BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

For players who keep getting pipped on the bids that they want, the current status quo is a way of ensuring that they have a way back into the game.

[Josh] A player would only be worse off under this rule if they were being pipped on six bids in a cycle. Which is unlikely to happen if they’re low on credits to begin with.

I like the current system where you must invest credits to get credits.

With the current system, missing a cycle is a huge disadvantage. This will make things fairer.

@Kevan - I’m not sure that eliminating a competitive balancing mechanic that allows mid-ranking players to catch up with leaders in favour of a mechanic that explicitly only helps players who possess fewer than 4 credits to begin with is very sound game design. Certainly not if you are one of those mid-ranking players, rather than being, for example, the current Power leader.

If you’re very concerned about players with no Credits, then I would support a proposal that allowed players with <5 credits to set their credits to 5 at any time. This, though, is just anti-competitive.

[Josh] I don’t see how it’s a balancing mechanic. You can hardly use a “double your money” button to catch up with someone who already has more money than you.

[Kevan] Because you can use it to catch up with someone who has more Marines, Power or Councilmen than you.

Currently what we have encourages people to be active in the dynasty. Also it makes it unwise to spend all your money because you won’t be able to send a credit everywhere to earn your income. Just giving everyone five credits removes this part of the strategy of the dynasty.

[Josh] Unless they’ve also banked enough Credits to be able to claim 10 per turn, in which case you have no edge over them.

As I see it, the current ruleset boils down to “if you have no money, you get 1 credit per cycle; if you have <20 money, you get around 5 credits per cycle; if you have 20+, you get 10 credits per cycle”. That just doesn’t seem like an interesting curve for an auction game, particularly one played out this slowly.

I would have no problem with “if a player does not submit a direction, they gain 5 credits” or “they are said to have put one at everything up to the amount the have” or “If a player has none, they get 5” or lots of other derivations. But I really like our income system and how it interacts with other mechanics - if balancing is an issue, additional ideas can help without damaging the game.

[Clucky] There’s a difference between encouraging people to be active, and punishing people for being inactive.

And it’s unwise to spend all your money anyway, because you’ll struggle to win auctions against the people who didn’t spend all their money. I’m not sure we need the extra glass ceiling of “if you have less than ~20 Credits, your bidding power is reduced because you need to hold some back to double up”. Being rich is its own reward, I don’t think it also needs a no-strings 10-Credit bonus.

Josh: “For players who keep getting pipped on the bids that they want, the current status quo is a way of ensuring that they have a way back into the game.”

I would propose to replace “gain one credit for every institution they directed credits to but did not influence” with “gain five credts, minus one for every Institution they Influenced”.
But then… When you do Influence an Institution, you have to pay your bid for it. Why the additional +1?

southpointingchariot: How does our income system interacts with other mechanics? I think Kevan’s pretty much made his point and I don’t understand yours.

Sure, it means if you have less than 20 credits your bidding power is reduced. But new players start with 25 credits. Even that is enough for them to get an institution without losing credits for a cycle.

This way, someone can just bid a whole lot on one institution (like the mine) and then go into hibernation for a few cycles. I feel like it makes bidding less strategic if getting really low in money doesn’t really suck.

Koen, the balance between gaining income and targeting institutions is key to the flow of the game.

[Clucky] It’d make bidding more strategic; at the moment bidding all your money isn’t an option because it’s so completely crippling (if you hit zero, it will take you three full weeks to get enough credits to get back into the game). Making it into a merely unwise option expands the available strategies.

It isn’t just bidding all-out that can lose you money; making several middling bids and happening to win all of them will also empty your coffers.

@southpointingchariot
That’s what I thought, yet last cycle I did not try to balance anything, and ended Influencing two Institutions and still keeping enough Credits…

Right. I’d argue that makes things more interesting. You need to save some money. You can risk more, thinking that you probably won’t actually win some, but if you do win them all it could come back to bite you.

Have you played High Society? A large portion of what makes the game interesting is the “person with the least amount of money can’t win” rule. Sure, it means you have less to bid with. But it ultimately makes things more interesting.

Being bitten for a brave but failed set of bids is fair enough, but having to sit out of the main game for three weeks while you save grindingly back up just seems a bit much, and may as well be elimination. We’ve just lost Soviet Brendon, who idled out on 2 credits.

@Kevan, I don’t object to some sort of balancing (for example, you’re given X credits + 1 for each unsuccessful, or an automatic distribution if you miss a direction), but I think the income system we have is good. If there’s a problem, lets address it, but not by removing the mechanic that’s already there. I think you can do one without the other.

Perhaps add a “Instead of directing any resources at any institution, a player may set The NET a message containing the subject RESET. At the end of the current cycle, their Marines, Councilmen and Power are zero to zero and their credits are set to MPI”. Lets players reset themselves like a new player if they screw up.

Eh, the problem is really just that we have a dilemma mechanic of “balance the bids you want against the need to invest money” that’s only really relevant to players who have between 10 and 20 credits. The very poor players can’t hope to win any bids and have no choice but to invest; the rich players will always have leftover money and should always invest. If it’s meant to be a core mechanic, it’s quite limited in its scope.

But maybe I should just grind up some income until I’m as rich as Josh and Clucky, and stop worrying about it.

You have 10 power, I have no Power. You’re much richer than me.

I guess I just don’t see it as “grinding” at all. Its a logarithmic short vs long term decision, but strategic direction shouldn’t be focused on a single cycle - that’s easier, but far less deep. I would also argue that accumulation of Credits should not be seen as a position of strength by default.