"The Nature of Balance"

Designing a competitive strategy game has always been my interest. Seeing so many unbalanced games out there, and hearing so many complaints of "imbalance", I decided to write this little theory of mine on the ground rules of balancing.

In an ideally balanced game, the following rules should be followed:

Alpha: Every player has an equal chance of winning.
This is probably the hardest to implement, but this is the premise that governs all strategy games. If one player is handicapped, it just wouldn't be fun.

Beta: Strategy is defined as the ability to predict and stop your opponents, as well as to defeat your opponent.
Nuff said about this one.

Gamma: One cannot lose right from the start.
This is pretty obvious. Who would play a game that, right from the beginning, whereby no player has demonstrated any form of strategy, one can lose to another. Thus if one player can execute any form of strategy that can doom another right from the start, regardless of what that player does, the game is definitely NOT balanced.

Delta: For any strategy that can cause another to lose, there must exist a counter to it, which will ALWAYS defeat it, and that counter must be viable, and not more difficult to execute.
This implies that for any strategy doable by a player, the opponent must be able to do a counter to it as easily as, if not more easily. For instance, if a player can execute a rush that can defeat his opponent, then his opponent must be able to prepare a defence to it before he loses. This also implies that the opponent must have the ability to counter any strategy he sees you executing, and also to counter any strategy that he has no way to see you preparing.

Epsilon: One must be able to predict your opponent's move in order to stop it.
This is based on the premise of Rule Delta, whereby you must be able to counter any strategy that you have seen. You must be able to detect at least to some extent what the enemy is doing, or else the game descends into plain old Rock Paper Scissors, whereby you merely have to "guess" what the enemy is doing and have no way of knowing what your opponent's move is before having to do the counter.

Zeta: One should have the ability to deceive one's opponent, or conceal one's strategy.
If everyone knows the other person's strategy right from the start, it wouldn't be fun. There must be the element of discovery and concealment.

Eta: One must have more than one viable way of winning at any time, unless one is "doomed to lose".
This is obvious. If there is only one viable way of winning, everyone would do that and little strategy is involved. Of course, it is possible to doom someone to defeat, like when you kill every one of your opponent's pieces except his/her king in a game of chess. But prior to that, your opponent must have numerous ways to defeat you and counter your move.

Theta: Strategy games must be fun.
This is probably most important. What use is playing a game that isn't fun?

There you have it. I'll probably add more of these important ground rules as I think of them or recall them. So many wonderful ideas come from showers.