Poll: Plot take away/free plot event

[dynadan]

There has been a lot of debate on this issue, so thought a vote may be interesting for everyone.  And hopefully we can at least get the debate centralized here instead of all over the forum.

[piete]

If this was a totally new game I might have a different opinion, but since I've accustomed to playing Mule for a couple of decades I'd like to see a similar version to the original. But of course it is about all the events, not only lose/gain plot.

Whatever the result, I will keep playing this fine multiplayer game that resembles very much the original.

[dynadan]

You may be surprised to know I agree that events should start in round 1 (like the orginal 1983 version).  This creates a more dynamic and exciting game from the very beginning.  Since land auctions have been added to round 1 the game has gotten more interesting, but it has also become very formulated.  (everyone has decided that $972 is the maximum it is wise to bid)  If 1st round events were put back in, this number would not be nearly so static, and people in higher place would be gambling with their "game" by bidding high, and lower placed players could conceivably bid all their money and still have a chance to have an event give them enough money to afford a mule.

However the take away plot/free plot event does not work like all the other events in the game.  These events work opposite of how the other events work.  Events early in the game award/steal less money than events near the end of the game.  Land however, is much more valuable early than it is late in the game.  So maybe we should propose losing 3 plots of land or gaining 3 plots of land if it happens near the end of the game to even it up with how the other events work?  If you look at it like this I don't see why it is such a stretch that people are suggesting making the plot events happen later in the game only, and possibly to find a more fair way to implement them.

I just don't see the logic of having early events punish a maximum of $100 or so, while the take away a plot event punishes a player by roughly $3000. ($500 for the plot plus the value of everything that can be made on that plot)  Honestly if we were going to make it come into line with the other events you should only be able to lose/gain a plot starting around round 9.

I too love the game of Mule, but I would much prefer playing the best version we could make of the game while still staying true to the gameplay mechanics that made the game great.

[mikman]

I honestly 'feel' like the lose a plot happens way more than that I remember when I played it in the 80's on my C64 but I don't know for sure... I think the gain a plot happened more often than the lose a plot did but this is just a feeling :-)

[leahcim99]

Maybe I am alone in this thinking, however, I find much more harsh a punishment to lose a plot laster on in the game vs at the beginning.

If you lose it early, you have a longer time to get it back either through luck (BONUS PLOT) or get the cash together to buy 1.

Lose a plot late and odds are someone else will get it through the land grant and you will not have a chance to get it back.

I have recovered and won games when losing a plot before round 6 BUT I have NEVER won a game losing a plot after round 6.

From the games I have played in (and only Brad, rodz, and Rho have more games) I have seen many instances where players have recovered from early plot loss to finish 1 or 2 but RARELY have I seen a player lose a plot after round 6 and finish 2nd and only seen 1 win.

Also, as I believe piete stated in a different thread, it is the psychology of it all.....

The gain/loss just helps make the game a little more interesting - and are we not all here to have some fun.

Lose a plot 1 game, gain a plot in another, play long enough and it should all balance out

[dynadan]

@Leahcim99 .... I agree that it all evens out in the end.  However, I must strongly disagree with the assertion that a plot taken away/given late in a game is more valuable than early on.  Although i would welcome any evidence you have to back it up besides purely subjective experience.  I know I have won many, many games losing a plot late in the game (It may just be the nature of the different strategies we are using).  Losing or gaining a plot does have unique psychological components, but the nature of the event just does not fall in line with the other events....I could understand it being the most costly event by a factor of 2 or 3....but not by a factor of 30 like it is now.  I bet if you were to go back thru your games you would find a lot more winners that had plots taken away late, they probably just don't stick in your memory because early plot take aways are much more noteworthy.

[C64 nostalgia]

You may be surprised to know I agree that events should start in round 1 (like the orginal 1983 version).  This creates a more dynamic and exciting game from the very beginning.

This is my vote, "events should start in round 1 (like the orginal 1983 version)".

[dynadan]

i had posted this in the Last Place Descrepencies Thread, but was asked to move it here so we could continue the debate.  Also adding a little bit at the bottom.

