[Dip Space Nine] [Meta] As the game rolls on...
Chris Segal
This is a discussion thread for all participants, both players and
observers. I realize that the game is continuing, and if Jeff thinks
confidential things might be said this conversation can wait, but I
want to get peoples' opinions on the various powers, both from a
balance perspective and a fun perspective. I want to start the
conversation now, before too many people are eliminated and/or the
game is stale.
A disclaimer: Seeing as starting position and luck are very important
in this game, I think that several games will have to be played before
we can say with confidence that we really understand all of the races.
However:
One thing that makes me question the fun of the variant is the
possibility that some special powers appear more devastating than the
actually are. I know that both the Dominion and Borg were feared from
the outset of the game, which tended to lead to alliances against them
or at least containment of them. Maybe that was excessive?
Another power that I would question is the Romulan cloaking.
Obviously this particular game went ugly (hi Matt), but unless there
are powers I'm forgetting, Romulan units are basically ordinary units
and cloaking them means that a) no one knows where they are if you
don't tell them and b) they have to take your word for it. It seems
like a liability unless you have very close partners. Alternatively,
perhaps the thing to do is clock individual units strategically,
rather than have a blanket cloak policy?
I'm not sure how I feel about the Klingon power. I think that maybe
in this game it looked less dangerous than it turned out to be. Does
that mean we will all be super paranoid next game? Unnecessarily so,
perhaps?
I defer to others on question of the Federation and Ferengi.
Having (I believe) issued more individual orders than anyone else in
the game (thus far), I can say with some confidence that I have a good
handle on the Cardassians. Obviously, this has been possible due to a
combination of an early power play and some absurd good luck, so I
don't claim any great skill here. I don't necessarily think the
Cardassians are overpowered, though as with everything else more
testing is needed. I DO think that they are ludicrously fun to play,
as both the Flarmy power and the voluntary retreats are relevant to
every unit every turn. Building everywhere is just gravy. I wonder:
Do people who played other powers think that maybe they are unfairly
fun?
Just rambling really, and figured I might as well ramble in an e-mail.
Chris
Jeff Kaufman
>
> I realize that the game is continuing, and if Jeff thinks
> confidential things might be said this conversation can wait
I don't see any reason for you all not to talk. My only complaint is
that I can't participate in the discussion until the game is over.
Jeff
Chris Segal
your sense of powers or moves that happened years ago.
George Dahl
ability is too weak. It is too easy to figure out where the units
are, especially since they are revealed whenever they enter a SC?
Even if it isn't a counting turn? That seems like one obvious
improvement that could be made.
So I think the Dominion and Klingons and Borg all have appropriate
levels of strength, as do the Federation and Cardassians. I think the
Romulans are too weak, and I don't yet have an opinion on the Ferengi.
I need more data on the Ferengi.
- George
Jeff Kaufman
Some thoughts about the very beginning of the game:
George Dahl wrote:
>
> I think the special powers are mostly balanced except that the Romulan
> ability is too weak. It is too easy to figure out where the units
> are, especially since they are revealed whenever they enter a SC?
> Even if it isn't a counting turn? That seems like one obvious
> improvement that could be made.
>
Being invisible in the very beginning is crucial to making good use of
the romulan ability, I think, and my error then was particularly
harmful.
The cardassian first turn bonus is very powerful. Cardassian austria
could take MUN or VEN by force and by surprise. Cardassian england or
turkey could support into ENG or BLK. Cardassian germany could
support into WAR.
Jeff
Joe Grimm
George Dahl
the location information extant about their units is probably a good
idea.
- G
Jeff Kaufman
>
> I agree that giving the Romulans more abilities that lets them reduce
> the location information extant about their units is probably a good
> idea.
>
This could even be extended to allowing the romulans to choose not
only the initial position of their units but their fleet/army status.
I think making the domionion stronger might be good. A simple way
would be some sort of fighting advantaged based on jem'hadar being
powerful. Or more interesting would be an intel bonus where for units
they've infiltrated the dominion actually gets to know what their
orders are before they submit their own. So if the ferengi order an
infiltrated unit A-B the dominion can take that into account when
submitting orders. This does require a two phase order process,
though, which is tricky.
