rakenan: I've never found a campaign in an empire builder game particularly compelling. The only game of the type I've played and enjoyed that had a campaign was Galactic Civilizations II, and I found the campaign to be by far the least interesting part of the game.

These are sandbox games. Being shoehorned into somebody else's story just doesn't do it for me. That works fine for action and roleplaying games, and even for war games. For empire builders, the campaigns just leave me cold.

EvilLoynis: I will admit to all here that in any TBS game I have probably spent less than 5% of the time actually playing the campaign for it. That being said sometimes they do have quite nifty story lines and reasons for some of the things in the game that you wondered at that you find out that way. It's always nice to have the option is all.

Vissavald: For now it looks exactly like Elemental... Age Of Wonders 3 is my favorite still.

rakenan: The best part of Master of Magic is how they took every idea that looked awesome and just ran with it. Elemental and most of MoM's other "spiritual successors" have worried too much about balance.

rakenan: Balance is inherently good.

EvilLoynis: Sadly seeing these 2 things is starting to give me doubts. I don't know how or if they are ever actually going to manage to justify, story/plot wise, all those different planes and spells. I mean beyond the 5 standard (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) and perhaps the normal plane just not sure what the last one is. Also usually planes and circles of magic go together so not sure why they need 12 circles, it just seems that they are going to have way to much overlap or useless spells. I hate useless things in game that are just there to be there.

MoM actually does suffer from this because of the fact that every school of magic has to have 10/10/10/9 Common, Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare spells. It just stands to reason that some are almost useless and are just there to give each the same number. Especially for the cost they give them as well.

I just hope WoM is keeping the above in mind.

rakenan: The best part of Master of Magic is how they took every idea that looked awesome and just ran with it. Elemental and most of MoM's other "spiritual successors" have worried too much about balance.

It's not that I think balance doesn't matter - I totally think it's important, and MoM would be a much better game if a few relatively minor tweaks were done to improve balance. But balance doesn't make a game great. Great ideas make a game great, and balance just polishes it up.

MoM, even with all its balance issues, is at worst a flawed gem. Most of the others are just well polished pieces of shiny glass. I'm hoping Worlds of Magic will hold tight to big ideas and let the balance take care of itself over time.

rakenan: I think we are coming at this question from opposite directions.

You see imbalance as desirable because it promotes interesting choices

I see balance as desirable because it provides structure for those choices.

It is the dynamic tension between the two that makes a great game. Without some regard for balance, you end up with choices that are stupidly good to the extent that no player who wants to win would ever make other choices. Such choices are not interesting at all. With too much regard for balance, you end up with choices that are so similar that they just don't matter - whatever you choose, it won't make a difference in the game. Those choices are, if anything, even less interesting.

You cannot have controlled imbalance without an underlying structure, and that underlying structure must be balanced. Whenever an aspect of imbalance is not part of that controlled and skillfully crafted imbalance, it should be pared away to reveal the fundamentally balanced foundations of the game. And even the imbalance should be crafted so as to minimize the number of major choices which are, at least in game terms, clearly bad or clearly good - because choosing the option that is plainly and obviously correct is not an interesting choice.

rakenan: I think we are coming at this question from opposite directions.

You see imbalance as desirable because it promotes interesting choices

I see balance as desirable because it provides structure for those choices.

It is the dynamic tension between the two that makes a great game. Without some regard for balance, you end up with choices that are stupidly good to the extent that no player who wants to win would ever make other choices. Such choices are not interesting at all. With too much regard for balance, you end up with choices that are so similar that they just don't matter - whatever you choose, it won't make a difference in the game. Those choices are, if anything, even less interesting.

You cannot have controlled imbalance without an underlying structure, and that underlying structure must be balanced. Whenever an aspect of imbalance is not part of that controlled and skillfully crafted imbalance, it should be pared away to reveal the fundamentally balanced foundations of the game. And even the imbalance should be crafted so as to minimize the number of major choices which are, at least in game terms, clearly bad or clearly good - because choosing the option that is plainly and obviously correct is not an interesting choice.