Game Strategy
What did you do?
Participants are often eager to talk about the strategies they employed
during the game. Here is a list of questions one might ask to find
out more about what a team did.
• Did your team make fair deals and build good relationships with your clients to ensure future business?
• Did your team constantly try to cheat and manipulate other teams for short-term profit?
• Did your team try to "price gouge", and trade cards at a much higher price than their value?
• Did your team broker 3-way deals or multi-team deals for the benefit of all teams involved?
• Did two teams form an alliance and pool their resources together to help each other reach their respective objectives?
• Did your team invest in other low-development teams by buying in their resource cards and waiting for their card to increase in value?
Did it work?
Once strategies are elucidated, it is important to discuss the effectiveness of each. Some possible questions include:
• Which strategy worked?
• Which strategy backfired?
• Which strategy benefited players in the short run but brought long-term negative results?
• How and when did you formulate your strategy?
• Did your team have one coherent strategy or did each team member pursue his own goals? How did this affect the success of the whole team?
• Was it difficult during the game to communicate your strategy to other team members?
• Did your team have a consistent strategy, or did you find that your strategies changed during the game?
• Had the game10 rounds instead of 3, how would that influence your strategy in the beginning rounds?
The most important point to bring out in the discussion about strategies is that self-interest and altruism are not mutually exclusive. Often, a strategy that benefits others at the expense of one's short-term profit can end up having profound long-term effects. Similarly, a team that employs a strategy that hurts another team may ultimately hurt itself in the long run.
Example: If the Education team charges less, it might not gain as much liquid wealth in the short-term as it could have. But in the long term, since price inflation slows down the development of certain regional teams, these teams cannot advance to a new infrastructure level, where they would consume more education cards. So Education loses a potential customer, and in the long run, loses out from the strategy of price inflation.
Example: If Miyazaki, a corporation, trades at a low price with all other teams, it does not gain as much profit in the short term as it could have; but it develops excellent long-term relationships with its customers, many of whom return to Miyazaki for future business.
Is it right?
During the game, some teams may employ strategies that can be seen as "immoral" or "unethical". In the discussion, some players will openly admit to cheating and deceiving other players or teams. To ensure an environment of open, honest discussion, the facilitator of the discussion listen objectively and respond in a neutral, non-judgmental manner.
Here are some possible questions to respond to an admission of cheating:
• Is "x" behavior cheating? What do you consider "cheating" in the game?
• How do the other teams feel about such an admission? What would they have done if they had found out about the cheating earlier?
• Why didn't everyone cheat? What is the advantage of dealing with other people honestly?
• What recourse does a team have when it feels cheated by another team during the game? (Be sure to point out in the discussion that possible venues include culture and the media)
• Would cheating be as effective if the game were longer, or if the other teams had more information?
• How is the outcome of a game influenced by how teams perceive each other?
• How does one preserve a sense of "fairness" in the game when the game seems to begin so "unfairly", with everyone starting with different amount of wealth?
The most important point to bring out is that there are no prescribed rules in the game for how one should act and make decisions. How one chooses to act in the game reflects one's own values and goals in real life.
