Open-ended discussion on creation and design

[Adrianis]

I think it's the player's role to understand how the game plays and how to interact with the game, but it's the designer's role to understand the systems in play and analyze every detail. Ever notice how a game loses its fun when the intrigue is stripped away? This is how I felt when I played Civilization...the minute the player understands how to game the system and understand how everything works, the less enjoying it becomes, in my opinion at least.

Agreed, although in some games, particularly old complicated games, it can help to understand poorly explained in depth mechanics in order to get the most out of it. Baldur's Gate for example, I found a hell of a lot more enjoyable once I played D&D and actually understood how all the mechanics interact with each other. I wasn't getting the most out of it before that because I couldn't understand it all. For Civilization, it was definitely a lot more fun when you get surprised by the complexity of AI's actions. But after a long campaign or two, as you say, that gets stripped away and you can predict it all.