A simile of games or "Die Polyps"

As gamers determined to proselytize the unwashed masses of non-gaming folk we need to take it upon ourselves to provide a welcoming atmosphere. In any hobby, a vernacular arises around important people, actions, and other subjects. Walk into a bowling alley on league bowling night and try to hang out with the crowd present. You will quickly see the need to know the difference between a spare, a split, and a turkey. We have some of our own in the boardgaming world: grognard, eurogame, and meeples. While it is great to have some terms that describe useful ideas and concepts within our hobby, we have to try to remember to remain as friendly as possible to newcomers if the hobby is going to continue to grow (at least I would like to see that).

In general, I find boardgamers to be some of the friendliest people I know. We’re generally not cliquish (well, aside from invitation-only conventions, but even there the folks are friendly to new faces) and are typically glad to see newcomers arrive at our gaming evenings. However, there are a few habits that sometimes arise in the online boardgame community that can be frustrating to new boardgamers. One of the common ones, and the subject of this brief post, is the boardgame simile.

In many of the reviews posted online on the Boardgamegeek and other sites, the reviewer will use one or more games to explain aspects of another. This game is like Goa’s auctions with a bit of Caylus-like worker placement and Puerto Rico’s role selection. A single game is like Goa, like Caylus, and like Puerto Rico. (Yes, its not a true modern simile, but work with me here… ) If a new gamer wanders over to a recent review, they may get very little out of it. Using some games to describe others is a great shorthand for those who have played and are familiar with a wide range of games, but it isn’t so useful for the newcomer. Like the poor soul who finds two words in the dictionary that are used to define each other, a new gamer can be awash in game comparisons before they even get a chance to become familiar with a few of them. So, lets remember out there to keep the comparisons to a minimum whenever possible, or at least be sure to follow up comparisons with a bit of further explanation.

This whole mini-rant came about during a facetious comment while I was explaining Reef Encounter to folks in my local gaming group. Known for somewhat difficult instructions, I consider the polyp tile scoring mechanism to be partially at fault. It is a difficult concept to grasp without actually playing through the game. Having to play through a game to understand the intricacies of the scoring is typically not a good sign. Regardless, I enjoy the game due to its theme (yes, it is pasted on but I like the cool pieces and the thought to trying to be the best coral reef I can be is just too enticing to a science teacher like myself.) As I tried to explain the manipulation and control of the coral ranking/scoring tiles, one player piped up: “It’s like the leader board in Die Macher!” We proceeded to tear up the game making as many Die Macher comparisons as possible. There is conflict on four different boards at a time. Your opponents are always trying to reduce your prime scoring areas. Eating your polyps could be like taking a little “vote” to score points, and so on… Since I had already mentioned the scoring is a bit strange until experienced, we decided to describe the game to anyone who asked us playing using words one might rarely expect to hear: “Reef Encounter? Oh, it’s like an advanced game of Die Macher”.

Luck and Length

It has been a pretty sparce time for boardgames, the only games I've played recently have been a full game of Die Macher and a dozen or so games of Yspahan against the computer. (Using the recently released computer version with an AI opponent, check out www.west-parkgamers.de . It is designed/programmed by the same folks as the excellent Saint Petersburg PC game, although I feel that the AI is currently a bit weaker than in St. Petersburg... If you go download Yspahan, be sure to also download the English or other appropriate language file as well. It comes in German, English, French, and even Romanian! )

Yspahan looks to be a fun little game. Despite some simple (rather unique) mechanics of rolling dice to determine the number of available actions (of a given type), the game has many options. I immediately gravitated towards the camel-train track towards victory. Buying up that building that gives a card for each token sent to the train is a fun way to earn more cards... and if you can score that train in the 2nd round as well as the 3rd, there are some nice cost-effective points going on... the computer players are clearly going for a build all the buildings route and then compete viciously for filling in the board areas with cubes... both strategies are valid and I like how such a simple game can provide players with such diverse opportunities. My one qualm are the initial two buildings - the one that gives more camels and the one that gives more gold... while I haven't brought myself to try to play without going for them both as early as possible, I suspect ignoring these two buildings early is not a good idea. Hopefully, there might be some strategies that don't include early buildings. I am afraid that there might not be and if that is the case, what is the point of including those buildings in the first place? (ie. if those two buildings were changed somehow there could be an earlier divergence in starting strategies...)

