On 09/23/2017 04:47 PM, Cuddle Beam wrote:
I think a good way to analyze the game design is to guess in how much
time the average player (eith average activeness and skill) will
achieve a win (or dictatorship) given their join date.
If its not the same (or very similar) for someone who was around at
the start than someone who joins later, then its Gerontocratic imo (on
that front). For example, the case where the total capital of all
active players, in comparison to what a newcomer has (Welcome Pack),
grows over time.
New players shouldn't have such a handicap that they overcome
consistently good play from existing players. And the stamp win isn't
restricted to one-time. New players can still win with as much work as
old players, but the old players have a lead by virtue of starting sooner.
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 at 22:26, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu
<mailto:ke...@u.washington.edu>> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017, Owen Jacobson wrote:
> As for the gerontocracy argument: Money is an inherently
gerontocratic system.
> It abstracts value from labor in a way that allows arbitrary
allocation.
Ok, I've been mulling this over for the past week or so, and some
broad thoughts.
I think we should step away from thinking of this in terms of
Economies and
think of it in terms of Game Design.
On the supply side, what we have is classic exponential asset
growth. Base
assets let you get things which then let your assets grow faster (I'm
particularly thinking of the recent Agoraculture here). This can
be very
fun - the fun part of the grind games is when your properties
start *really*
producing. But the problem is that it leads to early determination of
winners versus losers, and if the game lasts too long, it's a
frustrating
slog for the losers. In a game with no fixed end (e.g. real
life), this is
the gerontocracy.
It's greatly exacerbated by the fact that distribution of valuable
assets
is via Auction. Auctions are inherently exponential (a slight lead in
your base asset leads to you winning a big valuable asset). Moreover,
right now, the auction properties are far too rare, so you have to
compete
directly with the gerontocracy to buy in. My main reason to hoard
right now
is to have any chance in an auction.
I think the solution is some minimum income, and drastically
reducing the
buy-in difficulties for auctions (I'd do that through increased land).
On the spending side: quite frankly, we don't have enough
diversity of
things that actually buy game advantage to be worth spending on.
We need
to add different pathways to accumulation and specialization.
There's a few ways to organize adding things to buy. I personally
would
add permanent political buy-in based on our old Oligarchic system, and
simultaneously re-form the Speaker position as we talked about
last week.
This would be entirely separate from land. (there are other
things we could
invent to buy, this is one obvious addition). I'd also think
about specialized
roles (e.g. only allowing Farmers to own land, and you can't
easily change
whether you're a farmer or not).
The total portfolio of things to buy should have a unified game
balance and
different pathways to riches/success, and not just be a grab bag
of random
investment instruments (e.g. stamps, bonds, whatever).
