Hi,
I was wondering what people thought about using a *calculator* to play a game. Now the calculations are not overly complicated, but I think in order to get them right a calculator would help.
-Calculating *initiative* which is a value between 0.0 and 1.0. How it works is simply take the Crew's value (let's say 20) and divide it by a ships capacity (let's say 25). So the calculation is 20/25 = 0.8.
If I need to use a calculator to play a game, it's probably not going to get played.
Maybe you want to put a table in your manual for people to look up various things, but that's as close as I'd get to using a calculator.
But I suggest reworking the mechanic. Do you NEED it to be that "complicated" (or precise)? Why not just have different levels of initiative maybe?
I agree with Mikey.
I'm happy to do calculations, but if a game requires something like that then you need to change something - if the mechanic that requires the calculations is so important, see if you can modify the calculations to use something more intuitive like dice, cards or tokens.
Did you know that in the manual of YUGIOH the card game, that it suggests using a calculator? Its for life points and for attack and defense. Even though the game isn't that complicated, the next example; 2250 attack with 1175 defense was just slow to use a calculator. And my cousin and I nevr used life points in that game. But if the calulator was used for something that needed it, say for his game, I say use it. Anything else, change the game mechanic.
The initiative value is used in the simple combat mechanic between starships:
-When a player attacks another starship, each ship's initiative value is verified. If the defending ship has a HIGHER initiative, it may decide to attack (preemptive attack) or to better position itself (move). If the attacking ship has the higher initiative, combat proceeds as normal.
So you can see, having a higher initiative is important because it can make the difference between life or death.
How about putting on model cards also the initiative values depending on crew number?
Model #1
Min/Max crew: 5/15
Initiative values depending on crew number:
5-8 -> 10
9-12 -> 7
13-15 -> 5
I suggest to avoid decimal numbers.
Depending on where the numbers come from, you could change them to logarithms, so that the division becomes a subtraction instead. Players don't even have to know, you just instruct them to subtract one number from the other, and mathematically the result will be identical (except for rounding errors) to your original mechanic.
Works less well if you also need to do addition/subtraction to those same numbers.
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logarithmic_identities#Using_simple...
Works less well if you also need to do addition/subtraction to those same numbers.
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logarithmic_identities#Using_simpler_operations
Are you suggesting: Log(z1) - Log(z2) = Log(z1/z2)?
From the "Summation" section, near the bottom of the wiki.
This works, however it implies DECIMAL subtraction (which is probably as complicated as my original division...) BUT it's still cool that it works! :)
My sample 5/25 = 0.20 => Log(5) - Log(25) = Log (5/25) => 0.70 - 1.40 = -0.70
Model #1
Min/Max crew: 5/15
Initiative values depending on crew number:
5-8 -> 10
9-12 -> 7
13-15 -> 5
I suggest to avoid decimal numbers.
Well that would imply having to write 5 possible combinations (since there are 5 crew configurations) on each model. I wanted to have MORE combinations, however I am trying to keep the number of cards in the game reasonable (because it is a DECK-BUILDING game). I don't want players to have more than 100 or so cards in their deck... More realistically the number of cards should be around 60 cards (like a MtG Deck) mid-way through the game.
I am thinking that a table might be more plausible since there will be 5 Classes of Starships and 5 different Crew configurations. 5x5 is a small lookup table. Looking into the table probably takes LESS time than using a calculator to do the division...
I agree decimal subtraction is (almost) as bad as division. I would scale all values and pick a logarithm base so that I ended up with simpler numbers. Depends on the game system, but usually you have a lot of freedom in what values are assigned to cards.
Even if you stick with division you could probably fudge values until division is simple to do without a calculator. I have played many wargames using odds-based CRTs and never had to bring out a calculator (it helps that odds are always rounded, so you never have to calculate any closer than to see if you end up eg with 3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 2:1 etc, the EXACT result of the division is never needed for anything).
why not just compare the difference of the differences directly to see who has a higher initiative? seems simpler, and more precise too if you need it to be.
since its a negative system, maybe it uses the antonym...reluctance? lets go with that for the sake of example:
shipB, a 25 capacity ship with 18 crew makes:
25-18 = 7 reluctance
calculating the reluctance difference between the 2 ships:
7-5 = 2
shipB has a higher reluctance of 2
compared to shipA
OR
shipA has a higher initiative of 2
compared to shipB
what you use that value for however i have no idea, but i am assuming its part of a comparison. im not fond of division, addition and subtraction should suffice.
even yugioh with its huge numbers had multiplication at best, and stuck with whole numbers, closest decimal was values ending with 0.5 i think, but not division as far as i can remember.
point being, although yugioh recommended using a calculator, its numbers were still easy to round off, and did not enter decimal majority territory.
strictly only for example, your opponent has 4350 lifepoints left, your monster has 2520 att, you can approcimate that you need 2 successful hits to drop your opponent's lifepoints to 0 or less, did the 520 or 350 odd values matter behind the numbers? no, you rounded off to the nearest 1000 OR 1500. heck even if your monster's att was 3250, you can still estimate you need 2 attacks to win
I'm a numbers person. I like numbers. I take exquisite care in my hand calculations, and I love to figure out problems. When I'm designing a board game, though, I hide all of that math in the design. I do all of the calculations in the background to come up with components that have the right values. I model my game in Excel or MatLab and tweak it here and there. I do all of this so that my players don't have to.
I presume that you, too, are a numbers person. We are the few, marketing our game to the many. We have to make our games accessible.
In the introduction of Steven Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time", he introduces one equation: E=Mc^2, but before he does, he apologizes and says something along the lines of "my publisher told me not to put any equations in the book. He warned me that every equation I add will cut the sales of my book in half, but I had to write this one out because it's famous and I owe it a bit of explanation." Hawking is a numbers person, but he managed to write a whole book without using any numbers.
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Like I said it's not a question of being "complicated", it's just that it uses DIVISION. Unlike most situations where you are adding, subtracting or multiplying, this particular case uses division.
The game uses "Deck-building" and what you build are Starship configurations. Each ship can have 3 to 4 components:
-Starship model (Various classes of vessels)
-Crew (A combination of Soldiers, Officers and Engineers)
-Weaponry
-Enhancement [Optional]
The model indicates the minimal and maximal Crew. Using the capacity of the Starship's model, you calculate the initiative of the configuration: Crew/Capacity. It's a simple formula - but the division could be slightly difficult to do.
Examples: 35/50 = 0.7 (easier) or 35/75 = 0.47 (harder - rounded)
I may try to create a table for this... I just need to figure out my *Crews* and *Capacities* for my starships. So I may put this off to later... But use of a calculator could make it much easier to do the division...