One thing that tends to be weak in strategy games is “opponent’s choice” effects, where an ability has multiple possible effects and an opponent chooses which is resolved. Usually, each effect is stronger than what you would normally get for a card with that price, but in practice these cards are often quite weak.
For instance, the Magic: the Gathering card “Book Burning” looks quite strong in theory, as it either does 6 damage or mills 6 cards (both strong effects that might well be worth more than the card’s cost, since this was a set where having cards in your graveyard was quite relevant). However, in fact it is quite weak, because in practice you will always get the effect that is less relevant; if the opponent has life to spare they’ll take damage, and if the mill is no longer relevant they’ll let you mill instead.
This pattern holds true across multiple games. In Legend of the Five Rings, Levy is similarly weak despite the fact that a card that did only one of its effects would likely be overpowered, as one effect or the other is likely to be much less relevant at any point in the game and the opponent can always choose the less relevant effect.
I can’t tell if this is just another example that strategic choices tend to be valuable (guaranteed non-negative, but in practice usually positive). OF COURSE an opponent’s choice is going to reduce your value in a zero-sum game.
An interesting example of a related thing is “charm” effects, where you pick between multiple things you can do with a card, all of them are sort of bad for the price, but the flexibility makes it worth it overall. Sometimes people focus a lot on “raw efficiency”, but when it’s between you picking the best of several inefficient options or your opponent picking the worst of several highly efficient options, the former tends to be much better.
Now I want to play a game where every card has at least one weak option, or I can let my opponent choose which strong effect I get. This would probably work best where only one card (or other action, such as in a worker placement game) is played per turn.
I remember seeing a deal from a bank where the bank got to chose whether to pay a fixed interest rate or a variable one and either path looked like a good deal but the fact that the bank would chose meant you would always end on the wrong side of the market. I wish I could remember the exact promotion.
Strategy mini-post:
One thing that tends to be weak in strategy games is “opponent’s choice” effects, where an ability has multiple possible effects and an opponent chooses which is resolved. Usually, each effect is stronger than what you would normally get for a card with that price, but in practice these cards are often quite weak.
For instance, the Magic: the Gathering card “Book Burning” looks quite strong in theory, as it either does 6 damage or mills 6 cards (both strong effects that might well be worth more than the card’s cost, since this was a set where having cards in your graveyard was quite relevant). However, in fact it is quite weak, because in practice you will always get the effect that is less relevant; if the opponent has life to spare they’ll take damage, and if the mill is no longer relevant they’ll let you mill instead.
This pattern holds true across multiple games. In Legend of the Five Rings, Levy is similarly weak despite the fact that a card that did only one of its effects would likely be overpowered, as one effect or the other is likely to be much less relevant at any point in the game and the opponent can always choose the less relevant effect.
I can’t tell if this is just another example that strategic choices tend to be valuable (guaranteed non-negative, but in practice usually positive). OF COURSE an opponent’s choice is going to reduce your value in a zero-sum game.
I do want to warn against applying to other aspects of life that aren’t purely zero-sum and aren’t designed by a human to balance the power between both parties. See also https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHBdcHGLJ7KvLJQPk/the-logical-fallacy-of-generalization-from-fictional
An interesting example of a related thing is “charm” effects, where you pick between multiple things you can do with a card, all of them are sort of bad for the price, but the flexibility makes it worth it overall. Sometimes people focus a lot on “raw efficiency”, but when it’s between you picking the best of several inefficient options or your opponent picking the worst of several highly efficient options, the former tends to be much better.
Now I want to play a game where every card has at least one weak option, or I can let my opponent choose which strong effect I get. This would probably work best where only one card (or other action, such as in a worker placement game) is played per turn.
Do you think this is relevant to more real world strategy situations?
I remember seeing a deal from a bank where the bank got to chose whether to pay a fixed interest rate or a variable one and either path looked like a good deal but the fact that the bank would chose meant you would always end on the wrong side of the market. I wish I could remember the exact promotion.
In MTG the card “Browbeat” is pretty effective: any player can choose to take 5 damage, or you* get to draw 3 cards.
*Technically the target.
Interestingly that’s actually quite disputed—you linked to a reprint of the card that displays as being rated 5⁄5, but the original printing of the card is actually rated 3.455 out of 5.
(That said, it’s certainly better than Book Burning!)
I wasn’t linking to that for the 5⁄5 star rating—there are zero votes.