Which isn’t “dumbed down” by everyone clearly understanding the rules.
Actually, that is pretty old-style. Now, most people I know send their mid 40 agents into enemy camps. Thousands of hours of analysis has revealed that relations aren’t a big enough factor in the Streal Gold order to justify not snagging a few thousand gold from your enemy here and there.
And SabStores is much harder. Again, you don’t just figure these things out… You have to waste a dozen orders to really have the data points. By that time, you’re behind the power curve, and you get your butt ground into the dirt by the enemy that already knew it. Yeah, that is fun… NOT!!!
They learned it at a time that no one knew… They had time to figure it out for themselves. Now, a newbie walking into the game finds that he’s stumbling around like an idiot using trial and error, while the experienced players grind his bones to meal and bake it into bread.
Agree, but clear understanding of the rules, by all, would go a long way toward leveling the playing field.
Darrell - just say “Great idea!” and give Brad as much as you know. I’ll pitch in too. Let’s see if we can get others to do the same. If we can help re-start the old MoS approach of collaboration between gamers, the entire gaming community wins. The whole goal of this is to help expand the player community by allowing “newbies” to ramp more effectively/efficiently.
What I really want to do is get into a grudge game where both sides agree to make ALL pdf’s 100% available at the end of the game. That is the way to figure out exactly how many pops can be created on any given turn, exactly the maximum number of pops that can exist, figure out why your assassins failed (doubled, rank of target, relations, loyalty of pop, etc).
I know a lot of people that have done this and say it is really an eye opener. I want to do it…
Hi Darrell,
Try the Aussie team, they also want a re-match and I know they would like to share files after as we did that when I where on the Scandinavian team, before I quit that team.
If you want me on the team let me know or if an oppose side need a player
to face Darrell’s team let me know.
Why should anyone know exactly how many population centers can be created in any given turn? What so that you can predict exactly what the population center limit is, so you know exactly when to divert emissary energies to pop center improvements or to offensive actions. Would any national leadership have this exact information? The answer is no, and my opinion is that if that is the way it is in real life that should be the way it is in the game. People already have an idea, and even if you knew that information before a game started how would you benefit by it in your current game? You cannot see every place an enemy may be putting population centers so you don’t know what all is being placed anyway and thus do not know when you are approaching the limit in any case. So publishing the formula or limit point serves only to aid number crunchers.
You are correct most of the standard actions are based on trial and error and compared notes over the years that this or so will usually work with this level character and fail with less than that. This information is freely shared amongst teams. What I see here is that rules lawyers want the information so that they can argue that this or so needs to be modified. As I see here the game is not broken, the mystery of it and the uncertainty is what makes it fun. I don’t think publishing the formulas would improve it.
To take agents for example. Everyone with any experience knows that an agent up to the low 40’s will probably fail at thefts in enemy pops. Newbies may not know this starting off, but if they can read the description of the order says that it is hard and if they have any sense they will ask one of the more knowlegeable members on the team for information. If they don’t have the sense to do that, well, then they are too stupid to take advantage of the information in the first place even if it was published. Now let’s look at the negative impact of the publication of the formula. One, most of the uncertainty will be removed from the game. Some may think that is a good thing. Myself having actually served in a war, I know that you make a calculated risk, you never let me say this more clearly NEVER, know exactly what is going to happen. You weigh the risks and make a decision. Often a hastey one that is made with too little information. You adjust to the results and move on. If you know for a fact that this agent will not succeed in killing so you steal or some other easier task do you use your orders more efficiently? Certainly, but human nature is not that analytical. An assassin is proud of his skills and always thinks he has a shot. He is not going to say no, I only have a 95% probability of success and back off. He is going to go for it and perhaps be killed in doing so. This is exactly how the game plays now. So publication of the formula will make this more of a chess match, I can play chess anytime, I play MEPBM for the excitement and the infinate variety of results. Like Brad B I like to try an experiment from time to time to see if it works. Having the formula would make that unnecessary.
Are there changes I would like to see? certainly this is not one of them however. I believe a very good set of Bree articles addressed orders quite nicely last year. I would for example like to see a modification to agents. That if the agent is detected and challenged that his mission is automatically failed. Agents do their work by stealth. This would make them less impervious to counter measures when their presence is know. Blind challenges would not apply. As an example in my grudge game with Team Simpson, we had an agent challenge an enemy emissary and killed him in a public duel. Then the same agent attempted an agent mission and was killed by the security forces. I see that as no different than the garrison commander standing with his best archer watching the duel and seeing his diplomat fall turning to the archer and saying ok feather that fellow. Agents in the open should be at risk. Now to to me that is a change worth looking at.
