Colloquium on Games of Strategy: Chapter 6

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Welcome to the Colloquium on Games of Strategy.  Games of Strategy is a textbook on game theory written by Dixit (not the game), Skeath, and Reiley that we are reading to help improve our analysis of board games and board game design.  Paul Owen (owns 3rd edition) and I (own the 2nd and 1st editions) record a discussion about a chapter or two from the book every few weeks.

In the sixth episode we talk about games that combine simultaneous and sequential move games as well as about strategically switching between the game types.  Highlights include a discussion on how players can drastically change a game outcome outcome by sutley switching a game from a simultaneous game to a sequential game or vice versa.

Below is a link the Sumo Wrestling paper brought up in the discussion.

You can find our previous discussion on Games of Strategy here.

You can find our next discussion on Games of Strategy here.

Classics Lecture Series: Conclusion - Diplomacy

We have discovered, as I argued in the first lecture, that even as Alpha gamers, we can look back at “old standards” and discover they do not have inferior mechanics.  Instead, they contain the mechanics that we rely upon today for the great games in our board game Renaissance.

What you may not realize is that I was not teaching you about great old mechanics just so we can play one of the games from the Board Game Renaissance.  Instead, I have quietly been subverting your defenses to draw you to a game that was around when Avalon Hill was still in business.

From the get go, I have been listing all the mechanics that drive the game Diplomacy.  That’s right, I used Candy Land to trick you to play Diplomacy with me.  Without practicing good play etiquette prior to playing Diplomacy, there was no guarantee you would still talk to me after we play Diplomacy.

Diplomacy is not a bland game where we just roll a bunch of dice.  Diplomacy is a game, like Life, where we collectively tell a story about our rise and fall as great leaders. Where brilliant negotiators actively mess with other players heads before crushing their armies on the board.

Each turn is tense.  Tense because each player has secrete information.  Tense because you only have so much time to negotiate with all the other players what you are going to do.  Tense because you have a hand of units to manage, each must move at the same time, and often in precise coordination with other units outside of your control, or your plans will fail.

You must look at the board before you submit your final orders and decide if you need to keep building trust or if the time has come to mess with your opponents.  You will be eyeing the board, thinking ahead of your next move, and eyeing to see what other players are communicating to you with their own game moves. What one says and what one does can be very different, and you have to decide at that moment who you trust.

And after all of that tension.  All of that thought.  After committing to paper your irreversible decisions, you become a pawn to fate as each player reveals their orders.

Why do I want you to play Diplomacy?

I want you to play diplomacy because I want you to acquire the skill to emulate the mechanics that make Diplomacy a great game and for you to learn from it how to engage me on how I can design a great game.

Diplomacy is an example of great game design. I want to make great games; and through Diplomacy I understand that great games are based on tension, strategy, interaction, and thinking in new ways.  In Diplomacy players achieve complicated outcomes with simple mechanics.  The game comes from people playing each other, not the game playing people.    Good mechanics are used in Diplomacy to reinforce other good mechanics.

Diplomacy is not the last great game.  Nor is this discussion about Diplomacy the last word on how to make a great game.  Quite the contrary, this discussion on what makes Diplomacy great invites a longer conversation about what can still be done to create a great game.

Classics Lecture Series: Negotiations - Risk

When I used to play Risk with the neighborhood kids the strategy was pre-determined, take Australia and South Africa, or barring that, take North America as fast as I can. The real game was how well I could get the other kids to allow me to do this.

Who wins and who loses in Risk is driven by negotiations. I’ll let you have Africa, you let me have South America.  If we do not work together then Sam over there is going to take over North America while we fight each other.

I still play Risk every once and a while online without anybody talking to anybody, and though the mechanics have not changed, it’s a completely different game. Player negotiations is a game component that adds multiple dimension to a board game.

Negotiations Create Player Options

Negotiations opens up options for players as how to pursues their goal.  Without negotiations a game of Monopoly is fixed by the roll of the dice as to who gets what.  To be honest, if players do not haggle, barter, and trade, then Monopoly is just a very long game of roulette.

With negotiations players create new property combinations that alter the balance of who is favored to win the game.  Players are no longer just waiting for the right die combinations.  Players are actively engaging each other, sizing each other up, as they look to find trades that will give them a chance to win.  The options created from trade changes the game from a game of just chance, to a game of skilled negotiations with some chance.

Negotiations Counters Runaway Winners

Through negotiations players are able to keep others from running away with the win.  If we can coordinate to not destroy our chance to win in Risk by fighting each other to the death than we can also negotiate to work together to prevent another player running away with a win.

Using negotiation to coordinate player action to prevent a runaway leader even occurs in games where negotiations may be limited.  In Settlers of Catan players will not only boycott trading with the player in the lead, they will also work together to move the robber, exchange resources, build roads, and settlements to contain the player in the lead.

Negotiations Personalize the Player Experience

Negotiations necessitate personal interactions.  I have to convince you to work with me.  That means success or failure becomes dependent on player personalities.  Are you vindictive?  Are you pragmatic?   Do you have trouble trusting people?  Do you have trouble trusting me?  Are you forgiving?  These personality traits alter game negotiations and alter game experience.

If you do not trust me in Risk then you might hesitate to enter an agreement with me to attack another player because I may exploit your undefended border.  Just finding my personality abrasive can alter what I can achieve in negotiations.  Someone might not trade with me in Monopoly because they just think I am a mean and horrible person.

