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Post 24 Nov 2014, 12:01 pm

Yeah, I'm not sold on the idea that it was the pirate rules which prevented any large powers getting in on the win last round. USA suffered a couple of bad rounds which opened him up to a stab that he never recovered from. Russia was new to the game and didn't properly understand how to make nukes work for him, and then his schedule got right on top of him and he ended up in a weak position. UK started really strongly but the lack of any other really powerful players made him into the #1 target on the board and he couldn't survive the eventual backlash. France and China both did ok but they never got into a strong enough position to be in on the win, and both suffered from the British BB transfer that set them up for a catastrophic reverse immediately following their stab of UK. For me the main reason why there were no A or B class powers in the eventual coalition was the underperformance of both USA and Russia, which created an imbalance.

That said, I didn't think the pirates really worked last time and I'm glad to see the idea has been dropped. They were a little too overpowered for my tastes. It wasn't the big powers that they really hurt though, it was the likes of India, Venezuela and poor old Indonesia.
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Post 24 Nov 2014, 2:08 pm

No, the power absolutely aided the outcome. If played several times we would have had a few times with a major power being a part of things but this was something I predicted from the start and voila! That past run also devalued a few major powers strengths as well, it really was no big shock! The game is already balancing on a razors edge, even then, it's not fair to MOST who play! Add any extra power to a small power or reduce power to a big guy and that balance tips. Honestly, it's the mid-sized powers that suffer the biggest problems with such changes. We already heavily favor a big power and you can see a possibility of one playing things just right (like pandering to these small powers no doubt!) and one could certainly sneak by. But these suggestions completely obliterate the mid power chances. They are not big enough to make any sweet offer of pandering, they are too big to be a part of most coalition wins, they do not get this extra power added to them. No, if things are run as we have set here, I guarantee mid powers are going to suffer the most (in the end) large powers will be reduced unless they pander to the little guys and while the little guys will STILL be wiped out in large numbers early, those who survive will call the shots!
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Post 25 Nov 2014, 12:14 am

We'll see. One other change you may not have noticed is that he's extended the period before the voting rounds happen. This will work against the little guys by giving longer for the bigger nuke powers to wipe them out. In the last game an extra two years before voting happened would have boiled away an awful lot of the votes from the surviving small players. It may not have changed the outcome but I suspect it would have given France and China a much better chance.
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Post 25 Nov 2014, 8:28 am

That is a good point!
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Post 26 Nov 2014, 7:22 am

i agree with most of what Ruffy said.

But he went a little too far in his claims.
Nobody spends more time on the game than does the GM. Every single day he processes orders rec'd and answering questions. Then comes the adjudication, the early years take a bit less time but after a few years the time required started to grow to 5 or 6 hours straight followed by another couple hours the next day. When you add up the time spent per week it would take me about 15 hours per week. A major power could certainly spend two plus hours each and every day to equal this but I doubt it (he very well may a few days per week but the average would require this EVERY day of the week) The GM's effort in this game simply can not be forgotten nor minimized by claiming the players have it worse!

The other thing mentioned was his attempt to again piss on the games GM by saying the vote was added early "for the amusement and convenience of the GM". That is a vile and awful statement made from his warped sense of self importance and self grandeur. Let me ask him to host this game ONCE, just ONE time and then we can listen to his input as one who actually knows fully what he speaks of, for now all he knows is how to play the game and his "all knowing" comments are simply lacking (and it shows here). Does he know all the reasons for allowing the vote to be held early? Yes ONE of those reasons for the GM's "convenience" but that was only one reason, other reasons existed for that and when the change was made those reasons were explained. I can't even remember them all but I had many and it in fact did go quite well. None of those games had only small powers only winning, they all had a nice mix of powers. This also allowed the game to end before devolving to total nuclear stupidity, if you allow it to go too long, then the big nuke powers tend to blow away the competitors and their value is further reduced. It gave small powers a chance at participating in the political aspect of the game and one final chance at sneaking a win despite being on the way out.

It's easy to make a claim like his but what are the facts?
The game rarely ended during the earlier votes (not never but not usually)
The game always had a nice mix of power class sizes
The game ended before all small guys were eliminated, if you go too long, then the unfair nature of haves vs have nots starts to favor the bigger guys (too short and the smaller guys are a bit more powerful but due to the large number of them still alive, they tend to never agree to any coalitions enough to be part of a win. The facts simply do not bear out what Ruffy states! It may very well have played a very large role in the last game but that was affected by the pirate rule that skewed things very differently (as did the reduced number of powers played). I am worried these new rule additions will do similar things to this game but as also stated, maybe this extra power will be minimized with the later voting season? That part is a good argument and reasons can be made this way or that but it can be a big factor bringing things back to balance and worth experimenting with. If you allowed an earlier vote, then no way would this play as hoped, with that I agree with Ruff. But regarding the basic game, he's flat out WRONG.
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Post 26 Nov 2014, 9:18 am

