Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I often think of ways to balance 40K, and read other threads that have similar goals. Often, as the discussion unfolds someone mentions chess as a balanced game, followed by someone saying that white is OP.


I have pondered this, and come to the conclusion that if both players write their desired move on a paper and then reveal those moves simultaneously, then actually make said move sequentially, the game would be perfectly balanced, aside from player skill. Thoughts?

Yes, this will make the game take longer, it is just an exercise in game balance, and the thought process behind it.

Wont work without a major overhaul of the rules, or teaching everyone how to properly use a compass (i.e. I will move 3" at 60deg, and then a further 3" at 45deg)

It might help balance the advantages of going first but does very little to address some of the far bigger problems of over/undercoated high/low performance entries.

A wargame could use something like this if it were using grids or hexes, or had some other highly abstracted movement mechanic.

Otherwise I think you'll just end up with arguing about excat placements/measurements, especially if the system is using TLoS.

Chess is not perfectly balanced, but it's almost perfectly balanced. "White is OP" statements are usually said in jest.

I don't think there's such a thing as a perfectly balanced game. That doesn't mean we should stop making games as balanced as possible.

 megatrons2nd wrote:

I have pondered this, and come to the conclusion that if both players write their desired move on a paper and then reveal those moves simultaneously, then actually make said move sequentially, the game would be perfectly balanced, aside from player skill. Thoughts?

Alternate activation might be a less extreme method, along with a sane points system and some actual tactical mechanics.

instead of writing down your movement you would be better off using the bolt action rules by picking a random die out of a bag. But that would not fix the balance of 40k, complete rewrite of the rulebook and all codex would be needed. As long as GW is writing the rules and codex this is never going to happen.

Coin toss is balanced.

Points based games can get close enough to be functional, but never perfect.

How is chess not completely balanced?

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
How is chess not completely balanced?

The key word is perfectly. Statistically, white has a minuscule advantage from going first.

Balance was one of the chaos gods, you can guess what happened to it

Who would take priority if both players entered the same square?

Thunderdome!

The problem is the scale of the task. Pre-planning moves for half a dozen models on a strict grid is fine - X-wing does precisely that (if you allow for a 'grid' made up of possible moves using the templates).

Pre-planning moves for a couple of dozen models? You'd spend a quarter of an hour between turns!

Games can be closely balanced without being identical, and often, the more tightly controlled the game (in terms of movement, actions, etc), the better balanced it is.

Space Hulk is an incredibly tactical game despite the fact that it's hard to imagine two 'sides' more tactically different. It's one of the best games - challenge-wise - that GW has ever produced. As is Blood Bowl.

It boils down to this:
If you constrain a game to a half dozen to a dozen 'pieces' (allowing for a squadron/squad/etc to be a 'piece') and can accurately predict their movement options, you're in a much better position to plan chess-like maneuvers to limit an opponent's options or force them to do what they want.

drop pods and jetbikes, which can effectively relocate anywhere on the board with no penalty, and 360 arc of fire shooting, actively reduce this because it doesn't give you any reward for moving well or outthinking an opponent. This is why turrets get a lot of hate in X-wing, and Carriers got the same in Battlefleet Gothic.

It's why a lot of people considered Warhammer Fantasy Battle 'more tactical' than 40k. For the record, I agree; it was more tactical - because of predictable and relatively slow maneuvering, and the importance of flanking, limited arcs of fire, etc. It was also less strategic because unlike 40k's multiple objectives the 'mission' was rarely more complex than 'first one to die loses'.

Noting your movements secretly then revealing them CAN be a good way of playing a game, it's not really suited to 40k though.

I haven't played it myself but Wings of Glory uses that sort of system with cards. Anyone familiar with the game can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the way it works is you have a deck of cards that represents all the manoeuvres for your aircraft, both players select the card they want the aircraft to do, then you reveal them and move the aircraft appropriately.

Aeronautica Imperialis uses a similar system, but it's not entirely down to preselection. The way that works, you again have manoeuvre cards, but you have a certain distance you can move according to how fast the aircraft is moving and you play the card at some point in that movement. So you preselect what manoeuvres you are going to perform, but then players alternate in moving aircraft, so even though you might have locked in "hard turn" you can apply it in different ways depending on what your opponent is doing.

It only works in those games because you only have a few aircraft of which to keep track. Wouldn't work in 40k.

I thought the OP was referring to secret notes and simultaneous moves for chess, not 40k.

I remember an historic version of Chess that used dice - you rolled two dice, and could only move the corresponding pieces. (A 1 was a Pawn, a 2 was a Bishop, a 3 was a Knight, a 4 was a Rook, a 5 was the Queen, and a 6 was the King. So if you rolled a 2 and a 6 you could move either a Bishop or the King.)

The Auld Grump

Extra Credit on Perfect Imbalance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Balancing for Skill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

Balancing Turn-based Games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRHdIScOMWQ

I'm not an expert on chess, but I hope to be one day. I'm an ECF member, and I play sometimes for my city in the local league. White is well known to have "the initiative", because he gets to move first, and usually tries to control the centre with moves like e4 (Kings pawn opening). Black needs to try and overcome that advantage to win. At a professional level, a lot of masters won't even try to win with black, preferring to keep the game closed and play for a draw (there are a lot of draws in chess). When black players do want to play for a win, they most frequently respond with the Sicilian defence (Queen's bishop pawn to c5), which is, by no coincidence, also a good way of asserting pressure on the centre.

