Probably not, since game design is usually done iteratively, and you’ll end up writing a simulator for an unstable ruleset. The first trigger for changing the rules will be whether it’s boring or not, and that will mostly come from playtesting.
Once the system is settled, you might implement a simulator to fix balance issues — but more likely, you’ll use the simulator you already have; the game itself, hopefully running in some kind of headless mode.
Also if you’re planning to continuously update the game for balance (unlike Pokémon), you don’t need to be that worried about dominant strategies (excluding those that are caused by the fundamental ruleset, not just balance numbers) because dominant strategies only matter if the community identifies and utilizes it. So you simply watch what occurs in practice, and sand down the rough edges. The potential degenerate strategies don’t matter until they’re popularized.
I can’t find the article now (I thought it was gaffer but I guess not) but you can also avoid degenerate strategies occurring with escape-hatches. In the article I’m thinking of, in a fighting game they gave every character a “get out of jail free card” by giving a once-per-round X second invulnerability. This meant infinite combos could only be so powerful; obvious and easy to use combos are identified and removed by playtesting, and harder to setup ones that get past playtesting can only do so much harm because they can be invul-cancelled at least once. So they’re betting a counter-strategy will be identified to make it unreliable, and making it additionally unreliable by definition with the escape hatch.
Once the system is settled, you might implement a simulator to fix balance issues — but more likely, you’ll use the simulator you already have; the game itself, hopefully running in some kind of headless mode.
Also if you’re planning to continuously update the game for balance (unlike Pokémon), you don’t need to be that worried about dominant strategies (excluding those that are caused by the fundamental ruleset, not just balance numbers) because dominant strategies only matter if the community identifies and utilizes it. So you simply watch what occurs in practice, and sand down the rough edges. The potential degenerate strategies don’t matter until they’re popularized.
I can’t find the article now (I thought it was gaffer but I guess not) but you can also avoid degenerate strategies occurring with escape-hatches. In the article I’m thinking of, in a fighting game they gave every character a “get out of jail free card” by giving a once-per-round X second invulnerability. This meant infinite combos could only be so powerful; obvious and easy to use combos are identified and removed by playtesting, and harder to setup ones that get past playtesting can only do so much harm because they can be invul-cancelled at least once. So they’re betting a counter-strategy will be identified to make it unreliable, and making it additionally unreliable by definition with the escape hatch.