Hey all.



I would like to hear your interpretations on what´s the difference between Normal and Many anomalies for muliplayer. I´m looking for comments in general, but I´ll leave guide question.



-Is the game objectively easier for absolutely anyone? Why?



-Is the game easier for certain factions? Why?



-Do regions lose strategic value on high anomalies? Why?



I´ll probably elaborate later, but I personally like Many anomalies for several reason. First I think it makes the game faster, although not necessarily easier for this or that player, since everyone is playing the same board. Second, I think it´s more fair - there´s a larger difference between one faction with an anomaly and one without it than there is between a faction with 4 anomalies and one with 2. Third, it leads to less unexperienced players leaving the game because of a frustrating start. Fourth, luck has less to do with a player´s ability to field an efficient military sooner.



What are your thoughts?

Gameplay/speed thoughts aside, my issue with "Many" anomalies is that you are putting more weight on a random element (starting position). If the starts were balanced then giving more resources start would be fine.



I disagree that giving more resources upfront helps inexperienced players, as experienced players will better be able to exploit the faster start.

Don´t you think starting positions matter more when there´s less anomalies? My impression of Many anomalies games is that there´s less difference between a lucky and an unlucky start. Worst case scenario you usually end up having to settle on turn 2, but you´ll certainly be settling somewhere competitive.



And I didn´t say more anomalies help unexperienced players, just that it gives them the impression that their start is better. As I said, I don´t think the balance is affected at all - although I agree an experienced player can capitalize better on better yields.

I agree with you BPbrado. On normal anomalies, a guy with two anomalies have a huge boost. On High, it is quite commun.



I prefer to play a game less founded on luck but more on skill and adaptation to the situations.



And, as we know, more animalies = more cities in early game, so more risk, more excitation, and faster developpement.

BPrado wrote:
Don´t you think starting positions matter more when there´s less anomalies? My impression of Many anomalies games is that there´s less difference between a lucky and an unlucky start. Worst case scenario you usually end up having to settle on turn 2, but you´ll certainly be settling somewhere competitive.

It's more about net difference and what you get. The type matters as certain things are more important early in the game. Maybe I got more but you got more . Maybe I got 2 anomalies and you got none.



This is really a matter of preference. Most MP players want the game to move faster so this seems like a kick start.



I'm just not sure that putting more in the hands of the RNG is better. Maybe start a couple games in debug mode and look at all of the starts. I don't have any evidence that this is an issue, just a hunch.

I'm not really sure if Many anomalies makes for more balanced starts or not. The person in a normal game with 2 anomalies gets an advantage, yeah, but so does the person in a many anomalies game who starts with 4 anomalies. Maybe the most balanced is few, where nobody is likely to start with anything. Anomalies aren't all created equally, anyways. +10 approval, industry bonuses are awesome, while there are a couple of factions who see absolutely no benefit from "Black Earth"...



Agree that it prevents people from dropping-- but that's a short term gain. Eventually, people get accustomed to many anoms and then they want to drop when they can only exploit two anomalies with their first city.



Also agree that it makes for a faster game. Don't agree re: military, though: defenders can make military faster, but so can aggressors.



I think a higher number of anomalies provides a slight benefit for wide play. Your first settlement in any region is going to exploit the most anomalies in a region; after that, you've got to chase them with districts. Cultists probably suffer, relatively, under many anomalies. Anybody with a "+1 to tiles with" sees relatively less benefit from that, anybody with a "-1 to tiles with" sees relatively less pain from that, and anybody with "-all to tiles with" sees more pain from that. But all of those are relatively minor effects.



I don't mind playing with any anomaly setting. The differences in balance are minor enough that you don't even need to change your playstyle, other than accelerate your timetable.

Propbuddha wrote:
It's more about net difference and what you get. The type matters as certain things are more important early in the game. Maybe I got more but you got more . Maybe I got 2 anomalies and you got none.

Yes, I wonder if there´s any sort of pre-determined control in the distribution of anomalies apart from their raw chance of showing up. Playing wild walkers, whenever I get the Quest to settle the "perfect spot", the perfect spot will be there, in some region neighboring my starting one, and I don´t know if that´s an illusion from probability or if the game is in fact manipulating the generator.

natev wrote:
I'm not really sure if Many anomalies makes for more balanced starts or not. The person in a normal game with 2 anomalies gets an advantage, yeah, but so does the person in a many anomalies game who starts with 4 anomalies. Maybe the most balanced is few, where nobody is likely to start with anything.



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Also agree that it makes for a faster game. Don't agree re: military, though: defenders can make military faster, but so can aggressors.



...



The differences in balance are minor enough that you don't even need to change your playstyle, other than accelerate your timetable.

Yes, the few next games I host will be "Few" anomalies, cause I have a feeling you´re totally right.



When I talk about the fielding of a military, I´m not saying it´s easier or harder to defend/attack, only that the perception of a better economy probably leads to more players investing on units sooner - at least, it should enable them.



And yeah, that´s how I feel.





I should probably have mentioned Few anomalies in the OP, but I really lack any experience on it. I´ll comment as I play some games.

BPrado wrote:
Yes, the few next games I host will be "Few" anomalies, cause I have a feeling you´re totally right.

I was serious with my "maybe", I'm far from sure. Counter-intuitively, the way to balance out randomness is to make more random decisions, not fewer. Not sure if that applies to this situation or not, I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

natev wrote:
I was serious with my "maybe", I'm far from sure. Counter-intuitively, the way to balance out randomness is to make more random decisions, not fewer. Not sure if that applies to this situation or not, I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

Statistically speaking, this is absolutely correct. The more random decisions available the less the impact of each random decision has. In the case of anomalies, the difference between having 0 anomalies and having 1 anomaly is huge, the difference between having 1 and having 2 is slightly less large, the difference between having 2 and having 3 anomalies is getting even smaller, etc. Likewise you can exchange having or not having an anomaly with the usefulness of the anomaly or any other variable you choose. However once you take the actual game play into account you run into a different problem: the importance of thresholds. What I mean by this is that events have a certain threshold for them to happen. For example when you construct a building it requires a certain amount of industry, if you have the full amount it will take you a single turn, if you miss it by just 1 industry point than it will take 2 turns, so 1 full turn more for just a single point of industry missing. These single turn savings can in turn snowball as having a certain powerful effect from a building 1 turn sooner can make a huge difference. The best example is wonders(hi Industrial Megapole), building it 1 turn faster can be the difference between winning the race and losing it. Thus when taking thresholds into account, different choices have different impacts, which negates conventional probabilities as some probabilities are stronger than others. In other words the connection between the number of random decisions and the effect of each decision is not linear, which in turn negates conventional probabilities. Therefore having more random decisions doesn't necessarily reduce the impact each decision has, which in turn means that the larger spectrum created by the larger number of random choices actually increases the overall randomness rather than reduce it.



TL : DR playing with many anomalies should statistically make for more balanced games, however due to the way 4x games work with their thresholds more randomness actually makes for less balanced games because the various random choices aren't created equal. Thus playing with few anomalies actually make for the most balanced games on average.