There's two separate issues:
1. How fast should a brand new player be able to catch up with an old player; 2. How much consistent advantage should an officer have over a non-officer. It's confounded because most old players are officers, but given the welcome package I think it's mostly a problem of (2) not (1). On Sat, 23 Sep 2017, Nic Evans wrote: > On 09/23/2017 04:47 PM, Cuddle Beam wrote: > I think a good way to analyze the game design is to guess in how much > time the average player (eith average activeness and skill) will achieve a > win (or dictatorship) given their join date. > > If its not the same (or very similar) for someone who was around at the start > than someone who joins later, then its Gerontocratic imo (on that front). For > example, the case where the total capital > of all active players, in comparison to what a newcomer has (Welcome Pack), > grows over time. > > > New players shouldn't have such a handicap that they overcome consistently > good play from existing players. And the stamp win isn't restricted to > one-time. New players can still win with as much work as > old players, but the old players have a lead by virtue of starting sooner. > > On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 at 22:26, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> > wrote: > > > On Sat, 23 Sep 2017, Owen Jacobson wrote: > > As for the gerontocracy argument: Money is an inherently > gerontocratic system. > > It abstracts value from labor in a way that allows arbitrary > allocation. > > Ok, I've been mulling this over for the past week or so, and some broad > thoughts. > > I think we should step away from thinking of this in terms of Economies > and > think of it in terms of Game Design. > > On the supply side, what we have is classic exponential asset growth. > Base > assets let you get things which then let your assets grow faster (I'm > particularly thinking of the recent Agoraculture here). This can be > very > fun - the fun part of the grind games is when your properties start > *really* > producing. But the problem is that it leads to early determination of > winners versus losers, and if the game lasts too long, it's a > frustrating > slog for the losers. In a game with no fixed end (e.g. real life), > this is > the gerontocracy. > > It's greatly exacerbated by the fact that distribution of valuable > assets > is via Auction. Auctions are inherently exponential (a slight lead in > your base asset leads to you winning a big valuable asset). Moreover, > right now, the auction properties are far too rare, so you have to > compete > directly with the gerontocracy to buy in. My main reason to hoard > right now > is to have any chance in an auction. > > I think the solution is some minimum income, and drastically reducing > the > buy-in difficulties for auctions (I'd do that through increased land). > > On the spending side: quite frankly, we don't have enough diversity of > things that actually buy game advantage to be worth spending on. We > need > to add different pathways to accumulation and specialization. > > There's a few ways to organize adding things to buy. I personally would > add permanent political buy-in based on our old Oligarchic system, and > simultaneously re-form the Speaker position as we talked about last > week. > This would be entirely separate from land. (there are other things we > could > invent to buy, this is one obvious addition). I'd also think about > specialized > roles (e.g. only allowing Farmers to own land, and you can't easily > change > whether you're a farmer or not). > > The total portfolio of things to buy should have a unified game balance > and > different pathways to riches/success, and not just be a grab bag of > random > investment instruments (e.g. stamps, bonds, whatever). > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