The borg also might be too weak; I'm not sure. What would be cool
would be if they could adapt to technologies or learn from assimilated
races. For example, cloaking technology could be learned by
assimilating a romulan ship. This would probably be way too powerful,
though.
Jeff
Todd Nelling
Regarding Jeff's idea... if assimilated Borg units kept the abilities of their original race, that might help, but it also might be super confusing. At least we already have icons to handle it =D But the real problem, I suspect, is that at the end of the day, the Borg are never going to be doing much assimilating to begin with.
*The Romulans are too weak. The SC thing could help, and though I doubt it would be enough, it's imperative. It's ludicrous that the Romulans can't sneak attack an SC- what's the point of stealth if you can't use it for the most critical operation?
I agree with Joe that, thematically, the Cardassian first-turn ability could be changed to the Romulans. I think it would make a huge difference, because the number of options for where those invisible units are would go off the charts, and the initial uncertainty is what might allow the Romulans to actually have some uncertainty down the road. Ordinarily, I'd be inclined to say that nothing that only applies the first turn is going to fundamentally change things, but this might be an exception.
*Speaking as the Ferengi player, the best thing about them is the SC bonus. The trader power seems like it has potential, but it has very limited practical use. You can use it to do a blitz-stab on someone who's relatively far away, but you have to do it in the fall, and you can't take any centers, which is a terrible way to go about stabbing someone. You can use it to redeploy units from one front to another, but this is mostly only useful if you've already won a big war (in which case, the hard part is behind you), or if you're already screwed (fighting on more fronts then you want to be/can handle). You could definitely use it to be super obnoxious to another power, sneaking through their lines and threatening them in a way they can't really deal with, but only at the cost of massively compromising your own defenses, unless you're already so big that, again, the hard part is behind you. The one really potent thing I can see doing with it is breaking a stalemate line, and that's definitely nice. But it doesn't have the turn-to-turn utility that the Klingon, Cardassian, and Federation powers have, to help you get big in the first place, nor is it the threat that the Dominion power is. And besides, the Klingons are probably just as good, if not better, at breaking a stalemate line.
*Branching off that, it seems to me that the tiers of strength are something like:
1. Klingon, Cardassian
2. Federation
3. Ferengi
4. Romulan, Borg
I leave out the Dominion because I think that's the one we have the least data on. There was a concerted effort to take down the Dominion from the very start (ahem), and the Klingons, who are about as good as can be at attacking, were not only involved, but were lucky enough never to get infiltrated, so I did not get a good sense of how powerful the Dominion is under "normal" circumstances.
It's hard to say what the effect of giving the Romulans that boost would be without playing it, but I'm guessing they'd be better off then the Ferengi.
*Another thing Matt and I discussed awhile back was changing the supply rule to have the Ferengi a permanent +1 after '02 (maybe having it tied to a particular center, maybe getting to re-pick during the winter, but if it gets captured before you can re-pick again, you lose it, maybe something else), and everyone else normal. I suspect the rule was partially designed to keep a lid on the number of crazy powerful units running around (particularly in the case of the Klingons), but it would help the powers that get beat up early not just die immediately.
*Overall, I like the fact that this variant gave us some variety from standard (I know not all of us have played a lot of standard, but I don't think I'd have been much interested in a game of it) without requiring that we hunt down players who aren't necessarily interested or committed (there are those who incorrectly assessed their ability to commit, but that is another issue, and not so easily avoided). On the whole, I think I'd enjoy a large map variant with a full complement of engaged players more, but that's a difficult (impossible?) thing to pull off. And I'd be willing and interested in playing this variant again, with some tweaks (mostly the Romulan ones).
Chris Segal
> The borg also might be too weak; I'm not sure. What would be cool
> would be if they could adapt to technologies or learn from assimilated
> races. For example, cloaking technology could be learned by
> assimilating a romulan ship. This would probably be way too powerful,
> though.