Simply making it a process of reading a book to get knowlege and not interacting with other players is not an improvement of the game, at least not in my opinion.
:eek: I think that there is too much certainty in ME. I prefer more fog of war. If anything, I think Clint should renove some of the certainty that exists, e.g. by introducing some random elements to battles.
Actually, if I do it, I’ll make it openly available to all players.
That, and more. To track if your enemy is getting more down than you… That may tell you if they went heavy on emissaries with initial characters, or if they went with agents and commanders. You could also determine the effects that sending out a couple more commanders to post would have. Would sending out more emissaries significanlty increase your odds of getting camps. Are you “better off” having every nation name 2 emissaries, or one nation name 4 and the other’s name only 1…
Come on… Because there are mages and magical artifacts and trolls and dwaren cavalry and elves… Because someone could build a city/citedel in 3 months. Because someone could send an emissary into an orc pit and turn it into an elven city capable of cranking out 500 elven troops a turn.
The reality is, that some players already have this info right now… They gathered the info by playing in games where they had access to all the results of all nations in the game. If someone has the info, then everyone should have the info. Win on strategy, not how many thousands of hours you spent doing data analysis of thousands of turn results.
And some of the rules DO need improved. For example, the nation-by-nation initiative sucks butt. Agents that are captured trying to assassinate, should not escape so easily. Characters without agent rank that are kidnapped or captured in battle, should have a chance of escape. If you have a character captured, you should be able to retire the character to free up the character slot. A pop that is friendly to you, should not stop you from assasinating an enemy character…
We have the rules arguments even without the exact formulas. The only thing having the rules so secret does is give the number crunchers the advantage.
You make my point for me…
Steal Gold is hard. Rule book says you should be at least 60 to have a reasonable chance of doing a hard order. Yet, an A45 can fairly easily steal gold from an enemy camp.
Newbie, clueless. Experienced players can bring their newly named agentss up to assassin grade in 6-8 turns while the newbie is still doing GrdLoc for 15 turns.
Not all newbies play on teams with expereinced players. They don’t always just give up control of their nation and do whatever the expereinced players say.
How you figure? The randomness would persist. There would still be a roll. There would still be incomplete knowledge. you still wouldn’t know exactly the size of the enemy army, exactly the loyalty of the pop, exactly the characters that are present, what artifacts they have…
JUST as much uncertainty would remain for the expereinced players, and newbies wouldn’t have to spend as much time in the dark stepping on land mines.
AND you still wouldn’t!!!
And in the current MEPBM situration, you have some people that have been living in this fantasy world for 15 years, and others that just entered it this week. Does that happen in the real world??? Some people know the sky is blue and gravity makes you fall down, while other people just woke up to reality and have no clue what gravity is or what color the sky is???
COME ON!!! This game is far more complex than chess. Knowing how to increase your odds of succeeding at an assassination order, is not going to remove the fact that you must balance military and economic problems, short-term and long-term goals, need for intelligence with need for character development.
Knowing how a result is calculated is not going to remove one single possible result for the “infinate variety of results”. It will just provide the newbies with the same level of knowledge that experienced players currently have.
Great change. What do you mean by “blind challenge”? How would the computer know which challenges are blind and which are not?
So, newbies should not get ANY rule book. Heck, they can read the book and get knowledge of the game… They can open the book and see that a 690 is steal gold… Using your logic, they should have to just start issuing order numbers in the dark to find out which orders are which…
In fact, players ARE given a level of knowledge simply by reading a book. The debate is over what that level of knowledge should be. Should the be told “Double is effected by whether the character is already doubled”, or should they be told that it is 25% easier/harder or whatever it is to double a character that is already doubled.
Should everyone have equal acces to game mechaincs, or should those that have played hundreds of turns, then spent thousands of hours analyzing every tiny detail, get to know how the game really works while the newbies are forced to stumble around with trial and error, or virtually let the more experienced players write their orders for them.
You’d still have to interact with other players for information sharing and strategy coordination… You simply wouldn’t have the situation where the newbie must make it a full time job to get his butt stomped while he stumbles around in the dark trying to figure out how the game really works.
“Clint: want to make your available after our 2 on 1 grudge…? Brad”
Not really… sorry. Done it a lot in the past and I’ve got some tricks that I want to try - that’s why I want to do this so that if I mess up big time then it doesn’t mess up a team. :o Note FTF games have all the pdfs given out for those players.
As a player I’m not too interested in exact stats/proportions I think players get a bit stuck on that. It’s more the style of playing a nation(s) that is important I think on what impacts on the game.