I have spent the last couple of days researching exactly how the programmers felt about the game of M.U.L.E., and I have learned quite a few things i didn't know before.  At this point i realize that the battle lines have been drawn, and there is no way we are going to convince each other to change our opinions.  But here I go anyway.

First off, to restate the arguments for keeping the plot take away event in the game early :

1. Life isn't fair
2. The programmers could have changed it between the atari and c64 version if they didn't like it.
3. I have seen someone make a comeback after seeing it happen in round 2.
4. The original game of Mule was perfect and the programmers walk on water.

so here are my counter arguments:

1. Life isn't fair but the games we play should be.  We play games to either escape from real life or because we are not stimulated enough in real life.  Either way we play games because it is decidedly not like real life.
    Here is an interesting article on The Importance of Play written by Dani Bunten http://www.anticlockwise.com/dani/personal/biz/whyplay.htm

2. Both versions of the game were released the same year very close to each other.  And because they were both written in different programming languages there was simply no time they could have gotten input from their customers in time to make any changes.  In fact they tried to make the same version but it still had many changes that were different between the atari and c64 versions due to programming differences.

3. Yes it is possible to still win after having a plot taken away early.  A lot of us could still win losing our 1st 3 plots if we were playing against beginners.  However against opponents of equal skill it lowers your odds of winning considerably.  In the first couple of turns players have very little control on rankings.  Luck on production, and who started the game in which position and thus could buy land for $972 and drop to last seem to be the driving force on who is in what place the 1st 3 rounds.  These events just seem to work opposite of how the other events work.  Events early in the game award/steal less money than events near the end of the game.  Land however, is much more valuable early than it is late in the game.  So maybe we should propose losing 3 plots of land or gaining 3 plots of land if it happens near the end of the game to even it up with how the other events work?

4. I think the programmers would be the first people to admit that they were not perfect.  (reading about Dan Bunten's quest to become Danielle Bunten was very eye opening) But they did discover the importance of play testers to development teams.  We are the best Mule players to ever have lived.  As a community we have played the game more than anyone else.  I think we would be honoring the programmers by doing our best (as continuing play testers) to improve upon their creation.  I think they would be sad to see the argument that the game was "perfect" as the reason for not discussing how it would improve/unimprove the game by making these slight changes.
   "This was the game that taught me the value of play-testing where you watch and talk to real people about the game while it's under development. After all, games are a form of communication that can only be confirmed by checking whether it works against an audience. "       Excerpt from Dani Bunten's Memoirs.


Here is my reasoning for moving the plot events to round 4:  In the early rounds players have very little control over who is going to be in the top 2 positions, this has become much more pronounced with the addition of the 1st round auctions.  The biggest factor by far is what position you started the game in.  Consider these common examples:
A.  There were 2 land auctions in round 1, and both sold to the bottom placed people for $972.  Round 2 comes along and one of the guys who started the game in 1st or 2nd place loses a plot (remember they will be both be guaranteed to be in the top 2 spots).  Now instead of being of being 1 plot down, he is 2 plots down.  He has done nothing wrong, and within 5 minutes of starting the game his odds of winning drop by probably a factor of 5-10....i.e. A player that normally wins 50% will win 10%-5% of the time from that point forward.  Does he still have a chance? Sure.  Is it a fair chance considering what has happened so far? I don't think so.
B.  There were no land auctions in round 1.  All 4 players develop their plots, get the wumpus and visit the pub.  In this case it comes down to who produces the most units.  Thru random luck and having no bearing on how the game has developed so far, your odds of winning have gone down by about a factor of 4 -8 times.  (not quite as much as previous example because you are only 1 plot down)

I feel that it takes roughly 3 rounds for the game to develop and for players to make their strategic moves enough to escape the positions that everyone started in.   That  reason, plus the fact that in the 1st 3 rounds the Land Event is more powerful than the 2nd best event by a factor of 30! (If we moved it to round 4 it would still be 10-15 times as valuable as the 2nd biggest event!)   And also the psychological effect of having to play for another 90 minutes knowing that your chances of winning are now 1/10th of what they were when you started the game 5 minutes ago.  So that's my argument in a nutshell. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this and please consider my thoughts with an open mind.  I welcome anyone to try and sway me to a different viewpoint.  I set the poll so we could change our votes

[piete]

1. Life isn't fair
2. The programmers could have changed it between the atari and c64 version if they didn't like it.
3. I have seen someone make a comeback after seeing it happen in round 2.
4. The original game of Mule was perfect and the programmers walk on water.

