Economy Balancing: The exponential curve

Yes, the slippery slope starts right there. Although a large part of the strategy in the game is avoiding that position. Of course if economic management is hard to learn then you can't really participate in the strategic part of the game unless your opponent is also poor at managing their eco or lack other crucial skills.

True.


Personally I think it's ok to assume symmetry for a 1v1 arena mode, part of what makes a strategy game strategic is that you can't be certain you won't encounter asymmetry.

It may be a fair assumption to balance the game around multiplayer 1v1. However, I feel that it is not fair to assume that symmetry was always viable to achieve, when you consider that the singleplayer game by its very nature is asymmetric, and at any time in a FFA you could be sandwiched by two opponents.

What I mean is, by the strategic nature of the game, it may not be a fair assumption to assume that the player can play flawlessly and avoid finding himself in an asymmetric situation.

My basic assumption when I play 1v1 is that anything which I can do, can also be done by my opponent and potentially he could even do it better than me. I then use scouting to determine what my opponent actually has done and I try to balance eco, offense and defense, find weaknesses and find timing windows for crippling attacks.

I believe the pacing of the game should dictate how fast your economy should grow. Exponential growth is good for this as it allows for quicker ends to games particularly when we get into the orbital warfare stage. No one wants to be waiting 5-10 minutes after taking over a planet to build up enough econ to invade the next planet.

Im not sure on what Ubers vision on the pacing of the game should be but in my opinion it would go as follows:

0-10 minutes; expand with t1 eco and build along a stratergy path (air, ground, naval or orbital rush)
10-20 minutes; t2 factories and maybe orbital, starting on t2 eco
20-30 minutes; full t2 eco, nukes, etc
30-50 minutes; all about unit production and end game combat.

Some people might want longer games and some people may prefer shorter ones but whatever Uber decides they want their game to be will dictate the speed of the economy geowth.

I think this is a key element that's missing right now, a good means to teach new players that "It's the economy, stupid!"

I would tend to agree.

Does not increase because you used "linear" formula in first place to prove it does not matter.

exp. growth would be like this: y=x^k. If K=1.1, for 2 players you get this:
size 100: 100 158 263 459
size 110: 110 176 295 512 (504 is 110% of 459)
linear for 110: 110 121 133 146

I used small K, but with exponential growth it really does not matter for games.
You get into same problems just few minutes later/earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
Well, to be fair: According to Wikipedias definition, the economic growth of PA isn't exponential but rather grows by the square.

P(t) = A e^(k*t)

That's what @Godde has used, he just doesn't maths very well.

y = k * x is indeed linear, however if x = y(t - 1), then you get y(t) = k * y(t -1) which is also exponential growth.

I derped. Well I get confused that time is exponent in this function.

why are you giving player one a 10% bonus to his economy, and withholding that bonus from player 2?

So his income is 11 from the commander and 7.7 from extractors. Why?

As absolutely obvious from my examples, I'm comparing Ms in your terms, not "t"s, and never stated, I'm comparing the exponent argument. As only this makes any sense - you buy killing stuff when you think, you have enough, and that's decided by M in your terms.

So, no offence, but you didn't understand the point completely. And after all, why not to take f(x) and f(x-0.1x), where f is ANY function? Why does it even matter, that it's an exponent?

Correct, because of M = exp( of whatever argument ) is what acutally matter, and this is what makes the argument lag nonlinear in terms of absolute function value differences. In game this means, that one player might already have eco for 2 extra nukes and the other does not. [sarcasm]And as we, people, who know, how to plot graphs, know, the derivative of exponent (player's income) is... but nevermind [/sarcasm]

A tip: try to start from comparing values m^t and (0.9*m)^t in the path to enlightment, where m is a solution of equation M_0 = m^t_0, where M_0 is a known 1st player's income.

Correct. You're comparing metal incomes. At different times. Your maths is invalid. IT's like saying that a Honda Civic is faster than a Bugatti Veyron because the speed of a Bugatti Veyron at time zero is zero, whereas the speed of a Honda Civic at time 8.9 seconds is 27.77m/s.

Your mathematical argument is awful and flawed.

I don't know what world you come from where this is remotely true or where the two topics are even tangentially connected. I'd offer a scathing rebuttal but there's, nothing, to rebuff.

Do explain your stance a bit more, and why it means that game advancement can't happen without adding orders of magnitude to unit values. Clearly the tier system is based off that almost insane belief. A good explanation would help a lot.

He never explained...

Yeah, @osun, your maths is worse than @Godde's.

Exp economy is not bad at all, until you hit that soft unit cap where your game just stops or starts its turn based slideshow. Also huge numbers of units (500+) do not add to fun of game, at some point I just see them like fluid streams, not armies. While I hate micro of Starcraft, PA turned 180deg and went for the opposite extreme.

Do I need to say more?

Now, if we were civilized and actually could have a real conversation about it, that'd be a different story.

Krakanu originally asked why in a civil manner. A few other posts did as well.
I'm sure it's not fun to read a bunch of aggressive posts like that, and it's sad because everyone else is also affected when there's less communication from the devs as a result. A lot of us would honestly like to hear what you have to say about these things though, and what your vision is for gameplay.

Agreed, I would really love to hear why certain choices have been made and what they will do in the long run, etc... People here often just slander eachothers opinions outright stating they are "insane" in my opinion this is not how to have a mature discussion... you should listen to their point and ask for elaboration if you don't quite understand; if you feel you do then please show you recognize why they think that and respond with your own opinion. Don't straight up say what they think is stupid, it just makes you look bad.