From my own perspective as a player, I did feel that last game was too short. As Randy said, what happened was that for the couple of turns leading up to the voting season things went into a lockdown where few players were willing to press attacks for fear of it costing them more in terms of lost goodwill than it gained them in terms of extra centres or even extra votes under their control. Ultimately this is a war game and the balance should really be more about war, but the nature of a shortened voting season makes politics the default strategy for most people. I'll be interested to see how it plays out with a lengthened game.
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Post 26 Nov 2014, 1:24 pm

You may very well be correct regarding the last game (Pirates). In fact, I don't doubt that in the least! Those pirate powers caused a great deal of harm to the big powers and all balance built in was lost.
But that statement does not necessarily carry over to the basic game. That game has been played many times and has stood the test of time regarding how it plays out. The comment:
this is a war game and the balance should really be more about war...

Not in this variant, you are quite off the mark in fact.
If it were about war and war only, then the smaller powers would not play any role and would never win, the very nature of the game is to bring balance to an unbalanced situation by means of politics. The small powers do well not by war primarily but rather by politics, it truly is a blend and any power (large or small) who ignores the politics will almost certainly find themselves with the losers!

Not to argue that ending too soon can adversely affect the game, but ending too late and that too adversely affects things. The nukes get too crazy and the smaller powers are simply wiped out so the politics available to all really doesn't matter much. Again, balance is key. Since this new idea will bring extra power to the smaller powers, THEN it may be absolutely required to have this later vote! But the nonsense about the game being voted on sooner is simply for the benefit of the GM is pure drivel and ignorant of the actual facts! Again, let's have Ruffy GM even ONE game (standard rules) and see what he learns then! Until that time, his knowledge is limited and his hatred for the games designer is well known...and it shows!
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Post 26 Nov 2014, 3:08 pm

I don't really want to get involved in this dispute between the two of you Tom. God knows Randy and I have had our disagreements as well (not least in this game just past), but I do think he's probably more right than wrong on this based on my admittedly limited experience of playing this game. Yes, balance is important, but ultimately in a game of this size you have to expect that most players will end up disappointed. If too many small powers survive to endgame then it virtually guarantees that none of the bigger powers can ever win. That doesn't seem quite right to me, especially since the poeple who play as the bigger powers are usually the most dedicated players who put the most effort in.

Those pirate powers caused a great deal of harm to the big powers and all balance built in was lost.


Could you flesh out what you mean by this ? I was involved in that game from begining to end as welol and I really don't remember it being that way. The only pirate faction who directly attacked any of the bigger powers throughout the whole game was Orang Laut, and that only happened right towards the end after he got subbed a load of BBs by UK and used them to hit China. Othewrwise the field of operations for the pirates didn't really bring them into contact with the bigger powers all that much, and in fact they were more likely to be working with them rather than against them for most of the game.
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Post 26 Nov 2014, 6:59 pm

I agree that you can not have too many small guys viable at voting time. But you cant have too few either. Past games have seen coalitions of differnt sizes except in the ladt run with pirates. The pirates may not have directly attavked any larger power but what they did do was killed off thier inroads to these other areas. They affected the powers around them to a great degree. Past games less this rule had good and various winners. The change was in adding pirates and we had three small powers win. Coincidence? Nope. The earlier vote has been around and did not affect the outcome as did the pirates. The balance was thrown off and that is my concern here with terrorists and oirates and so on. I have no problem with tweaks and like the ideas i have no problem scaling back the vote a year maybe two but no more. Balance is essential to a good game. I just dont see that balance (i think) is lacking. Nod
body is saying dont do it. I am simply asking to reconsider with this delicate balance in mind.
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Post 27 Nov 2014, 11:05 am

The pirates may not have directly attavked any larger power but what they did do was killed off thier inroads to these other areas.


I think you're letting your well-known dislike of the pirate rules in the last game skew your perception of what really happened to some extent. That's not how I remember things at all. There were three pirate factions. One of them struggled to ever gain any traction for most of the game. At best you could say he maybe nicked Diego Garcia from USA but that's the extent of his influence in terms of denying centres to the big players. The flipside is that he (Kal) caused huge problems for your position in India, but this actually worked in favour of one of the big powers, namely China, so it doesn't really support your argument. the At;lantic pirate took a couple of centres in the Caribbean that might otherwise have gone to USA, but in truth the main constraint on his growth in that region was the UK unit in Belize and the fact that Canada and Mexico stabbed him early and prevented him from building enough units (or any nukes) to allow him to press his claims. So the only pirate that had any meaningful impact in the way that you suggest was the Pacific pirate, but even here you could hardly say that he acted as a brake on the expansion of the big powers. He was working hand in glove with UK from the outset and the only other player who might have been able to contest the Indonesia region was USA, who again was constrained by the stab against him.

