaps not equal - but fairly close.

FrankTrollman said:

1. I am openly contemptuous of peoples' ability to rationally price the overall effectiveness of any particular faction at this point in the game. The "market" is so full of misinformation and panic that it does not behave rationally.
2. Were such a market to potentially stabilize, it would at the very least take several complete iterations - something which would plausibly take years of real time.
3. I still don't see anything you could really bid with except turns, which are a currency so massive that fair pricing is absurd.

-Frank

1) I agree to a certain extent. That is sort of the purpose of the designed test. People can try to put thier money where thier mouth is and prove they can evalute the worth of a nation better than other players.

2)One game is not enough for real info I completely agree - but it would be interesting. 4-5 games *might* give people a general idea of what is generally worth what (in a broad sense). For me... I think it would be interesting just to see the bids.

3) Why don't you think Pretender points would be good to bid with? (other than the fact that such a bidding mechanism requires a neutral party?)

On a side note I agree that there are lots of blitzers on there that are tired of a few nations - but small blitz maps are one extreame. That's why I highly suggest a medium map be used for any testing.

[Xox]

This is a great idea. Velusion mentioned god points for the bidding process, not turns, not sure why Frank brought up using turns, I looked it over and cannot see any mention of that in Vel's post while he does go into some detail about using God creation points.

I would suggest not keeping the bid points to 5pt increments, because allowing any increment would be an interesting way of using those unused build points in most God creations. If it takes a little longer, no big deal, that would be an interesting pregame to the actual game.

I also suggest making bidders in the auction secret, with the host giving each player a player number and they bid for nations as a secret bidder. This keeps the spoiler factor down, and makes the bid process less personal.

I would love it if you could bid negative points for the really unpopular nations and possibly get God points, but I suppose that is not possible?

I bet there are other ideas out there for bid currency other than god points too. Anyone?

One way is to create your own curency and leave the god points alone. It would be fun to just give everyone say 500 bid points and have them bid for nations AND a set of extra heros/pretenders and troops. Mod time, but hoo yah, that does sound fun. This way you leave god points alone too, which would keep things clean in that way and yo would still get an interesting picture of realtive worth of nations.

I do not share Franks contempt for everyone else's ability to price these nations. Mistakes would be made, but out of this would come the truth.

Great beginning idea Velusion.

[Velusion]

Thanks for the input... my comments as follows:

Xox said:
I would suggest not keeping the bid points to 5pt increments, because allowing any increment would be an interesting way of using those unused build points in most God creations. If it takes a little longer, no big deal, that would be an interesting pregame to the actual game.

Actually, while it would be the most accurate, I belive it would take quite a bit longer if you used 1 point increments. Perhaps if you were bidding real time it would be ok, but I'm sure some nations would get bid up fairly high - and having to wait for the next bidder to post in a forum to increase the size by 1 would be agonizingly slow (IMHO) espcially if you have 10+ players.

Xox said: I also suggest making bidders in the auction secret, with the host giving each player a player number and they bid for nations as a secret bidder. This keeps the spoiler factor down, and makes the bid process less personal.

Good idea!

Xox said:
I would love it if you could bid negative points for the really unpopular nations and possibly get God points, but I suppose that is not possible?

Not that I know of but in reality, though it doesn't seem like it at first glance, things will balance out. The weaker that nations are viewed the higher the other nations will go as players stuggle to avoid them.

Xox said: Great beginning idea Velusion.

Thanks!