Re: Ultimate Goals in Olympia

Rich Skrenta (skrenta@pbm.com)
10 Jan 1995 09:54:15 -0500

johns@unipalm.co.uk (John Sloan) writes:
> As an aside to the main thrust here, my main problem was that I as a single
> player could create more nobles than I could reasonably write orders for. I
> was only the third richest faction in the playtest, but I reckon if I had
> created as many nobles as I had noble points, and spent three times the time
> I had available, I could have been close to being the biggest.

You began, I believe, when the more liberal NP allocation policy was in
effect. Although I changed it later in the playtest, you had already
amassed a hoard of NP's. NP's are far more tight in the current game,
and many players sweat waiting for their once-every-8-turns NP to come.

What has proved troublesome are the artifact controlled units, and player
NP extortion.

In future designs I don't intend to have POVs (points-of-view, nobles in
Olympia) be a common game resource that can be gained, lost or traded.
"Here are your five guys. If one dies, you get a new one. You can't
give them to anyone else, or get any more."

Gaining and losing POVs is quite natural in closed-ended games, but so
is getting completely wiped out by a big player, or growing until you
can single-handedly defeat everyone else in the game. These things
shouldn't be possible in an open-ended game, or else it's not open-ended.