18xx jason, designers, and an acre of snow

I do not understand why many designers on BGG, including some in this discussion, believe that their aesthetic preferences are inherently superior, and furthermore, believe it is worthwhile trying to tell other people that their tastes are, in a word, wrong.

Unfortunately, this line of reasoning and argumentation is successful around 0.0% of the time.

Furthermore, as it turns out, different people enjoy different things for different reasons, and what they enjoy has zero bearing on your ability to enjoy the things you do.

So why all the arguing?

Seem similar? I do not understand why quite some designers up here, notably including Tom Lehman, who didn't use any reason and logic to repute the accusation that his Race/Roll for the galaxy is a bad design. But just yelling and screaming that someone is being 'unfair' and 'impolite', without any legit reasoning.

Perhaps one can look into the case of An Are of Snow, again.

A Few Acres of Snow and the Critical Silence On The Biggest Flawed Game of 2011
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9073/few-acres-snow-and-critical-silence-biggest-flawed

So what did Martin Wallace did to upset. Well, the game won an award, but there was an inherent flaw within, most would not agree. Until that game is played online, someone showed a record of winning 100% of the time. Wallace tried to patch the game, it didn't work. And then later he walks away with the money and the award.

hmm.

This is an extreme case, but there is a lot out there.

- First version of Caverna: The Cave Farmers with the infinite ore auto-win bug.
- Axis and Allies veteran found it very easy to spot OP strategies in the first game of a new version AAP1940.

How many times do we have to produce a legit proof, before any 'designers' would admit it is a bad design? To be fair, it is not as bad as nobody is perfect. Scienfic experiemtal project fails over 90% of the time. It isn't even as bad if one admits one of their designs is bad.

Perhaps it is money.

What bad is, designers thought themselves are in a position of [i]"aesthetic preferences are inherently superior, and furthermore, believe it is worthwhile trying to tell other people that their tastes are, in a word, wrong."[/i]

Because they call themselves a designer? Because they "did" some playtest (how about open those experimental records for peer review like in the academia field?)?
Becuase you didnt design and publish a boardgame so you are inherently bad?

Freedom of speech?

So nobody should comment football before they earn their world cup, because [i]"aesthetic preferences are inherently superior, and furthermore, believe it is worthwhile trying to tell other people that their tastes are, in a word, wrong."[/i]

This industry is too much about
-buying the game just because you can
-buying the game just because everyone says it is cool
-buying the game just because Dice Tower says so
-buying the game play it once and then shelf it.

It is too much about buying and 'playing' it once, rather the game itself. I never have a doubt why modern games are losing their replayability in these 10 years.

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There is a lot of AP Tryndamere syndrome going on in the boardgame world. If anyone wonder what it is, some people in the popular game League of Legends figured out a way to play a character differently, most notably unintended by the designers, and raised their global ranks a lot.

The designers didn't like it. So the keep on patching the game until it is not viable. And then later even ban players out of their systems just because "it wasn't intended by the game designers (Riot Games)" and it "destroys fun".

Being locked into the tunnel vision of the designer is very dangerous. For instance, most should know about 1856's rule of "you cannot sell the same certificate back into the market in the same turn". What does it do? Well, perhaps one cannot trash shares so hard (not quite sure why one would trash so much shares before 6T CGR), or the president couldn't pump funds into the company too fast?? (really??) or some random player doesn't own any of the company shares could not trash so hard.

???

It really doesn't stop anything. A company could still be double shorted at the turn of CGR formation.

If you had thought carefully about the possible intention and the result or such rule, likely there would be players find this rule unnecessary.

More days into 18xx, I finally start to understand the idea of "permutations of player strategy should form the game itself sufficiently replayable" or "do not bother to fiddle around with the random noises of the game". No ass-licking here, I disagree with him quite often.

Locking most players into one or two branches of strategies with all other 'creative ideas' to be not viable is generally a bad idea and a bad game. But it is very frequently seen in modern games, particuarly in modern Euro Econ Snowball games.

