[TiGD] Runaway leader/leader bashing!

Matthew - Boy do I ever agree with the "life is subjective" comment! :)

And based on your last comment, if the game is only an *actual* problem in ~10% of the games that you play, then would you not agree that looking at games as a whole, it may not be that huge of an issue?

Zaiga - I was waiting for someone to bring that up, and with regards to Axis and Allies, I guess it all depends on the group you play with. While it's true that there are two "basic sides" in the game (the Axis and the Allies) there's a tremendous amount of latitude in-game to allow for what amounts to leader bashing, *even among team members on the same side!*

This most often finds itself expressed in terms of a shift in strategy that places more emphasis and pressure of the "guy who's ahead" (the specific country that's doing the best)....his team mates will invariably--again, depending on the group you're playing with-- concoct new strategies that specifically place the big dog in harm's way. This could be written off as simply stating that the most powerful player has the most resources, and if he's doing his job, he'll put himself in harm's way, but in practice, that's not always the case (and several of the folks I play with have as much as admitted that if I'm doing especially well, they'll goad me into making an attack that will help THEIR position, while not really advancing our overall position in-game.

Thus, my comments.

But there are TONS of combat heavy strat games (war games being a convenient subset of these, but by no means the only subset) out there thare are, or can easily be played as multiplayer. Shogun (both the original and the MB remake), Fortress America (to stick with the MB theme), KingMaker, StarFleet Battles, MtG, etc, and they all have a built in element of exactly the mechanism I describe, not by virtue of faulty game design, but simply due to the environment created in-game, and in all of the examples mentioned above, the mechanism is certainly a healthy one (weakening my opponent invariably winds up strengthening my own position...as opposed to other examples that have been given).

In listening to the excellent points raised here, I've revised my position somewhat. Initially, I didn't see it as a problem at all. Now, I see it as a problem for a specific subset of games, although what, precisely defines that subset, I'm not quite able to put my finger on yet....

-=Vel=-

No, I'd consider it quite high, as the majority of games that I play don't have any problem at all. I would say that about 25% of the games I play (mostly Euro-style games) have a discernable design problem that I don't feel was properly addressed in the design or development. That means that about 40% of the games with problems have a leader-bashing problem, making it a big problem (I may be high, it may be more like 6%/25% of games with problems, but it's in there somewhere and still way too common).

-- Matthew

First, let me ask if the above synopsis is an accurate one.

If it is....then I'm not gettin' where the 40% figure creeps in.
If there are 100 games, 10 have leader bashing issues and 25 have flaws. So 10/25 = 0.4 = 40% of games with flaws have leader bashing issues.

re: Epigone and Fastlearner...ahh, I get you...not sure why I didn't see it before...eyes too tired I guess. 40% of the 25% of the games with problems have problems in the leadership bashing arena.

IMO, that figure is prolly on the high side, but I DO see where you're coming from now. :)

-=Vel=-

EDIT: In any case, this still only amounts to (approximately, of course) 1 game in 10 that has a problem in this area, and while that is and can be vexing, it's still just 1/10th of the total "population" of games out there. Rather than call it a major problem, I'd be more inclined to class it as a minor nuisance, but that's just me.

Hmmm...yes and no. The initial comment was that it was a major problem in some 10% of games played (at least...this was the way I understood it). As most of us are designers at one level or another, I'd class prototypes and games in process as "games played," right along with professionally published titles, although admittedly, others may make more distinctions than this.

In my own *personal* experience (counting all games played, whether professionally published or no), I've probably only run across 1 game in 20 where leader bashing was a genuine, significant problem, and even then, it's a question of severity.

In any case, you're quite right...I got no problems whatsoever with participating in discussions of how to fix it when it arises...I only question the validity of the assumption that it is, in fact, a major, pervasive issue in some vast percentage of games.

Where that is concerned, I contend that it is not, and would class it as an annoyance (in terms of its actual % appearance in the total population of games), rather than an epidemic.

-=Vel=-

Well, it doesn't really matter how often it arises in games you play does it? What matters is that it is a feature/problem in some games, and that it might a problem in one of the designs some of us design. It's important to recognize a "bash the leader" problem when it occurs, why it occurs, when it is not a good feature of the game, and how you might be able to fix it, or even better, prevent it.

So, let's discuss that instead of arguing in how many % of games exactly it occurs.