>
> Jeff
>
What if we moderated their general power as well. What if when they
assimilate a unit they take the unit, but the former owner need not
continue to support it (gameplay-wise, effectively continue to
support it for the duration of the current year)? I think that would
make them less terrifying, especially early, and would allow them to
be pumped up with some other power instead.
Tom Emmons
The borg really need a quick start in order to be useful. If I had gotten an assimilation turn 1 I may have been more successful. I do feel that later in the game, my power kinda pales compared to other races. Part of that is that I was never in a situation where my immunity from the dominion came into play.
I do think the Klingon are a bit overpowered, though. I can think of two specific situations .
First, if you look at the turn where Jeff moved Budapest to Romania and Serbia to Black sea, I had to use 4 units to simply defend against those 2 units. True, had I been in a better position I may have been able to use my ability to counteract that. But, even so, it still would have taken at least 3 units to deal with the problem. A possible solution there, that I think is in line with the power, is that cut support counts as 1/2.
Another area for the Klingon that may be worth addressing is the situation where I have 2 units against 1 and want to support into the Klingon unit. I can do a supports b - c or b supports a - c. If the Klingon guess correctly, they can dislodge the supporting unit in a 2 on 1. Perhaps address this by not allowing the Klingon to dislodge a unit that is supporting a legitimate move against it.
Todd Nelling
They are quite powerful as is, but they have their limitations. It's hard for the Klingons to form effective alliances, because they don't get much gain from being supported and don't want to waste their time supporting. They also have a hard time maintaining peaceful borders, because bouncing with other powers doesn't work properly. And while their attacks are powerful, it creates a lot of zany tactics for them, in which they can end up succeeding in an attack that they don't actually want to have succeed (which is both highly appropriate and highly amusing). This has already happened several times in the game, when Chris was in Galicia, and Joe had to wonder whether he could risk attacking it and potentially dislodging Chris into Vienna or Budapest. While the way in which Joe has surged back and forth across different areas of the board has been partially a result of his personal style and the diplomatic environment he's been working in, it's also partially a result of the Klingon ability- they aren't good at playing defense, and they aren't good at it's hard for them to resist full-speed-ahead on the offensive, even when they're under threat back home, which is why we saw Joe basically set up shop in Italy for awhile. I actually think that the Klingon ability, as it stands, takes home the prize for doing the best job of capturing the spirit of its race not only in terms of the functioning of individual units, but also in terms of its influence on the way the power behaves at a higher level, and I'd be very sad to see that changed.
(Though the Cardassian ability to sit around and wait for you to commit for or against them before they have to do the same during the retreat phase is pretty brilliant, too)
Chris Segal
criterion. Ironic given my obsession with figuring out the correct
start date for the game!
George Dahl
don't think they are weak, I think they just didn't do well in this
game (yet?).
A lucky assimilation might have really put them in a strong position
- G
Bryce Wiedenbeck
George Dahl
self-balancing, but the romulans should be strengthened a bit.
- G
Jeff Kaufman
>
> ... Jeff moved Budapest to Romania and Serbia to Black sea, ...
>
The peculiar behavior of the klingons lately is due to their nature,
not to Q ordering for them.
>
> If the Klingon guess correctly, they can dislodge the supporting
> unit in a 2 on 1. Perhaps address this by not allowing the Klingon
> to dislodge a unit that is supporting a legitimate move against it.
>
Well, if we were to modify the klingon power, I would be interested in
seeing them having their strength in attacking balanced by fully
committing to the attack. If they make an attack and are attacked
themselves, they wouldn't count as occupying the space they were in
and would instead focus entirely on their target? If they failed
against their intended target they would offer no resistance against
attack. So if we had:
Klingon:
A - B
Other:
B H
C - A
then A gets into B and C into A, as usual. But if it were:
Klingon:
A - B
Other:
C - A
B H
D S B H
then A would fail in its attack on B, offer no resistance to C, and be
dislodged.
Hmm.