Examples

1. Le Havre. You do not build boats or build buildings.[i] You buy them.[/i] Wait until the colliery comes out and it turns into a toilet queuing game. One goes out, the next goes in. And then there comes the Shipping Lines, let's ship, let's buy more buildings, let's buy more ships. Who cares to build?

2. Agicola. Yes, it is well regarded as a strategic game. But think about, why not two family members are allowed in the same action space. Why do everyone go for family growth one by one once it is available? Why wet nurse and lover?

3. Brass. Cotton or port. Pick one, or you can try hard to win yourself in this multiplayer solitare research shipping and cotton all on your own. Iron wasn't even viable unless everyone on the table let you solo it...

4. Eclipse. Orion has to be in GCD in two turns, elephants have to hit good science tiles, those green plants have just to keep explore... etc. Anyway, if you didn't have X econ by the turn T, you are done!

All of them have the same property if you do not have X by turn T, you are lose.

These are some prime example of games it is more about a clash of players more than clash of strategies. One of the core reason is that there is too little viable strategy to choose from, another one is there is a constant flow of resources out of the game. The flow is so high, your relative net worth difference would not be a difference. There is no comeback mechanism and the game is too short. Once you are off the orbit, you are forever gone.

Everyone is literally playing more or less that strategy a/b/c you pick. In a few games, this becomes very repetitive and uninteresting as everyone is playing the same thing you had seen.

Well, perhaps except those who have some artistic minds valuing these...

18xx is not quite different. It is still a snow ball, and it is still quite not comebackable as it is well known it is a front-loaded game. But intentional or not, ther eis a lot of possible comeback strategies in 18xx. For instance in 1830,

-intentionally not pushing trains

-intentionally pushing trains

-intentionally buying up all shares risking being thrown quite a few companies

-intentionally open 6 companies in one SR

-intentionally dumping all shares possible

-intentionally trashing your own company

-intentionally feeding into another company with your own company

-intentionally abuse game bugs (i.e. not reasonable and feasible in the real world, e.g. suitcase company) to steer the game into unknown waters

etc. Yes, the side effect is that kingmaker is being extremely strong, but it is a game so deep, a few years later I still do not master it.

[q="Jasonbartfast"]

Then why have designers at all? Why not just play with lego?

[/q]

Lego began in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in Denmark. So someone started it, as one or a group of designers behind. 

Or you mean we should all play building blocks or sand castles. Or why megablocks is not as successful?

Sir, I do not think you ever understand why Minecraft or some other open world games become so successful nowadays, and why World of Warcraft has been losing their subscribers.

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Dota have lost quite of its player base. But that could render down to the fact that the developer has crappy infrastructures and centralized all games. But still, it has one of the top viewer counts and prize pool given out after 15 years of its birth.

Perhaps, it is a good example why games should not be too centralized, and opinions and actions should not be too depended on a few people power in hands, so call 'developers' or 'designers'

After all, I do not recall 1830 was playing as intended in the rulebook. Or, if there is an clear intention at all?

1817 company sales note

In simple laymen terms,

[b]Lidqudation: the president screwed up the company[/b], so he is responsible for all the crap (loans) he did, take away all the remaining money and the loans from the mat. The bank make the first $0 bid so the company is always sold. The reason is the company has run out of credit so everything sellable must go, the bank have enough of the company. Auction everything in one batch. The money gained is used to repay loans (must).

If the previous president cannot make up of the sin he made, auction the president himself. (bankruptcy)

[b]Friendly Acquisition: or in laymen terms the company is sold at the current spot price.[/b] Everything is sold. If no bid is made the company is taken back. But if one bid is made, then all shares in the company is liquidated at current stock price. In another words, if the company is sold at the current share price, the company is only sold at the current price multiply by the number of shares sold. For instance, if there is 3 shares outside of the company (on player's hand or in bank pool) out of 5 shares at price of $50, one is only paying $150 despite the bid is made at $250. Since when bidden, the remaining 2 shares in the company would immediately be sold and become $100 to be place in the company. Those money when sold, would be first move into the buyer's company, then be paid out. So that $100 would not matter unless it is sold at a price higher than current price. If the bid becomes $300, those shares would not suddenly become $60 spot price, since it had been sold at $50 already.