As for war games, I've played a computer skirmish game called Broken Synapse (which I highly recommend btw), in which you need to plan all the moves for a sort of a swat team, and then they are played out. It's very interesting and teaches you the importance of staying in cover. It would be pretty difficult to port that to the tabletop, although I think infinity captures a lot of the "essence" of simultaneous turns with the auto reaction orders.

X-Wing uses blind orders, and that works pretty well, though the game is quite simple, and movement templates remove a lot of ambiguity.

The Game of Thrones board game also uses blind orders that are revealed later, so you can you find out everyone lied about who they were going to attack.

It might work for chess I suppose. There are actually quite a lot of chess variants, it probably already exists... I wouldn't expect it to catch on though. Usually with chess you kind of know what your opponent is going to do anyway, and you're trying to play a few moves ahead, so making the first move blind probably won't mean much.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I remember an historic version of Chess that used dice - you rolled two dice, and could only move the corresponding pieces. (A 1 was a Pawn, a 2 was a Bishop, a 3 was a Knight, a 4 was a Rook, a 5 was the Queen, and a 6 was the King. So if you rolled a 2 and a 6 you could move either a Bishop or the King.)

The Auld Grump

That sounds much more fun.

Simultaneous movement using written orders can work well but the game needs to be written to support the concept. It is hard to bolt on as an extra.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Noting your movements secretly then revealing them CAN be a good way of playing a game, it's not really suited to 40k though.

I haven't played it myself but Wings of Glory uses that sort of system with cards. Anyone familiar with the game can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the way it works is you have a deck of cards that represents all the manoeuvres for your aircraft, both players select the card they want the aircraft to do, then you reveal them and move the aircraft appropriately.

Aeronautica Imperialis uses a similar system, but it's not entirely down to preselection. The way that works, you again have manoeuvre cards, but you have a certain distance you can move according to how fast the aircraft is moving and you play the card at some point in that movement. So you preselect what manoeuvres you are going to perform, but then players alternate in moving aircraft, so even though you might have locked in "hard turn" you can apply it in different ways depending on what your opponent is doing.

It only works in those games because you only have a few aircraft of which to keep track. Wouldn't work in 40k.

When I've played WoG we've always placed three cards for movement, which I think is the norm. It works really well for the game as you have a lot to take into account when planning your move (including altitude). However, your only using 1-3 models. Great game, highly recommend it.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I remember an historic version of Chess that used dice - you rolled two dice, and could only move the corresponding pieces. (A 1 was a Pawn, a 2 was a Bishop, a 3 was a Knight, a 4 was a Rook, a 5 was the Queen, and a 6 was the King. So if you rolled a 2 and a 6 you could move either a Bishop or the King.)

The Auld Grump

That sounds much more fun.

It is fun - but I still prefer Byzantine chess. (Round board - Rooks are evil!)

The Auld Grump

 heartserenade wrote:
Chess is not perfectly balanced, but it's almost perfectly balanced.

Actually, it's not even close, for good/ranked players -- White's win rate is in the mid-50's (first move).

However, for BAD players, especially "intermediate bad players" (like me... people who don't have the drive, interest, or perhaps intellect to ever become great at chess) -- Alekhine's defense is a humongous equalizer as it has a stupidly high win ratio versus Sicilian, again, with moderately-skilled but actually terrible players

I think that Go is probably a more balanced game than Chess. I kinda suck at that too

A perfectly balanced tabletop game may not be possible, but a perfectly balanced computer game is. Just give two sides the same start and potential resources, play in real time, and play absent terrain or with symmetric terrain.

 Talys wrote:
Alekhine's defense is a humongous equalizer as it has a stupidly high win ratio versus Sicilian, again, with moderately-skilled but actually terrible players

The Alekhine's is quite unusual, though I think a lot of its power is derived from people being unfamiliar with it. I think it has only been played 4 times in a world championship, and one of those was accidentally by Bobby Fischer, so there is little wonder it has such a good win rate. Though it is one of the few responses to e4 where black immediately challenges whites centre, the other being the Scandinavian (or the hopelessly bad, but sometimes hilarious Fred Defence).

 Talys wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Chess is not perfectly balanced, but it's almost perfectly balanced.

Actually, it's not even close, for good/ranked players -- White's win rate is in the mid-50's (first move).

So.... around 50/50? Huh.

Are you like, trying to contradict me for contradiction's sake?

If you want Chess more like 40K use this

55-45 is actually a pretty significant difference, when you're talking chess tournaments I think

The goal isn't supposed to be symmetrical and perfect balance.
Give the guy that goes second a slight advantage. Done.

 heartserenade wrote:

So.... around 50/50? Huh.

Are you like, trying to contradict me for contradiction's sake?

Actually, it's more like 38% to 27%, with the rest of the games (about a 3rd) being draws.