1. True
2. True
3. Been there, done that. And it makes the victory much more satisfying.
4. Since you expressed the hypothesis this way, I'm inclined to believe it unless proven otherwise. Like in "I, Robot" that I just watched:
"A robot can no more commit murder than a human can walk on water.

Well, you know there was this one guy a long time ago."

Seriously though, you have a good reasoning, dynadan. I don't, and I don't even like it when someone buys the plot on r1 and leaves me with a chance of losing one of my fewer plots, but for some reason it makes the game more interesting for me. Maybe I just like the extra challenge.

[Rhodan]

Maybe I am alone in this thinking, however, I find much more harsh a punishment to lose a plot laster on in the game vs at the beginning.

If you lose it early, you have a longer time to get it back either through luck (BONUS PLOT) or get the cash together to buy 1.

Lose a plot late and odds are someone else will get it through the land grant and you will not have a chance to get it back.

I have recovered and won games when losing a plot before round 6 BUT I have NEVER won a game losing a plot after round 6.

From the games I have played in (and only Brad, rodz, and Rho have more games) I have seen many instances where players have recovered from early plot loss to finish 1 or 2 but RARELY have I seen a player lose a plot after round 6 and finish 2nd and only seen 1 win.

Also, as I believe piete stated in a different thread, it is the psychology of it all.....

The gain/loss just helps make the game a little more interesting - and are we not all here to have some fun.

Lose a plot 1 game, gain a plot in another, play long enough and it should all balance out

Loosing a mule due to plot loss, radiation, meteor or quake(quake has less impact because it happens after production) has far greater impact in the later rounds say around 8 or 9 and later then the early rounds.

The reason?

In the last rounds players finally have enough plots to start hitting the production bonuses that 6 plots (2 units per plot) , 9 plots (3 per plot) and 12 plots (4 per plot) give. 
Loose a mule and you lost the cost of the mule, plus its production and the bonus production on the rest of your plots. PLot loss event adds another $500 loss
So a player in first or second producing 9 stite takes one of the random events, he looses between 9 and 16 units of production at a average price of 100 per unit.

Now if we didnt have these random events players who jump to a early lead 1st or 2nd would always win.
They would hit their production bonuses with no fear of loss and there is no way to catch them unless you had acquired more land then them and develop it accordingly.

Random events provides balance, excitement, expectation, disappointment, hope, etc. to the game!
Get rid of one or change it to only happen during x rounds will ruin the game.

Probability of events has already changed since the last version or two and no longer match the percentage of chance the old C64/Atari version had or even earlier PM versions. This has greatly reduced my enjoyment of the game and further tinkering with them would have a detrimental affect on every player.

Please ignore the requests to change these events and work on finding out why the probability of these events are now different. 

[Bumbes]

My vote for the classic variation here, all events in #1. Why? It's just more exciting and bad news do hurt all the game anyway.


There's a different algorithm regarding the losing plot event, classic will always take the plot most down and right on the map, PM takes a plot just if there's no mule installed.
In the endgame I often recognized that radiation or quake as 1st and losing a plot next turn even in 2nd position is connected, just because there's no mule installed.

Btw the chance to lose a land in round #1 is 0.3% in C64 and 0% in the Atari version.

http://www.smithore.com/eventstats.php

[dynadan]

@Piete
        I know you were just messing with me.  But you may have invented a new debate technique of just agreeing with your own arguments.


