How do you approach a complex game? Continuing my thoughts from two weeks ago, I'm debating how you can get games of a more rambling nature onto the table. Rambling in this case defined as games longer than 2 hours - which seems to be the point at which players start saying no.
The big question in my mind is if it is worth having the first session be a 'teaching' game. basically a game with a strict time or turn limit, with the stated purpose of teaching the rules.
Many people seem to espouse this approach, but it's never really felt right to me.
1) If the game is long by nature, then a shortened version doesn't capture the game.
A game like revolution is only 5 turns - at roughly 1 turn an hour. A two turn game has missed two-thirds of the game, and much of the benefit of a longer game (long-term strategy) is aborted. I'd argue that one of the key selling points of a longer game is the ability to choose to play for the long term. Taking short turn hits to position/income/whatever with the expectation to do better farther into the game.1
2) Bringing the same players together for a second game is hard.
I consider myself lucky to have a smaller game group that's been meeting weekly for years. There's 5 of us, but with life being what it is, it is not uncommon for the group to be four. Invariably, if we play a longer game, one player isn't there. And the next time the game is brought out, they are. I can only imagine how much worse this would be with a large/more infrequent group. So, if rules will always be taught, why play an aborted game?
There are plenty of reasons for running a shortened game, but I've rarely managed to convince myself it is a good idea. This cropped up because last week I ran a shortened game of American Megafauna at EndGame. I wanted to try out third edition/SOS style play and AM is a game that is going to be at least 3 hours the first time you play. I decided to call the game after 2 hours of play, and ultimately it worked. American Megafauna2 is a game that doesn't really call for a specific game length, so 'artificially' making a game timer trigger then endgame wasn't a problem. So a shorter game worked. Yay!
But I still don't think that it is the solution for all longer games. Mostly, I think the first play of longer games require players to commit to not worrying about victory. Yes, someone is going to win3, but the goal in the first play is to see what the game is like, and learn what tactics can survive through the mid-game into the end, and which ones are dead ends.
Unfortunately, giving up on victory is a hard thing to do - especially for a game that lasts two or three times as long as other available games. But the reward... well, that's for me to have more people who know how to play longer games.
aaron
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1Some shorter games manage this as well (usually the ones that last closer to 2 hours than one), but most shorter games are much more unforgiving of sacrificial ploys or delaying tactics. Some shorter games are good precisely because players must time everything 'just right' (ex. figuring out when to migrate from money to points in Puerto Rico) but don't permit players to play much beyond the current board position.
2Phil Eklund is the designer of American Megafauna. And the Lords of... series. His games are truly odd unweildy beasts, and I'll get back to you with my impressions of them eventually, but one interesting facet is that the games don't really have a specific endpoint. Sure, the rules tell you when to end the game, but then they also say "or when everyone agrees to stop".
3 And yes, the person who has read the rules/played the game has an advantage.
Showing posts with label house rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house rules. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
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.
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.
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