I keep getting lost with my plans and not quite sure which of plan 4.b section 1 I want to play against you guys and the extra worry of being checked out in all my glory would not be particularly helpful…
Well, I think we’ll be able to do all THAT kind of critical analysis during the game play… No fear, I’m prepared for some public slaying myself here when you see some turn results…
DS has got me almost all the way convinced now. Of course, on one hand, he’s talking “ideals”. Example, when I state the a significant percentage of players don’t even “know” the woefully inadequate rules that ARE available to them, it’s from experience interacting with them, so I know that this type of information would be wasted on a huge majority.
But for the others, who would look at it and spend some time considering the possible implications (strategic, tactical, etc), it would certainly be helpful and quite likely change the way the game is played. Not necessarily a bad thing.
So Clint, I have to ask it directly: Is there any plans or can you forsee consideration given to publishing some of this information? DITCOP has been the mantra…
So Darrell, if DITCOP is still the mantra, are you willing to commit to help compile as much of this type of information as possible? You haven’t responded yet. So you only know 10% of what Player X knows … you know 1000% more than the other 98% of players… Are you willing to help, as per your espoused motive, or are you content to keep what YOU know secret and blame the company?
We could join the new “All Neutral” game that is forming and just spend the whole game assassinating and doubleing each others characters to find out what works and what doesn’t. We could create small armies and large armies and repeatedly try to overrun each other to see what works and what doesn’t. Steal Gold and various pop sizes/loyalties. SabStores, ScoChar, kidnap. Maybe figure out if there is really a random factor in capture pop or
army combat. What does Stealth REALLY do for you?
That “no teams” game sounds like the perfect oppertunity to stumble around in the dark.
We then publish all our findings to the general audience.
Now, if we can just get Clint to agree to place us near each other, out of the way of others… like Cardolan and Arthidain. Maybe Cloud Lord and Easterlings.
Are you in?
We’d really need a full grudge game to get pop totals, and check on some other things I’ve been wanting to look into.
I didn’t know that you did not know what a blind challenge was. Sorry. A blind challenge is when you challenge a character on the suspicion or hope that he may be in the hex, even though you have no real evidence that he is there. If he does happen to be there and has neglected to refuse challenge then the challenge goes on. This is of course opposed to the challenge made when your population center or a ScoChar, Reveal Character True or Locate Artifact True has identified the presence of a character at a particular location and you challenge him or her based on that information. Hope that clears that up for you. As to your question of how would the computer know the difference between the blind challenge and an informed challenge. Well the fact that the location of the characters from the previous turn is on record, and the fact that the same computer that generated your report from the previous turn reported the presence of this character at this location is one way.
As for your other comments.
“Duh” a flippant and not very useful answer.
You say to help you win, again not very useful for this discussion. The population center placement formula in itself is not going to tell you very much. Sure there may be something in the formula that will tell number crunchers that when this many population center levels have been placed then the failure messages will begin. It may also tell you that when you stop getting “Continued efforts may succeed” that the population center limit has been reached. How is knowing this going to help an individual or even a team? If say you know the failure messages begin at say 85 population center levels and that the limit is reached at about 110. Good for you. That’s all the formula is going to tell you. By the time you get that message it really is nearly too late to do anything about it. If you know that information ahead of time but do not plan accordingly and name emissaries and or place camps with army commanders with a plan early in the game you are not going to benefit from the formula. Only by placing and keeping track of how many population center levels you have placed, and made available by destroying enemy population centers, and by factoring in those of yours destroyed by the enemy can you have a general idea of how close to the limit you are coming. Even then until you get the failure message knowing the above information is not going to give you anything because without knowing how many population centers the enemy is putting down you only have half the information. When you get that message and you have not been actively camping that formula information only will tell you that your population strategy has been lost. If you on the other hand have had a economic development plan in place from the beginning and have placed 45 camps by the time the failure messages start repeating on a regular basis then you know you have an edge. However the formula has not made you play better only provided you with some intelligence information. Information that should be redundant if your side has played in a prudent manner. So to me publication of the formula for this particular subject is really not necessary.
As for publication of another emissary function, InfOthr. Why should any player know for certainty that his emissary will be successful at lowering the loyalty of an enemy population center? Again to help you win? Duh. There are so many intangibles that would affect an emissaries success. Perhaps the emissary is not very likeable. Perhaps the emissary uses gestures or expressions not well received in the population center. Perhaps he dresses funny. Whatever. The point is the formula is trying to simulate the effects of a moving speach. Certainly there has to be some quantifiable means for the computer to make a decision on success, however neither the emissary or the player would be that certain of results and in my opinion it should be a matter of mystery. Again you take a chance because you have a skilled orator. Perhaps that emissary has had success in the past with a similar population center maybe he will be just as successful here. It should not be ok now he can do this 83.5 percent of the time the odds favor me I will do it. You don’t seem to even consider that many players do not want this to be a bean counting game that they like the uncertainty and even enjoy the game when they are not successful every time.