Jeff
Joe Grimm
Just because the Borg never assimilate from a unit doesn't mean that the abilit to assimilate hasn't helped them and I like the flavor of Borg assimilation being so scary that evacuating a supply center is preferable to risking assimilation.
Todd Nelling
I like the flavor of Borg assimilation being so scary that evacuating a supply center is preferable to risking assimilation.
QFT. I question whether this is sufficient, though.
Todd Nelling
TL,DR: The Dominion is powerful enough, without being unfairly so. I rather expect it to get similarly screwed going forward, not because of the size of the threat, but because of the nature of it.
Tom Emmons
In open fighting, while the borg can dictacte tactics, that advantage is nothing compared to a power that actually affects what tactics you can use (ie Klingon or carsaddian).
Also, I think a crucial thing to consider in this discussion is how powers evolve over time. For the dominion, its power is pretty useless in year 1, but can grow to be overly powerful with time. In that sense, it may make sense to address there power in such a way as to make it more powerful initially but less scary in the long run. That is, unless the lesson from Todd's experience is that if you take the dominion out, they may be able to screw you in the process.
Todd Nelling
Tom Emmons
Tom Emmons
Tom Emmons
Todd Nelling
The only problem I really see with this solution is that the Federation also has the neutral power, which I think is a pretty big step up from the wormhole. So either infiltrations would need to "beat" the Enterprise (available more often?), or the Dominion would need some other, smaller boost.
George Dahl
use them when you see fit. I really like the accumulation aspect.
The dominion can direct operatives towards specific places, but it
takes a while to get enough in place to really do something. But this
can easily make it too powerful, so much more thought on this is
required. I like the dominion as-is.
- G
Tom Emmons
George Dahl
position is totally unbalanced? It is hard to say what caused what.
I think Bryce had some weak play, and perhaps the Dominion would
rather not start next to the Klingons even more than other powers.
The challenge with the dominion is to really make all infiltrations
work for you. It is risky to conclude too much about the special
power balances from a single game. The only thing I am convinced of
by this game is that the Romulans are weaker than they should be.
Also, Tom, are you saying that the dominion is too powerful? Or that
the infiltration power is too luck based? Or both?
Tom Emmons
George Dahl
substantively changed so we can get more data.
- George
Todd Nelling
Dip is a great game in large part because everything that happens is a result of player decisions (with the exception of GM error =P though for the most part, only in this variant is such an error not within the power of the affected player to correct). Tom's point is that this is not so with respect to the fact that I was hurt badly right before Bryce died, while Joe was not. Things may well have happened similarly under another setup, but either way, it would have been the players that controlled that outcome, whereas here it was not.
I think allowing the Dominion to choose what it infiltrates is really the only workable solution that satisfies the requirement Tom and I have specified (eliminating the luck). However, it seems clear that allowing the Dominion to build up unlimited chosen infiltrations is too powerful.
I see three good ways to deal with that:
*Limit the maximum number of infiltrations they can have (they only have so many operatives to send out)
*Limit the length of time that they last (each operative is going to get discovered eventually, even if not via attempts at sabotage)
*Have them work like the Enterprise, where they are only picked the season that they are used, and can be used with varying frequency depending on the size of the Dominion (operatives get discovered quickly enough that they only have one season in which to work, and there are few enough of them that they can only really conduct one mission at a time; I admit that this doesn't jive well with the canon in DS9, while the first two seem a lot more ST-reasonable)
I realize that George and others may think this entire branch of discussion is not the right path to go down, but I'd be interested to hear which of those solutions people think would be best, or if there is another that fits the no-luck constraint, so that we can get a more precise idea of what we're comparing.
John Kennedy
Joe Grimm
I largely agree with John: allow the infiltrations to accumulate but require them to rotate, and perhaps be limited to one a year while below a certain center threshold.
If they can infiltrate each season then I think they should have to pick the same power no more than 1 out of 3 seasons, unless that would prevent them from making an infiltration.
If they can infiltrate only every other season then making them have to alternate is probably enough.
