Re: Blue Sky Thinking (was: Re: [GZG] re: Wanted)

John Tailby wrote:

>Yep big changes in technology makes it very hard for points value
system. 
>Take the British matilda tank in WW2, in Early war it is a monster,
only 
>able to be damaged by 88mm guns, by the end of the war most tank guns
can 
>kill it and it's own gun is hopeless against almost all tanks. How do
you 
>assign a points value to something that goes from superwapon to junk in

>less than 5 years?

Big *changes* in technology are hard for points systems to handle. 
Fortunately for the game designers changes in technology only occur
during 
large-scale campaign games that allow tech development during the
campaign 
(eg. StarFire or Masters of Orion), so the easiest way of avoiding this 
kind of mess is to not write campaign rules with a large enough time
scale 
that tech development is necessary <g>

However, it is the tech *change* which causes problems - not the fact
that 
there are tech	*differences*. For single battles, even very large 
differences in tech level can be handled... and if the points system is 
sound, the higher-tech units will be extremely expensive.

Unfortunately many game designers confuse the game-balancing points cost

system with the "in-background" *economic* costs required to build and 
operate these highl-tech units, and that inevitably leads to disaster 
(since the entire "in-background" purpose with tech development is to
allow 
the design of units which give *more* bang per (economic) buck than the
old 
technologies did, whereas the entire purpose of a game-balancing points 
system is to give the *same* bang per buck regardless of tech level)...

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@rixmail.se

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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