Your comment that an experienced player can build and effective agent in 4 or 5 turns while his inexperienced ally bumbles along for 10 or 11 turns to do the same thing. Darrell I am sorry that you have had so many bad experiences with experienced players when you were first starting out to have jaded you so badly. My experience however is that when you are exchanging information with your allies that the experienced player usually says hey good ally of mine there are ways you can speed along that development are you interested in hearing some suggestions. To which Newbie usually says sure speak on. If the Newbie says nah I want to do this my way to learn well then it is his decision. I have never seen a new player on any team that I have played with ask for advice and not be given any. Sometimes the advice is conflicting and sometimes they won’t use it but it is not a case that it is witheld. If your experience is different then maybe something else has caused that difference.
Simply knowing the formulae will make the experienced players even better, as they will be able to combine that information with the other nuances of the game and make even more informed choices. Publishing the formulae will certainly make some areas more clear and possibly help the new player to understand some areas more quickly. I however feel it will increase the disparity between the good experienced player and the new inexperienced player even more. You talk about leveling the playing field I think this will tilt it even more to the experienced player. As such I do not think publishing the formulae will be a good idea.
Finally, I have posted every entry on this thread in a respectful manner. It is true I don’t agree with your premise and have tried to disagree on point in a non personnal manner. I feel that your last answer to me was disrespectful and that you tried to make this personnal which it is not. This will be my last posting on the topic. I want mystery in the game. I do not want a new player to be given all the information up front as I believe it detracts from the learning experience of the game. I do not feel it is all about winning, the struggle is what is enjoyable to me. Certainly it is more fun when you win but winning is not everything. Finally I know the things I know about the game and it is imcomplete knowlege to be sure, because I have played a long time, I have read Facade’s articles, News from Bree, Mouth of Sauron, and have studied Kevin’s compilations. My knowlege has taken some time and effort. So I feel that if others want that knowlege they too should work for it and not be provided instant gratification. Perhaps that is where you and I differ, but we will have to agree to disagree.
I won’t post again on this thread I think I have posted enough to make my views clear.
Hi,
I have been in this game a long time infact I can’t recall for how long and how many turns I have played, and I don’t have any rulebook of different orders not writing in the rulebook I just follow my common sense and what my few braincell left allow me to remember about this game.
I asked Darrel to either be a part of his team or against him as I can’t forbid him or anyone else to puplish what they will learn from that game I just saw a way to get one or two good games before I probably would quit ME.
As I can’t explain myself as good as Brad J had and I total agree with you Brad J. including some other players with the same view.
Darrell I tried and will try again about the artifacts for exsample :
The artifacts list are on the net, all can check it out (information)
Randomizing artifacts “change secondary powers” for exsampl are(hidden information)
Some players want all information they can get on the net and some don’t.
The number one is what this threat is about and the second number is what I have seen lot’s of people/players have suggested on mepbmlist. and I guess lots of them are experince players looking for the mystery in this game
So Clint, I have to ask it directly: Is there any plans or can you forsee consideration given to publishing some of this information? DITCOP has been the mantra…
No real plans but check out the Source book when it comes out. It’s a big undertaking to do this. We’d probably want some articles written for that about bits and pieces. The source book has lots of the common information generally available (as player information only though).
The prodigal trouble maker returns. Mr Last Word indulges in another last word…
Holy Moses! I thought this over on page 1. I thought I was hopelessly out voted so I left! Darrell thank you for picking up the sword I layed down. Brad, thank you for being willing to see the opposing view. Thank you both for the experiment you intend to undertake.
Do you mind if I join you guys?
I’ve read the whole thread through and would like to point out how much players actually agree on but perhaps don’t realize:
Players on both sides of the argument favor restoring the fog war, retaining/restoring mystery in the game, smartening the game up (or preventing it from being dumbed down), clarifying the rules where they are poorly written, promoting a strong team-ethic, retaining a sense of risk in all endeavors, preventing the game from becoming a stat analysis or number chrunching exercise…We have disagreed on the MEANS not the ENDS. I hope to follow up in other threads on some of the ideas presented herein in order to explore how best to achieve those ends.
In Darrell’s absence I will answer. Understanding why players on my side of the table have argued in favor of such things as partially randomized artifacts is essential to understanding this whole debate. We are trying to move the sense of mystery/fog from the Game Rules to the Game World. We believe that the Game Rules and Mechanics should be transparent, which at present they are not, whereas the details of the Game World should be myterious, which at present they are not, and hidden via customizable setups, partially randomized artifacts, new encounters, etc…