The shares only matters in terms of percentage (%) to split the money made from the auction.

Friendly sales is extremely useful and under-used, commonly used in the follow situations:
1. get rid of the company at current price to remove the obligation to get a train for the company, right before or after a train rush.
2. to force the few shorter to clear their position at the current price.
3. to squeeze out cash from your company, or take a loan and move the company to you at the company's name.
4. some of the composition of above.

[b]Hostile Acquisition[/b] (grey spaces): [b]the company is simply at a bad state. Or in laymen or common financial term [u]Suspension of trade[/u][/b] No shares could be sold or bought, or shorted, since at the current state it has no value. At the penultimate of the M&A stage anyone could make a bid of $10, then the company would be sold. Almost like friendly sales, once bidden, the shares in the company would be sold immediately. However, unlike friendly sales, there is no price. Hence the price would be zero. The procedure is exactly like friendly sales, but just the share price is zero. And such auction is always done and forced. Unlike friendly sales that it is elective.

When the company is sold, the money gained is also split in terms of percentage (%) in shares held.

The grey suspension zone looks like hell, but it is still extremely useful when no one could afford all your company loans. In Hong Kong terms, a company with negative asset, who just could barely afford the interest. So you could make a company full of fucking loans and drives the interest all the way up to $60. And then leave that trash company there. Want it? Take it. I don't care.

18USA- are these changes necessary?

First of all, I do not own the game. A groupmate wanted to buy a game but I was skeptical after reading the design notes. But it was too late after all so now the game is on the table. Alright could not complain if there was not my money..

There were a few changes but some are very notable:

1. offboard pass through and the toronto buypass.
2. the map.
3. new train exporting schedule
4. 3+ and 4+ trains
5. pullmans
6. ripple effect to shorts.

Private companies and subsidies are two minor changes we do not mind. Like 1822, it only shakes things up and it does not change the course towards the goal much. Just that most would have a different starting point to make the game slightly more interesting.

Loan returning changes are not a big issue either. But we are ok with either ways. Somehow restricting returns to the next turn only allow richer companies to jump more. That probably will not limit any comeback from those falling behind since it might be too late already.

[b]Offboard pass through and the Toronto bypass.[/b]
There comes the first issue. Having easier runs everywhere on the map differently make stations wroth way less than in 1817. And those forced station buys during conversions i.e. SEOs and floats are now way more expensive than in 1817. Your dead companies will not worth that much, and stations laying is not that much of a problem and decision in 18USA. Since there are literally good places everywhere and you only place station in or around those richer cities.

[b]The map[/b]
While we agree the map is a big issue in 1817 resulting in similar plays and that changes are necessary, I am not sure if 18USA is the changes that is good enough.

In the 17 map, early plays are limited by the mountain range from the east to south. And with little cities around Pittsburgh, that generally divides the map into three parts: the rich and expensive east coast, Detroit-Cleveland, and the rivers. Somehow we call the river zones "the fishes", a reason that the bridges look like fishes more, but later it seems like that starting in zone is particularly harder to have good results. So we generally avoided it resulting in half price for those fishes privates, and that still wasn't quite enough. Anyway, the starts in the 1817 looked staler and staler to us. While it definitely looked like group-think, we generally stick to the three big areas (or minus the fishes) with one Pittsburgh player and the start generally becomes not interesting.

In USA, the map now looks a lot less restricted, but that seems like compound to the effect that stations are not worth as much than in 1817. At least back in 1817 that would take some effort and cash to go through the ranges to build a bypass leading to NYC. Now that was not quite needed, as there are high payout red places and metros all around. And building a bypass is definitely less of a hassle than in 17 with those immediately green city airborne and instant upgrade to brown. On the surface it means, it is easier for those falling behind to catch　up, but it does mean those leading could leap off even faster. The combined result is ambiguous to be good or bad.

But definitely tracks are a bit too easy to lay now.

[b]New train export schedule, 3T+ and 4T+[/b]
This is the part I dislike. While I believe that trains should be pushed forward by player's will, this could be easily fixed by going back to the 1817 schedule. For the record, our group never have the issue of poisonous 3T but only the last poisonous 4T or sometimes 2 poisonous 4T. But one can always deduce someone's fault for not buying that penultimate 4T. And we generally agree the last 4T is toxic so no one would buy it unless one is losing so bad he is forcing a faster end or a comeback play.

