the player into the role of a general who was defeated by an overwhelming force, and it is common for the abilities of teams in sports games to mirror those of the real-world teams they represent regardless of the implications for players who pick them. Player perception can also affect the appearance of fairness. Sid Meier stated that he omitted multiplayer alliances in Civilization because he found that the computer was almost as good as humans in exploiting them, which caused players to think that the computer was cheating. Meaningful decisions Meaningful decisions are decisions whose alternatives are neither without any effect nor is one alternative clearly the best. This would make, for example, choosing between the numbers of a dice meaningless if 6 always gives the greatest benefit. This example is a dominant strategy, the most damaging type of meaningless decision, since it does leave a reason to choose any alternative. Meaningful decisions consequently are a central part of the interactive medium games. Meaningless decisions, also called trivial decisions, do not add anything desirable to a game. They might actually harm the game by unnecessarily making it more complex. Additionally, a higher number of meaningful decisions can also make a game just more complex. Offered decisions should always be meaningful though. However, for the balancing irrelevant decisions might still influence the players experience, e.g. a decision between cosmetic alternatives like skins. Strategies Strategies are specific combinations of actions to achieve a certain goal. Classic examples for this are a rush or focusing on economy in a real-time strategy game. Not only elementary decisions within a strategy, e.g. between game elements, also the decision between strategies should remain meaningful. Dominant strategies A dominant strategy is a strategy that is always the most likely to lead to success, making it objectively the best strategy. This therefore renders all related decisions meaningless. Even if a strategy does not always win, but clearly is the best, it can be called (almost) dominant. Dominant strategies damage games and should strongly be avoided. However, there is no objective border when a slightly better strategy becomes dominant. Metagame Metagame describes a game around the actual game, including discussions, like in forums, interactions between players, e.g. on local tournaments, but also the influence of extrinsic factors like finances. The “Meta”, as it is also called, can act as a self-balancing force, since counters to popular strategies become