Need help to playtest BIC from "Idea about balancing Monarchy vs Democracy" thread

player1 · September 24, 2002, 15:53

Need help to playtest test BIC file from "Idea about balancing Monarchy vs Democracy" thread

It's same as original BIC file, but with following chnges:

Republic & Democracy have following changes: all units have upkeep cost doubled (2gp per unit), but you get 1 free unit per town, 2 free units per city and 2 free units per metropolis.

Post playtest results here:

player1 · September 24, 2002, 21:19

BIC file updated

player1 · September 25, 2002, 06:26

Hmm...
Is this "I am so smart, I already know this won't wortk, so I won't bother playtesting it" syndrome?

Harovan · September 25, 2002, 16:15

player1: I would volunteer to be one of the testers, but I have an awesome game running, unfortunately on a huge map, so it will take a while to finish it. If I interrupt it now to play deep into the test game, I probably wouldn't return anymore. I never was able to return full power to an interrupted game. This would be a pity given the work I already put in the game, and the fun I am having with it. I may test this later, but as I said, it might take a bit. May be the others have similar reasons.

Catt · September 25, 2002, 16:30

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
Hmm...
Is this "I am so smart, I already know this won't wortk, so I won't bother playtesting it" syndrome?

Not at all - it's just that I have very little play time available (and don't have a strong view as to the positions taken in the debate thread

).

Catt

Theseus · September 25, 2002, 16:42

Too far from stock for me.

player1 · September 25, 2002, 16:47

Yes indeed it is.
That why I didn't added in myt own PS mod.

But it's an interesting experiment.

And it's a little bit difficult to test by just one person.

nbarclay · September 26, 2002, 05:10

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
Hmm...
Is this "I am so smart, I already know this won't wortk, so I won't bother playtesting it" syndrome?

I doubt that there are many people interested in taking the time to playtest a mod just for the sake of playtesting a mod. If you want people to try your mod, it's up to you to convince them that your mod is likely to provide enough better a game to make it worth the trouble. Otherwise, why play your mod instead of playng a standard game or trying our own mod ideas? I don't mean to offend; I'm just trying to be realistic given the fact that free time doesn't exactly grow on trees.

In my case, there are at least three reasons I'm not especially interested. (1) I'm still in the middle of the AU 106 game (and I've been too busy discussing Civ to actually play the last couple days). (2) Your mod is designed to solve a "problem" that doesn't bother me to begin with. (3) Your mod, at least in regard to its effects on the human player, is exceptionally easy to analyze through purely mathematical means without having to play games using it. That makes playtesting less important for me to get a feel for how likely I am to regard the mod as an improvement.

If I had an infinite amount of free time, I'd be happy to give your mod a try so I'd have game experience to back up my mathematical analysis. But I don't have an infinite amount of free time, and at least at present, your mod isn't a priority for me.

Here's an interesting thought, though: because your mod is so much just a matter of simple mathematics, even people playing without the mod can gather information about how it would affect human players. All they have to do is calculate what the mod's effects would be at various points in their games. That's something I may be willing to try myself in my next game, but no promises. (Of course that technique can't go into higher-order effects caused by your mod's affecting how people play, but it's still better than nothing.)

Nathan