For the last time its rubbish because you cannot possibly get an advantage in city count or size without your opponent getting another advantage. You cannot analyse all the possibilities numerically........civ is a fluid game with tech, growth, expansion, and production. YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP THE OTHERS. Maybe I have more cities, and this could potentially snowball. But will it in reality? Maybe, but not if you have an army to take my cities away, or lesser well developed cities that give you a tech advantage that you can use against me.
You can go on about your stats all you like (and I do understand the need for scientific analysis......I have a ph.d, I build and evaluate economic models for a living) but ultimately the question of whether a game is balanced or suffers too much from positive feedback loops can only be seen from playtesting as the disparate components cannot be analysed properly in isolation.
From my extensive playtesting I conclude that there is a possiblility for technological progress to snowball (and also this is clearly what BR had in mind in that interview), and I agree with how that has been addressed civ3, but otherwise there is no need for complaint.
All you concrete example shows is that if I have bigger and better cities I will probably win. That's bloody obvious......but in reality one advantage can only be obtained by giving up another, so the case you analyse is of no use whatsoever.
You can go on about your stats all you like (and I do understand the need for scientific analysis......I have a ph.d, I build and evaluate economic models for a living) but ultimately the question of whether a game is balanced or suffers too much from positive feedback loops can only be seen from playtesting as the disparate components cannot be analysed properly in isolation.
From my extensive playtesting I conclude that there is a possiblility for technological progress to snowball (and also this is clearly what BR had in mind in that interview), and I agree with how that has been addressed civ3, but otherwise there is no need for complaint.
All you concrete example shows is that if I have bigger and better cities I will probably win. That's bloody obvious......but in reality one advantage can only be obtained by giving up another, so the case you analyse is of no use whatsoever.
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