I've been thinking about the game "Risk" which is purely based on luck more so than skill, and just how popular this game is.
I remember trying to talk my relatives into playing it but they said it was too complicated, then I sat down to explain it to them and eventually we got into a game.
So I've come to the understanding through my life that - simple is better. A game like is SO simple, yet still fun. So what if you took risk and made it less about luck and more about strategy, but not too much... then you got a game. What if you took risk and just added a diplomatic element to it? So people could maybe pretend like they were a ruler, and actually even role play such... yet the game is still based on luck?
Then I was thinking, how long is a player willing to wait between turns? A minute? Two minutes? How much functionality does the player need? Obviously there has to be some micromanagement otherwise it'll turn off the more experienced gamers... so, how far is too far? How simple is too simple?
A few examples I'll give of simular games:
Gemfire - it was a game where you basically JUST played the market place (buy when low and sell when high) because you could make sooo much more money! The cool thing about this game was that the battles were complex (flanking counted for better damage, and some units could attack from afar) and you could hire monsters to your side based on the season.
Romance of the three kingdoms - it was all about finding the right generals who were good at what you needed. SO you'd have a good city general and a good war general, and you'd go around pretty much relying on these two generals.
Nobunaga's ambition - this game threw in a really cool element - kids. Basically throughout the years you'd have kids and your kids would have kids so as your leader died, you could replace them for better (or worst) faces. Not to mention the technology tree in this game... superb.
Discuss :)
ID:265556
 Feb 22 2006, 6:29 pm
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I think there's a nice balance between simplicity and overcomplexity that results in "funity".
Simplicity: Crispy's Space Conquest Game. Fun? Yes. Gets boring fast though. Could use some extra frills to add more variety. Overcomplexity: Master of Orion III. So much stuff that, not only does the player have no idea whats going on and little impact on what happens, but the computer is actually required to run everything, and does it poorly. Funity: SimCity II. Just build stuff as people ask for it. Lots of stuff to build. Lots of things to fiddle with. Nothing complicated about building stuff. I now think this has nothing to do with what you're talking about. Perhaps I should read your post again. (reads...) If you're going to have players waiting around for their turn, it wouldn't hurt to give them something to do while they're waiting. I like games where everyone does their turn at the same time and you watch what happens afterwards. I'm suddenly reminded of RoboWars and I feel like ranting about it. RoboWars was actually very simplistic. You picked a team of up to 8 robots of a few different types: Long range, slow firing robots. Medium range, medium firing robots. Short range, fast firing robots. Long range, missile firing robots that shoot slowly but are lots of fun, and short range, medium firing robots that are stealthy. Each turn you tell your robots where to go and what to do. Then you end your turn and watch how your robots interact with (destroy) with the other player's robots. You can either be out to capture a flag or just blow up the competition. Lots of fun either way. Not quite that simple though, since each robot could hide behind obstacles, set their height to determine their visibility/accuracy, set which direction they were looking, and stuff like that. So it was actually pretty complicated. Sure was fun to watch all the explosions afterwards though. But yeah, I don't think I have much to say about your post. Although I will comment that Seiklus was a lot of fun, even though it was disgustingly simple. | |
ok but how many strats are there to use? Some people do the pile-all-units-on-one-area thing then just try to take over a continent, others try to take all of australia and just build up off the units gained... etc...
I don't know I'd have to say sure there is skill involved and it does make a difference, but no mattre what skills you use in the end it is still luck dictating the victor... unless you can cheat and roll the dice a special way. | |
There's lots of skill involved in deciding which territories to overtake and when, where to gather your resources, which borders to defend, who to make enemies with, and so on. But still, in the end, the winner is decided by who gets all the reinforcement cards first.
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You should try Diplomacy. Its similar in concept to risk (conquer the world; or rather in this place, Europe), but without the dice. One of the nicest aspects of it is that turns are made simultaneously. Everyone writes down their moves, and executes them at the same time.
If you're interested in pure strategic games vs strategic games with hefty elements of randomness involved, try diplomacy. | |
On the contrary, skill makes a huge difference in the outcome.
Lummox JR