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The 51% Parameter--the RADIUS PARADOX

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:22 pm
by 12678
The 51% Parameter sounds like a sci-fi movie but it seems to be giving all of us some concerns, particularly with the very odd way that RADIUS ended. I think that the game result there should be revisited as JimE won that game with a vengeance and the record should really be stated as such.

Also, what is everyone's thoughts on how that parameter is set up? I think we need a clearer definition of it and even something that can better lay out exactly how games end what the game ending set up specifically is. There are a lot of multi's as well that are never truly clear on it which can actually dictate how you actually strategize your game. What about voting on end game score the way we used to in the old days?

Finally, I think only RSW members that have completed a certain amount of games should be allowed to set up new games. It is far too important a process for just anyone to do; if we are committing that much time to a given game, we want the set-up to be solid and the parameters well thought out and ones that are intrinsically sound or that make the game more exciting.

Re: The 51% Parameter--the RADIUS PARADOX

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 7:57 pm
by JimE
I definitely agree with making me the winner. :D

Perhaps there should be a modification to the 51% worlds option to make the achiever of that goal the winner, and IGNORE the scores. After all one would assume half a galaxy ownership would be sufficient.

As to voting on scores.... maybe, if the score was sufficiently high say choose between 10,000 and 50,000. I also won a game with a ridiculously low score in the 1300's. The score has to be high enough so that all character types have a chance of getting there.

Re: The 51% Parameter--the RADIUS PARADOX

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 2:56 pm
by drwr
I agree it's confusing that the "end condition" of a game is different from the "win condition". The game parameters let you select from one of a handful of different "end conditions", including the default behavior that the game is ended when one player crosses a certain secret threshold; or the property mentioned here, that the game is ended when one player owns a sufficient number of worlds.

Intuitively, it seems that whatever player triggers the end of the game is also the winner. But that's not necessarily the case, because of the way the game works: once the end condition is met, all of the players' scores are tallied, and then the winner is the player with the highest score. If we made the end condition the same as the win condition, it would mean scores are completely irrelevant, which makes certain player types (Collector or Emperor most notably) rather pointless.

Granted you sometimes want to play a game that way, and maybe if you've expressly created a game that should last until "one player owns 51% of all the worlds," then that's the kind game you meant to create. That's JimE's point here, and it's well-taken.

I'll think about adding an option to make this kind of behavior possible.

David