I like the feel of building up a lot of sleeper cells, and since they gain little to no benefit from infiltrations they don't use this is only powerful in the late game if they somehow got to the late game without giving a lot of orders. It is true that it gives them a certain inevitability in the late game, but I think nearly every cultural power does that. (Enterprise, siege line busting Klingons, Ferengi traders, etc)
Are people largely on board for moving the Cardassian start power to the Romulans? (I don't like repeating powers across people aesthetically.)
Chris Segal
removing the power from the Cardassians. However, I think they should
be restricted to starting with the army/fleet combination native to
their nation on the board.
Joe Grimm
Bryce Wiedenbeck
Todd Nelling
Tom Emmons
Todd Nelling
Chris Segal
infiltrated so many times!
Bryce Wiedenbeck
Chris Segal
Matt
utter silence here. Life's getting sane again, thus I hope to start
reading this thread and responding soon.
-M
Chris Segal wrote:
> Hey gang,
>
> This is a discussion thread for all participants, both players and
> observers. I realize that the game is continuing, and if Jeff thinks
> confidential things might be said this conversation can wait, but I
> want to get peoples' opinions on the various powers, both from a
> balance perspective and a fun perspective. I want to start the
> conversation now, before too many people are eliminated and/or the
> game is stale.
>
> A disclaimer: Seeing as starting position and luck are very important
> in this game, I think that several games will have to be played before
> we can say with confidence that we really understand all of the races.
> However:
>
> One thing that makes me question the fun of the variant is the
> possibility that some special powers appear more devastating than the
> actually are. I know that both the Dominion and Borg were feared from
> the outset of the game, which tended to lead to alliances against them
> or at least containment of them. Maybe that was excessive?
>
> Another power that I would question is the Romulan cloaking.
> Obviously this particular game went ugly (hi Matt), but unless there
> are powers I'm forgetting, Romulan units are basically ordinary units
> and cloaking them means that a) no one knows where they are if you
> don't tell them and b) they have to take your word for it. It seems
> like a liability unless you have very close partners. Alternatively,
> perhaps the thing to do is clock individual units strategically,
> rather than have a blanket cloak policy?
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about the Klingon power. I think that maybe
> in this game it looked less dangerous than it turned out to be. Does
> that mean we will all be super paranoid next game? Unnecessarily so,
> perhaps?
>
> I defer to others on question of the Federation and Ferengi.
>
> Having (I believe) issued more individual orders than anyone else in
> the game (thus far), I can say with some confidence that I have a good
> handle on the Cardassians. Obviously, this has been possible due to a
> combination of an early power play and some absurd good luck, so I
> don't claim any great skill here. I don't necessarily think the
> Cardassians are overpowered, though as with everything else more
> testing is needed. I DO think that they are ludicrously fun to play,
> as both the Flarmy power and the voluntary retreats are relevant to
> every unit every turn. Building everywhere is just gravy. I wonder:
> Do people who played other powers think that maybe they are unfairly
> fun?
>
> Just rambling really, and figured I might as well ramble in an e-mail.
>
> Chris
>
>
Matt
finally chip in w/my two cents here.
I largely agree w/the Romulan critique -- it was something I had
inklings of before the game started, which were confirmed pretty rapidly
in-game. I do rather like the idea of giving them the Cardassian's
initial deployment ability, as well as the hidden deployment on any
in-country SC -- seems rather fitting, ST-wise, and could be a nice boost.
The only other races I'd at present be tempted to tinker with would be
the Dominion and the Ferengi. I think Todd's largely correct about their
abilities being interesting but on the weak side; likewise, I'm rather
sympathetic to the argument that the current nature of the long-term
Dominion threat almost ensures they're going to get heavily targeted in
the early game, precisely so that people don't have to worry about the
threat maturing.
In terms of fixes, I've not really sat around and pondered this overly
much -- I do like the idea of limiting the randomness, as well as the
duration, of the infiltrations, as I think that'd contain the threat
posed by the Dominion enough so as to give them a fighting early-game
shot, while still making them quite enjoyable to play.
-M
PS: It's nice to be back!