The design of 3T+ and 4T+ is somewhat problematic. While on the surface it seems to resolve the old toxic train problem, now our new toxic train is the train before 4T+. 3T+ also creates another problem that it is possible that they are better than the first 4T since 3T+ guarantees another run which could be well into 6T. With one less stop but one more guaranteed run, they seem to be better than 4T.

And then now the last 3T becomes [i]the[/i] toxic train, which we used to blitz all the way through the 3T set without a problem except one or two export.

Since now there isn't a toxic 4T to hold on for one more set of OR and/or all the 3T are exported altogether, the 2T and 3T now becomes generally way more expensive than what they were in 1817.

There is now a strange hill in the yield curve in the place of 3T+, and cases are there that the 4T+ could be better than the first 5T, since it would generate more money than a pullman and run an extra time after 8T. And the trough of the toxic 4T is just pushed forward with a lesser climb but still there.

6T7T8T are harder to run in 1817. But since there are now more bypasses and of board locations, less stations is required and they are now generally better and way easier to be run.

[b]Pullmans[/b]
The purpose of addition of pullmans it not known. Perhaps it is there to alleviate the effect of that two permanent trains could be easier run in USA than 17. But I am not sure adding a auto-push-that-button option when a second train cannot be yet financed is necessary or not. Though definitely it is not an interesting decision to be made during gameplay to me since everyone is buying that whenever there is a space. And oh if you cannot afford it you are well done anyway.

[b]Ripple effect to shorts[/b]
Shorts could be played around in 1817. In later games, it could be reduced to merely a money borrowing option. Since there is not quite a lot of reports that aggressive shorts having good results, I would believe that it wasn't group think. And because there are cases that if an early successful short is made obviously it is game there.

At least I am so far unsuccessful to produce a scenario to go all the way through 3T to 6T within 1 sets of 2 ORs.

But just because it wasn't very viable in 1817, does not automatically mean that artificial made short timings are an interesting addition. Now you could prepare to short and counter-short everyone in that 3T exporting turn. That said, shorts are slightly harder to assess since stations could stop less trains, map is more open, and there are less terrain to stop tracks.  Is that an interesting change? I am not sure.

And that now there is a 1.5 step jump in 1817 scale instead of a deadweight loss..

Are these changes interesting? I am not quite sure either. Shorts is an very interesting and potential addition to the 18xx family. But it seems more refinement is still needed.

It is a bit of pity that Davis' version is still not there. Local gameplays are mostly inconclusive until we reached a point the general 18xx population could have a stress test on the traditional 1817. And yes, board18 is not enough for such major scale.

Side note: i am not interested in submitting this as a review and be "(peer-)reviewed". but since there is no way i can revoke that 'submission', so let it be. i will 'delete' that review later.

論1856

1856 真係一個好自閉0既遊戲. 買2股其實已經幾過份,

因為買得兩股個時其實個2TURN 個老闆應該都拎到舊錢 如果間公司可以即刻拎到錢, 除非佢無辦法即時搬走或者唔係多錢, 其實都係益左個大股東 買3股0既話不如訓落去買4股做二股東.

不過本身個前置其實都膠膠地, 因為人地多你50% 股票注定你一世做契弟

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你諗下新公司都要擺站, 最理想情況可以籌到一千蚊, 搬去舊公司還錢, 仲可以KEEP 住D 舊站, 然後AL 左其他對手一共4張股票, 自己有一大堆股票搬左出去或者未賣, 個狀況冇想像中咁差.

其實好多時唔係BARE 住JC LAWRENCE或者咩咩比較權威0既人0既名就唔會膠, 

不過我諗最大問題係我要有機會開公司先. 如果007繼續係咁玩其實有機會開公司我都唔會開, 廢事炒車

e-sports DOTA: Dendi vs AI

Why you would not want this game - A Handful of Stars

I honestly hope I played this game wrong. But it has never been a good experience to me. So please let me know if it is wrong, as it is baring the name of Martin Wallace. Brass and Age of Steam had given me good times but not this one.