@Rhodan
        Not one person has advocated removing the random events that helps even out the game by hurting the top 2 places.  As you stated it is a great part of the game and should remain.  So I don't understand who you were talking to.  Also, I don't think there has been any adjustments at all to the various percentages of events within the last 5 months (Only the developers know for sure)  So quit playing if you choose but don't make up reasons.  Also, the c64 and atari versions didn't even have the exact same percentages so I am not sure how you want the developers to make it the same.  Even if there had been a change there is no way you could have noticed it, since it would take 100's and possibly 1000's of games and perfect record keeping to give an even semi-accurate view of the random distribution of the events.

Also, Leahcim and I were talking about the plot take away event, not the meteor, radiation, or quake.  And more specifically if the plot take away event was more costly to the player at the start of a game or at the end.  A plot taken away early will still end up costing you your magic 9 bonus for at least 1 round at some point, but will also cost you a magic 6 at some point and a magic 3 also.  The number of infrastructure (food and energy) plots you need does not usually change when you lose a plot.  You do bring up an interesting point about the bonuses though, so I am changing the valuation of a plot take away to $500 plus the value of whatever you can make on that plot for the rest of the game plus the value of all the bonuses you would lose for the rest of the game.  With that addition losing a plot early on is even more costly than losing it late in game.


@ Bumbes
         Wow what a great link that was.  Thank you very much!!!  Were you advocating making the lose plot event predictable (most bottom/right plot) like apparently the original did?  I too have noticed an apparent correlation between the losing a mule the round before and then losing a plot the next round later.  This correlation only seems to happen later on in the game.  Not sure what causes it, it might be how the developers have programmed the odds to be calculated.

@everyone
          I still haven't seen a compelling argument for why the lose a plot event earlier than round 4 makes the game better.  All the other events start small and get bigger, but the lose plot event starts at devastating (when margins are smallest) and gradually drops to huge (when margins are biggest).  I understand the desire to make planet mule as close to the original as possible.  I just think on this one issue the original got it wrong.

[C64 nostalgia]

The events in M.U.L.E. were modeled after the Chance and Community Chest cards from Monopoly. They are intended to be random without regard to when drawn during a game.

If you look at all the player events and when they are most helpful or hurtful, you can quickly set aside the monetary events and the 2 unit smithore gift. When you are very poor they make a difference. Otherwise, they typically don't help nor hinder much in the last half of the game.

The remaining player events can make a big difference. A package from home and Glac-Elves eating half your food can be great, but often times they don't make big differences. The final player events... award or loss of a plot. Out of 22 player events, only 2 (maybe 4) matter... I find this funny (and warrants a whole other thread or two of discussion).

I like the random. Random is awesome. The fact only 4 events out of 22 have a meaningful impact, gives me good odds. So, give me all the events starting from the very beginning. I'll take my luck and... Spin the wheel, roll the dice, let me hit it big!

[Rhodan]

@Piete
        I know you were just messing with me.  But you may have invented a new debate technique of just agreeing with your own arguments.


@Rhodan
        Not one person has advocated removing the random events that helps even out the game by hurting the top 2 places.  As you stated it is a great part of the game and should remain.  So I don't understand who you were talking to.  Also, I don't think there has been any adjustments at all to the various percentages of events within the last 5 months (Only the developers know for sure)  So quit playing if you choose but don't make up reasons.  Also, the c64 and atari versions didn't even have the exact same percentages so I am not sure how you want the developers to make it the same.  Even if there had been a change there is no way you could have noticed it, since it would take 100's and possibly 1000's of games and perfect record keeping to give an even semi-accurate view of the random distribution of the events.

Also, Leahcim and I were talking about the plot take away event, not the meteor, radiation, or quake.  And more specifically if the plot take away event was more costly to the player at the start of a game or at the end.  A plot taken away early will still end up costing you your magic 9 bonus for at least 1 round at some point, but will also cost you a magic 6 at some point and a magic 3 also.  The number of infrastructure (food and energy) plots you need does not usually change when you lose a plot.  You do bring up an interesting point about the bonuses though, so I am changing the valuation of a plot take away to $500 plus the value of whatever you can make on that plot for the rest of the game plus the value of all the bonuses you would lose for the rest of the game.  With that addition losing a plot early on is even more costly than losing it late in game.


