I think, as buggy as some of these steps have been, just as big an issue is
dealing with Agoran engagement: "Design a board game for 6 people, but make
it so that half the people can say 'pass' on their turns for the first 5
turns and still be competitive with people who don't pass... oh, and anyone
who joins in midway has to be able to catch up!"
On Thu, 5 Jul 2018, Reuben Staley wrote:
> If we want to "fix" Arcadia, we need to figure out what the underlying issues
> are. So what /are/ the issues with these mechanics?
>
> I did not take zombies into consideration when writing up the original PAoaM
> proposal. Zombies provided a cheap way to get double your monthly income when
> I wanted the only way to gain more income to be by interacting with the
> facilities mechanic. If zombies hadn't been a thing, maybe the monopolies
> wouldn't have been so simple to nail down.
>
> It was unbalanced in ways that I couldn't have forseen. Upgrading Processing
> Facilities is something we're just getting into now, but it's an important
> thing. A rank 5 mine feeding 10 ore a week into a rank 5 refinery... that is
> 130 coins a week. Once someone goes a couple weeks with this setup, they might
> be impossible to defeat.
>
> Players also stopped caring. Maybe if we had some of the early adopters of the
> Arcadia mechanics still playing, it would be easier to gang up on the
> monopolists, but many of them have simply stopped caring about these
> mechanics. It's gotten too dramatic.
>
> I was not the best at being an effective Cartographor. I didn't do weekly land
> auctions half of the time. I could have done a lot more to ensure healthy
> development of the map.
>
> PAoaM was a buggy mess that took months to fix. That really hindered people's
> enjoyment of it for ~3 months after it passed.
>
> In my opinion, the Arcadia subgame has gotten progressively less fun due to a
> multitude of reasons. People keep on trying to patch it, but all those patches
> fall through and are either abandoned by their creator or they don't actually
> fix the underlying issues.
>
> But, as G. says here, the underlying issues might not even the biggest
> problem. A lack of knowledge on how these mechanics will effect the game is.
> We. Don't. Playtest. And I don't know how keen others would be on trial and
> error to find a balanced set of mechanics. That sure sounds like a borefest to
> me.
>
> If it's true that to get a perfect set of mechanics is just repeated tests,
> count me with the repeal-the-whole-dang-thing crowd. I think lots of us here
> would agree.
>
> I know I said that I wanted to preserve the Arcadian mechanics as long as I
> could but I'm beginning to think that it really is time to get rid of these
> mechanics. Hopefully someone else can come up with a breakthrough.
>
> On 07/05/2018 11:22 AM, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> >
> >
> > Eh, mark me as someone who would be burned out.
> >
> > It took - hmm, a few months play, a coin/corn bug, and a big payroll from
> > zombies to open up the board (for everyone) and get some land enough to get
> > to this point.
> >
> > At this point - with several land - I'm starting to get into the worker
> > placement and currency budgeting part and it's kind of interesting. I'm
> > even willing to keep trying for a little bit as-is. But I'm not keen
> > enough to do a reset and go through all that again over months to get to
> > this point.
> >
> > Now maybe your reforms would help substantially, but they're not
> > play-tested.
> > If we could tweak in fast-time ("go through" enough rounds without taking
> > weeks to do so each time) we might find a set of rules that worked via
> > playtesting. Maybe doing auctions differently would help. But after
> > shinies and then this, I'm not really feeling the commitment to do economy
> > round#3 at Agora-speed while waiting for the inevitable crashing bugs.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 5 Jul 2018, Reuben Staley wrote:
> > > Reply-to is the worst.
> > >
> > > On 07/05/2018 10:33 AM, Reuben Staley wrote:
> > > > As in resetting the map and giving everyone a welcome-package-sized
> > > > amount
> > > > of resources and making a little spawn island? It might work,
> > > > considering
> > > > that that reform plan was supposed to fix balancing issues. But also I
> > > > think
> > > > that would just make even more people burned out on this subgame.
> > > >
> > > > On 07/05/2018 10:20 AM, Corona wrote:
> > > > > What about just resetting the economy (to the same state as when it
> > > > > was
> > > > > enacted) while implementing Trigon's planned reforms?
> > > > >
> > > > > ~Corona
> > > > >
> > > > > On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 4:44 PM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Aaaaand .... yeah, not to do with paper, but on the Coins side I'm
> > > > > > done
> > > > > > here.
> > > > > > I'll support a full repeal of this mess. Restraint is not something
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > everyone does well.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Thu, 5 Jul 2018, Corona wrote:
> > > > > > > I bid 32 coins in auction 1.
> > > > > > > I bid 34 coins in auction 5.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > ~Corona
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 9:22 PM, Kerim Aydin
> > > > > > > <ke...@u.washington.edu>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I bid 32 coins in auction 5.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > > > > > > > > I bid 25 coins in auction 5.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, Reuben Staley wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > There are currently more public, unpreserved, non-aether
> > > > > > > > > > land
> > > > > > units in
> > > > > > > > > > existence than I feel like counting. 5 land units of my
> > > > > > > > > > choice
> > > > > > > > > > are
> > > > > > put
> > > > > > > > up for
> > > > > > > > > > auction.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > For the following 5 auctions, I am the announcer, Agora is
> > > > > > > > > > the
> > > > > > > > auctioneer, and
> > > > > > > > > > the minimum bid is 1 coin, and the lots are as such:
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > AUCTION 1: the land unit at (-6, -1)
> > > > > > > > > > AUCTION 2: the land unit at (-6, +1)
> > > > > > > > > > AUCTION 3: the land unit at (-6, -2)
> > > > > > > > > > AUCTION 4: the land unit at (-6, +2)
> > > > > > > > > > AUCTION 5: the land unit at (+6, -1)
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > --
> > > > > > > > > > Trigon
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Trigon
> > >
>
> --
> Trigon
>