Different players have different personalities.  Each time you play with a group of people you are dealing with a different combination that creates a completely different game experience.  That means a game with a heavy negotiation element plays as a new variant every time you play it, just like Risk Legacy.  Even if you play the same game with the same players, they will remember what happened last time and adjust how they treat the other players.

Winning and Losing Negotiations is a Game Itself

Navigating your personality amongst other player’s personality is a game within itself.  Which player can best navigate their personality strengths and weaknesses amongst everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses?

Take the game of Pandemic.  Players are constantly negotiating with each other to form a consensus on how to fight the epidemic.  Players who do not adjust well for the negotiating strategies and personalities of their teammates will not work well together and will fail to coordinate to save the world.

Risk and The Resistance shows that winning negotiations gamers are not just about building coalitions, they are also about negotiations that successfully destroys them.  Players are battling each other to either build trust or destroy it.  If you are not part of the coalition that appears to be winning the game then you need to use your best negotiation skills to break it up.

In Risk, the player leading the game sees everyone attempting to form an alliance to counter their growing power.  A good negotiator does not sit ideally by and let a new alliance form to prevent their rise to glory.  They walk over to the player with trust problems and remind them of all the times the other players stabbed a partner in the back. Next, they quietly stroll over to the players who are known for stabbing others in the back and tries to make them an offer they just can’t refuse.

While playing The Resistance, I need to figure out what is the best tactic to convince the leader that someone else is a traitor and not me.  I weigh the success of deflecting attention from myself by attacking others, versus using such aggressive tactics backfiring and drawing attention to myself.  At the same time I have to decide if vocally professing that I am not the traitor will lead more or less people to trust me.  If a group challenges my loyalty I must work to undermine the credibility of those who label me a traitor and sew seeds of mistrust within the group itself.

Risk is not Risk Without Negotiations

Risk without negotiations is not risk, its multiplayer chess with dice.  Negotiations turn simple mechanics into an intense meta game of wits among the players.  Players are no longer just trying to solve a simple puzzle, they are actively competing with each other to achieve a diplomatic victory that will hand them the game.

Classics Lecture Series: Real Time with Simultaneous Moves - Soccer, Speed, & Boggle

Taking turns is as old as board gaming, I go, and you go, wash and repeat.  Chess - I move my pawn you move your knight.  Tic-Tac-Toe - I mark X, you mark O.  Pretty Pretty Princess - I put on my earing, you put on your necklace.

But the most popular game in the word--soccer-- is played in real time and has simultaneous moves.  But wait you cry, soccer is a sport.  Sports have rules and victory condition just like any other board game.  Sports tend to be dexterity games that happen to be played on some of the largest tabletops in existence.

Soccer, like other board games, relies on players making simultaneous moves and a clock to increase pressure on players.  Great real time games with simultaneous moves use either simultaneous moves, a timer, or both to increase pressure on players. What are the benefits of pressure on players?

Rewards Quick Thinking And Punishes Analysis Paralysis

Simultaneous moves in real time are the anti Analysis Paralysis.  In Soccer you have to make strategic decisions in real time.  Real time games with simultaneous moves rewards players who can read a situation quickly and act.  If you pause, your opponent will jump and take advantage of your hesitation.

Mental mistakes are more likely in real time simultaneous games like Soccer and Speed than a sequential move game because pausing to think gives your opponent time to react.  In Soccer, if you pause to think, you risk missing your opportunity to act, it gives your opponent the time to get back on defense or prevents your defense from reacting fast enough to counter your opponent's offense.  In Speed if you hesitate your opponent might play a card and take your spot on the discard pile.

In sequential board games a mental mistake only results from you making the wrong move.  You never lose the chance to make the move in a sequential board game.  Unlike a real time simultaneous move game, an opponent or a timer does not take away your opportunity to act.  The game sits and waits for you to make that move.

Mental mistakes are so prevalent in real time games that players even devise strategies to increase the probability their opponents will make a mistake.  Soccer players understand that their opponents are more likely to make a mistake when they are forced to play a style they are not comfortable with.  Soccer teams built on speed and athleticism are not as comfortable methodically moving the ball down the field.  Opponents that recognize this will attempt to force the speed team to be slow and methodical. Why?  Because when you are force to doing something you are not comfortable with you are more likely to hesitate and make a mistake.

Creates Moments of Tension And Relief

Soccer, like all simultaneous moves games, perfect the art of tension in game play.  A clock is ticking, a team is down by one goal and is throwing everything they have to get the equalizer.  Even their goalie has moved out of goal to help his team as it desperately fights for the tie.

The crowd is tense.  The players are tense.  And whoever wins the battle, be the team up or the team down, is going to be in a state of euphoria when all is said and done.

These moments happen in sequential games, sure.  But not at the frequency, and rarely with the intensity as a simultaneous move game.

Just the act of having to reveal a decision at the same time creates tension and relief. In The Resistance players negotiate with each other in real time and the leader selects who will make the team for the mission.  After the team members secretly submitted whether they will support or sabotage the mission, the room is tense until it becomes apparent if the mission succeeded or failed.

Putting it All Together

Look at the real time simultaneous move game Boggle.  Boggle has a sand timer.  You are on the clock racing with the other players to find words.  If you panic and just sit staring at the board you give your opponents an edge by giving them more time to put words together relative to you.

As the timer starts getting close to the end you feel tension as you try to fit in as many words as possible before time runs out.  At which point the score is reviewed and the tension of the moment is relieved in either glorious victory or humiliating defeat.