@ Bumbes
         Wow what a great link that was.  Thank you very much!!!  Were you advocating making the lose plot event predictable (most bottom/right plot) like apparently the original did?  I too have noticed an apparent correlation between the losing a mule the round before and then losing a plot the next round later.  This correlation only seems to happen later on in the game.  Not sure what causes it, it might be how the developers have programmed the odds to be calculated.

@everyone
          I still haven't seen a compelling argument for why the lose a plot event earlier than round 4 makes the game better.  All the other events start small and get bigger, but the lose plot event starts at devastating (when margins are smallest) and gradually drops to huge (when margins are biggest).  I understand the desire to make planet mule as close to the original as possible.  I just think on this one issue the original got it wrong.

You haven't provided any logic of why to restrict the plot loss event.
Plot loss in early rounds has a far lesser impact then in later rounds and can actually be helpful.
Loosing a plot early immediately puts you in last were you have choice of plot selection, first to buy out ore, food or energy and the chance to have good random events happen to you, etc.
I have seen good players purposely loose money, limit production or buy/sell goods to loose more points then plot loss takes away to drop out of 1st.
Your logic to change this event is based solely on the emotion it causes when it happens to you.

I am not alone in regards to the feeling that the probability of events has changed. I am sure it wasnt done intentionally but code has been changed and added to make these new versions so its quite possible a bug has occurred to make this happen. PM saves all the game logs so if someone had the time and knowledge to crunch this data we could find out for sure. As to the old C64/Atari games this data has been crunch and the percentages posted. The old game code as also been posted which can tell us the percentages that events occur.

[dynadan]

@Rhodan
       I have given pages of arguments on why plot loss before round 4 makes the game worse.  So either you haven't read my posts or you are "loose"ing your mind.  Good players DO purposely sandbag to drop in position but can you honestly tell me you have seen someone not choose a plot to drop in position?

My reasoning has nothing to do with emotion or how it makes me personally feel when i lose a plot.  I adjust my strategy to deal with whatever rule set is in place.  My reasons for wanting to change the plot loss event is purely to make Mule a better game.  If I have selfish motivations it is the desire to have more mule players by improving the game.

As far as the event probabilities changing.  Compile history or it didn't happen  Honestly, there is no way you, me, or anyone else can subjectively keep track of the odds of the events without long term methodical record keeping.  It's just not possible unless you contract Rain Man, and even then not one of us has played enough games since the last couple patches to accurately say through subjective experience.  I am not interested in spending anymore of my time refuting your claims, so if you want people to take you serious compile the last 1000 games.  This reminds me of the internet poker is rigged arguments that appear on the poker forums when someone gets their aces cracked.

@C64Nostalgia
      I must disagree that the monetary events are unimportant.  I have seen many games decided in the 12th round when someone gets $800 for their personal computer or a dead relative.  Or someone elses mining mules break down.  When looking at the dollar amount of these events the plot take away event later on in the game seems much more in line.  I do agree the 2 bar of smithore event is pretty weak.  It should be 8 bars of smithore by the end of the game to be in line with the other events.  Again, taking a plot away in the 2nd round from a player who is ahead $1-$300 is punishing that player $3000 or more when the 2nd most powerful event is valued at $100 is not a good element in the game.  There is a reason the Monopoly chance cards don't have one that causes you to lose a property, or a lose all your money card, or a destroy all your houses card.  The random elements should help play a part in who wins, but a single event should not have as large as an effect as the losing a plot event does in round 2 and 3.

@Mute
      Congratz on your win.   It does feel good to comeback from having a bad start.  I totally think you probably deserved to lose your round 4 plot, after all you were in 1st or 2nd.  I think there is a big difference between round 2 and round 4 though.  And yes it's still possible to win losing a plot in round 2.