Very good points Zoe.
I must say that I used wargames with points systems since 1980, with the 5th edition WRG Ancient Battles rules, and with many games more after it. My idea is that these systems give roughly balanced sides, but a big part of the fun is looking for "the best choice" within the system. Many players arrived saying that their Titus Legion, or Byzantine cataphracts, or Samurais, were the unbeatable army, only to be defeated by somebody saying the same about Indians or Crusaders. That were beated lately by others... A system
must allow you to find better solutions in spending points, and that's part of the game. Of course if there is a single best solution, or a general rule at least ("cavalry is always a better buy than infantry!") then the system is faulted and the choice is not meaningful and fun any more.
With Magic, 13 years later, the concept of combo also appeared: a great attention to combinations of game elements that put together are far more powerful than just the two elements on their own. Finding them, and finding their soft spot to counter them, is again a big part of the fun. Expecially while the games evolve with new game materials released alog the years.
So it is natural and even fun to have an active role for players in the choice of how to spend their points. A skill allowing to use two steep manoeuvres in a row will be points better spent on a plane with several of them than on a SPAD XIII, while a skill allowing any move after an Immlemann will be a total waste on most two-seaters. In our case, the cost of the skill does not reflect that. But I think that to some extent it is better to have such a system, that allows players research, than try to have a perfect system, with a skill cost that differs depending on each plane you apply it on so that every choice is perfectly 100% balanced always. This would be less fun to play. You could just put miniatures and skills in a hat and draw them at random...
Do not read me wrong, I am not justifying faulty systems. If the Sniper skill is cheaper than due and everybody has to buy it not to be at disvantage, as PilGrim hints, that's not fun and the cost of that skill must be corrected. But a sytstem allowing better ways to spend points than others is a good thing. And if a better way to spend points (better, several better ways than others) can be found by a player, with intelligence and experience, and gives him not a sure victory in a tournament but some advantages at least, this is fair, and a good reward for the people who devise the best buys.
Working on that too.
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