Game balance (no longer really very VV-related)

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 07:33:38PM +0100, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

>So, you have to ask yourself: why do you plan to use a battle-balancing

>points system for a campaign game, instead of designing a
campaign-economic 
>points system?

Here's one reason: so that you have a diversity of fleets, which keeps
things interesting.

Assume for the sake of argument that we have a points system that's
perfectly balanced for tactical combat (TPV), and a points system that
reflects some sort of "real" economic production cost (EPV); and that
these systems are not identical. Why would anyone build any sort of
ship other than that with the highest TPV/EPV ratio? Even if they need
multiple ships for different jobs, there's still going to be a "best"
light scout, "best" heavy cruiser, etc., and whoever finds them is
(ceteris paribus) going to win.

If you cost out ship construction in TPV, then there's incentive to
have more sorts of ship in existence, even if it is unrealistic in
terms of economics.

R