Don''t forget that in monopoly you sometimes receive random cards from the decks.

Still, there is some strategy involved; "do I want to control the whole color block, and wait until I land on it to buy it? Or should I just buy property willy-nilly to avoid the other players from controlling a color block?"

I think they are equally balanced in terms of strategic thinking, but they both rely very heavily on random elements. I think a good game should be the other way around, maybe 75% skill, 25% luck. As the saying goes, fortunte favors the prepared..and the brave.

Silvermyst-
True, you can have games with a zero random factor built in. I was thinking more along the lines of computer type games. Mancala is an amazingly addictive game with no random factors either.

quote: Original post by Dauntless
I think they are equally balanced in terms of strategic thinking, but they both rely very heavily on random elements. I think a good game should be the other way around, maybe 75% skill, 25% luck. As the saying goes, fortunte favors the prepared..and the brave.

I still disagree. As someone who hates games of pure luck, when my girlfriend suggested we play Yahtzee I was a little skeptical. Once I actually played a few games I realized that there is actually quite a lot of depth to it, far more than I have ever experienced in a game of monopoly. After every roll, you have options, you can reroll, or you can keep what you have and assign it to one of your combos. Sometimes, you get a shite roll, so you have to figure out what you can do with your result that reduces the impact of the failure. For example, if you roll crap, you can either stick it in the ones section and only get a one or zero points, and try and make it up on something else, or get rid of the yahtzee option - although this will result in you losing out on a possible 50 points, there is a good chance you aren''t going to get a yahtzee anyway, since it is the hardest thing to roll. Furthermore, the combos you have already got can influence your decisions on which combos to go for.

I think a lot of the interest lies in the gambling aspect of the game... every decision in a game of yahtzee is a gamble, the winner is the player who can is better at managing risk. In monopoly, there is very little gambling - you have no influence whatsoever over the random elements of the game, and so they are able to dominate the non-random elements.

Look, its very simple... (and you seem to have neglected this point from my first post, probablly for the reason it negates your entire argument...)

Player A rolls 1-1-1-1-1 in Yahtzee EVERY roll.
Player B rolls 2-2-2-2-2 in Yahtzee EVERY roll.
-This game ends in a near tie, with Player B winning solely because his dice are worth more.-

Player A rolls 5-6 in Monopoly EVERY roll.
Player B rolls 6-6 in Monopoly EVERY roll.
-This game is undecided, as so many strageic variables enter into play. Properties, housing, etc.-

You see how the two are different? Monopoly relies on MUCH less luck then Yahtzee, as is clearly shown above.

As for the above example, you can get CRAP rolls in Monopoly too and you don't get _SECOND CHANCES_ in Monopoly to try for a better roll. If you land on Boardwalk you're screwed, you sell all your crap down to 1 properity and you coudl STILL win if you cunningly sell your properties for cash to build up the small properties you still have. Thats the whole point, theres just as much "assigning" "key" "values" in Monpoly (if not more) then in Yahtzee. Your entire argument is flawed. You look at the scoring in Yahtzee but neglect the properties in Monopoly.



Edited by - GroZZleR on February 11, 2002 7:28:58 PM

Grozzler: Have you ever actually played Yahtzee? Do you actually know anything about statistics?

I don''t need to even consider your counter argument, because it is based on such an extreme and ridiculous example that it may as well be completely irrelevent .

Over the course of the game, the random element will tend to even itself out. What is left is down to the player''s skill in taking risks and making good decisions.

In monopoly however, the random element serves only to amplify the differences between the players, meaning one unlucky roll can send you on the slope to defeat. Most actual decisions made during the game are no-brainers.

Anyway, I suggest you actually play Yahtzee. (properly, according to the rules, and with an open mind) Although I suspect you may need to play someone who is better than you at the game in order to demonstrate how much skill can make a difference.

Hi,

In regards to luck in ''classical'' games, I find that it depedns largly on what the other factors in the game are. I agree the monopoly is pretty much linear in terms of what choices you have (the dice give you one, maybe two choices to make each turn). My favourite board game at the moment is Go, which is like chess, but better Go has no luck in it at all, if you win it is because of the moves you made, and the moves your opponent made, it is a match of skills alone.

Although that isn''t to say that luck and chance are bad things, Table top RPGs like AD&D and Vampire make use of die rolls to determine the outcomes of actions, but I don''t find that this detracts from the game, because you have virtually unlimited choices of ''what'' actions to make, and this makes these games extremely strategic as well.

So basically, lucks ok, as long as it is secondary to player strategy.

In terms of Computer Games (RTSs in particular) I point to what I consider the best RTS of all time. Total Annihilaion. This game did away with almost all arbitary calculations and die rolls. In total annihilation, all projectile attacks, be they missiles, bullets, rockets, cannon shells et al, were actual objects, that followed the rules of physics, this meant several interesting things, first of all, no unit ever stopped moving just to shoot (except a couple of really big tanks) and this meant that a fast, weak unit could kill even really big tanks because it would literally run circles around him while shooting constantly. This was especialy good with bombers and fighters which would make strafing runs over the target before turning around and making another pass, this removal of "he has a 60% chance to hit unit X" and replacing it with "his turrent moves at X speed and has a rotaion of y degrees" meant battles were much more fun to watch and control

I do apologise for running on a bit...I get carried away sometimes.

Graeme Lowe

"In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation, Amen"

Graeme
I only played Total Annhilation a few times on a friend''s computer so I didn''t have much time to gain an opinion of it, but if that''s how it works out, I wouldn''t really like it too much.

Coming from a wargame and roleplaying background, there were always two major aspects to combat.

1) Did I hit the opponent?
2) How much damage did I do?

Note that 1) is essentially a Bool value: hit= true or hit= false

The Good games did this instead:

1) How well did I hit the enemy
2) How much damage did I do?

Notice the difference? Instead of a bool value, you now have a range of values...say 1= just barely hit, and 10= hit the target dead on.

I think this difference is critical. If a unit in a game simply calculates if it hits or not, then the damage and armor penetration are always presumed to be the same. However, if instead of a bool value you introduce a scale of values, then you have a much more dynamic, realistic and deeper game play design.

This can be represented as the target was just nicked, or that the Angle of Incidence of the attack made the attack virtually bounce off. This is a much more important factor than most people realize. It''s why tank designers make their armor as sloped as possible...ditto on capital ships.

I''m basically against anything that determines with 100% certainty that a certain effectA will happen because I triggered eventB. There are no 100% givens, maybe 99% but there''s still always that chance.