In reality the pirates made little difference to the performance of the A and B class powers. This is not to say that they didn't have a big influence on the game in other ways, and it was right to discontinue them, but let's be reasonable.
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Post 01 Dec 2014, 7:00 am

Reasonable?
You need to understand the game is like dominoes in many ways. The pirates in Africa and SE Asia affected China in may ways as well as affected the UK. The USA lost his centers in both arenas as well. Even a slight drop in power allows for major ramifications and it did in that game.
But that said, please don't think I am saying this was the only problem with that game, we also had some inexperience on larger powers come into play, we had a reduction in starting powers affecting balance, we had lessened power to the USA, we had a Chinese presence in Africa, the problems were many and the pirate rule was only one of the problems that game faced.

But it was a big one and where the pirates were in play, they had a tremendous impact and as I said, that power shift in one area falls like dominoes affecting every other area. To dismiss them as only screwing up small parts of the map in small ways is ignorant of the realities, small changes can make for huge differences and the game is so very delicately balanced as it is. One of the biggest problems is where some see the larger powers being too strong and they seek to take away some of that power. This seems to make sense at first glance but the base game ALWAYS ends with a mix of small medium and large powers winning, I do not think we have had two of the bigger powers end up winning together? Maybe one time? But that's good as well, we do not want to force particular groups together and in one version the rules assured the top tier could never win together making them enemies right from the start, that was a BAD idea!!! We need a possibility for anything to happen with the most likely result a nice mix and that is what we have now!

Taking away power from the big guys (or giving more power to the small guys) simply throws the balance away. You think the small guys have it hard? Yep, they do! Most will get pummeled! But in the end they will have a major impact on the end result, they have a chance to win it all if they survive and that's why the game works. It's a silly game where nukes get stupid but every attempt to stop the silliness resulted in bad game play, letting things go has always been the best balance and the most fun. These new rules sure sound like fun but they do nothing more than harm the larger powers, this upsets that very delicate balance and even if you harm only one power unfairly, that will rip things apart!
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Post 01 Dec 2014, 8:42 am

Well, I was China, and I can honestly say the pirate in Africa really had no discernable effect on me. The one in SE Asia did, obviously, but really that could have just as easily been some other nation. His ability to spawn an extra unit every year wasn't the reason he had an effect on China. That game's primary issue was the play of the big powers not being good enough overall.
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Post 10 Dec 2014, 12:46 pm

My last hosting of the game ended early because one of the players had gone on a rampage telling the rest of the players that I was cheating in my duties. That same person did nothing but complain any time a mistake was made and also complained if I required any delays in adjudication. That person was warned to stop his behavior or the game would end. he did not, I honored my word and stopped the game right in midstream. Most (if not EVERY) player left in the game congratulated me for doing so and agreed with me 100%.

Now that same person continues to rant about things he does not know.
The tweaks mentioned since this game that was so good were never implemented by me. The game that is so well liked was last run by me, others ran the tweaks spoken of that are disliked. But Randy goes on to say I changed it? what one is it? I ran it with no changes, it was liked, now he says i changed it....it can't be both.
But then again, Randy you simply have no clue what you are speaking of, you do nothing but complain while posing as some sort of expert. Expert complainer? yes, expert in a gfame designed by me? hahahahahaha, keep dreaming pal! I asked for ideas in this and the WW4 game, you always claimed to have answers, but never came up with even ONE real idea have you? As I dared you to do before (over and over) give us ONE real idea, just ONE specific idea we can use. "more sea spaces" is not an answer, not unless you can point to where they should be located.

So until then, speak of what you know
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Post 15 Dec 2014, 7:35 pm

How about you speak of facts and not assumption and guesses. I speak from firmer ground than you. I developed the game. I ran the games that you yourself claim were good. I ran the game you sabotaged and proved it to others. You claim i sabbotaged anither game yet you can do nothing but claim so. My neighbors would tell you i played to win. Because i failed you assume i threw the game? No. if/when You decide to speak of facts then, and only then will we listen ...blow hard.
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Post 23 Dec 2014, 2:12 pm

I played my first NWO game "Fire and Blood" this past year and during the game I sang praises of the game design in the forum. It is truly a unique gaming experience. It was not without its flaws (the ability to eliminate Indonesia during the first year is one that comes to mind) but it was still fantastic. The only time I ever played it was with the pirate rules; might it have been greater without the pirates? I dunno, maybe, but I can't know with my limited experience, but regardless, it was still excellent. Kudos to Tom for the game design and to the community for constantly innovating with new ideas.

During the game, I was completely schooled on the art of diplomacy by Randy. So while I was new to NWO, he made me feel like a complete nube when it came to the diplomacy. From start to finish Randy orchestrated a fantastic victory, and I was lucky enough to ride on his coattails to the shared victory.

It's a shame they can't come to an agreement in this forum. They've both contributed mightily to the hobby.