That's all I have to say about Yspahan, time to rant about Die Macher. This is a great game, lots of fun, and piles upon piles of different things one must worry about and try to optimize. Not to mention the whole idea of forming cooperative coalitions... a nice bit of diplomacy thrown in. I'm not even going to rant about the 7 hour playing time... I can afford to put aside most of a day to play a really good game every fewe months or so...

What I'm going to rant on is the huge luck factor in Die Macher. Yes, you heard me right, the luck factor in a 7 hour game... OK, so there isn't a lot of luck in the game, but there is SOME. The biggest luck factor (just about the only one) is in the distribution of position cards among the players and in each region. For example, when the game starts each player has about five (maybe six) position cards and there are ten face-up position cards showing on the game board. Players also have 3 position cards they can use to "swap" out their showing position cards. Well, at the start of the game, I had a match for about two TOTAL showing position cards on the entire board. Meanwhile, there were opponents of mine who had matches with 6 or even more cards showing on the table.

Sure, there are a lot of ways to move one's position cards around, but in a SEVEN HOUR game why oh why is there any reason to START the game with some players with a clear advantage? I understand the fun in having the game be slightly different each time, but if one were willing to give that up, I could imagine making up a starting setup so that each player had the same number of matches of cards showing at the start of the game... I realize that could take a bit longer to set up, but it would ease the problem that I've seen happen in multiple games of Die Macher. (I've been the benefit of a good start as well as hindered... although in this game I did an early gamble that paid off so I actually was in the lead for the first few rounds despite my poor initial matching - this doesn't excuse the game in my opinion as another player might have really messed me up had they tried different strategies...)

My second idea for fixing this intial disparity is to simply set up the game and then let players bid for color selection.... While it adds even more pregame analysis, I think it would even the playing field. Players who like to match things alot can bid highly for certain positions, while others who want to keep their money to spend it on things can bid low and just deal with what they end up with....

OK, that's the first bit of luck-factor I had issue with. Now for the second. That is the long-term manipulation of position cards. There is an extremely limited number of cards (6) to deal with on the national switching board... depending on your house rule, these can get pretty stagnant... I found out that switching out cards early in the game to help my matching was good in the short term, but it meant all the cards left up to trade with were BAD for me in later rounds... I think it is less of a problem of the game, and more of something I have to ponder to take into account in my strategy. What I WILL complain and rant about is the difficulty of changing one's position cards. In the second election, the Anti-social security card was put up on the national election board in the lowest (most points) slot. It appeared in a couple of upcoming elections mid-game but not late in the game. Also there were no pro-social security cards in the exchange pool. As the anti-version was protected by the 3rd or 4th round, there was then no longer any way to remove it. From the second election onward, both myself and one of my opponents cycled our 3-card draw, looking for (among other things) an anti-social security position card. Neither of us ever drew one. If, during the second round (that's about hour 3 of a 7 hour game, mind you) two players decide to try to do something and spend the rest of the game hoping to accomplish it, that's just a bad system...

You may think I hate Die Macher. On the contrary, I like it quite a bit. It is a bit long for my tastes, but I'd still play it. Another point to make is all the above whining really didn't greatly affect my performance. I came in a strong second place after leading for the first half of the game. This shows that the luck factor in Die Macher is not going to overthrow the entire outcome of the game. However, it seems clear to me that there were several variables beyond my control that were significant setbacks I had to overcome. That in itself isn't bad, but other players did not have to overcome those same issues. It makes me wonder how I might have fared if I had (a) finally found an anti-social security card (25 points right there) or (b) had better matches at the start of the game and was able to better conserve resources rather than having to gamble them all on the first round...

I consider my 2nd place finish to come from being distracted by round 6 when I should have worked hard towin round 7 instead. What disappoints me about the game was not the actual effect of the cards, but the feelings of unfairness they generate. Having to start "behind the curve" might be forgivable in a shorter game, but I really don't appreciate feeling a couple steps behind when I'm headed into a nice, long 7 hour game...

I like my idea of an auction for starting position, if I can get folks to try it next time. However, I have yet to find a good house rule (or two) that provides enough flexibility for changing political positions, without dilluting things so much that political positions mean nothing and are changed at the drop of a hat.