I will comment more on the strategic gameplay side more than anything else since those are really just side-kicks. [i]Well if the gameplay is not good enough, you'd better have something else to sell![/i] Otherwise a passing mark and functional components with a good strategy game will have good reception. Example: Food Chain Magnate.

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TL:DR
- This game is Risk (initial position) + Dominion + Eclipse. The game play is very dictated by RNG.

While it has a strong reference on eclipse and it looks like the author has awareness what is being weak in Eclipse, Eclipse is still straightly better.

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- Mostly I would not comment on 'good' art since either they are functional or fail. It is good if art are good on top of being well functional or it is too excessive that it does more hurt than good. Sadly it is not for this game. Situational and VP awareness of this kind of combat games, like Eclipse, is very essential towards late game if one is playing to win, and therefore a VP bar is there for good reference. However, the reference is not easy. You have to look at the 10th digit bar, and then check the single digit bar to see the point difference and to decide who is the best to attack. This is a pain in the ass. While it could be easily done with a VP round race track like Amun-re to show VP, I do not understand why this weird way of presentation is chosen.

- Numbers, text and parameters are too small and hard to read on planets.

- Drawing cards of lost worlds out of your deck from time to time is very annoying.

- Unique cards of planets are very big burden of knowledge.

- Even if you know what card you will need, you might not get them easily because of your initial position and research card draw, a dictation by the RNG.

- The game ends when the 20 shuffles in Dominion. It is a game too short to comeback if you are forced into subpar plays, just like [url="https://boardgamegeek.com/article/9709366#9709366"]slightly subpar hexes[/url] in Eclipse.

- Since the game is short and has a somewhat fixed end, stacking resources and powerplaying cards is very strong and efficient, even if you overpay just to get rid of cards. These will earn you a bigger share of resources spent.

- Developments on the top of your charter makes powerplay even stronger despite they are necessary to offset Dominion luck. And hence spamming colony is better than building an early army. Even better when your developments are not returned if your colony is destroyed. Please correct me if I was taught wrong here. I really hope I played wrong here that colonies and developments have to be returned.

- Your initial position could lead to very good (clustered) or bad startings (spread everywhere) completely out of your control.

- Researching is mostly wasting time and a sub-par action as the correct research card has to land on the market, then with the correct amount of science bought, then placed on the discard, then shuffled, then drawn, then wait for the correct timing to play. Too hard to predict given the long activation time and too short of a game.

- Essential in Dominion: trimming is too expensive an action and mostly wasting time. Better build colony quick and get that free development.

- Very standard Martin Wallace economic snowballs. If you cannot catch up and lose tempo, even if was forced by bad RNG, you'd better pray everyone play bad or die to a wild comet in order to just have a comeback chance.

- Common problem of multiplayer combat games. You have two ways of spending your resources: simcity or building army. But you always lose troops when beating opponents so simcity players left alone or even hit last will have a economic snowball big enough, just to hold back the remaining troops, sit back and easily win. Good luck killing everyone warmongering!

- Flat distribution of ancient strength. Completely RNG, no prediction at all so you are playing against an almost same risk aversion curve. Landing a 2 with minimal fleet or hitting a 9 with a all-in is a big difference enough in a economic snowball game - one turn lost. See slightly sub-par hex arguement.

- And since beating ancient could have a result losing nothing and beating players would make you have to guess what hand they are holding (RNG) and a very potential lost, ancient farming is far superior early game until they are exhausted. And rather ancients are spawning around you depends on your initial position again (RNG again). If there are no ancient around, sorry bro!

- Moving big troops is toooooooooo slow and inefficient as in Eclipse. So you mostly will not build troops unless you need it, and it doesn't really matter losing one colony and play the "I am weak no attack me pls bro" card. I once misplay where you could have 0 moving cost in your own space, and I do hope it was the case so to make warmongering a bit more doable.

- This game relies on player balance but there could be no easy way to knock a leading player out of orbit. Say, if you and the winning players are at a two corners and you have no solution to him, while others do not care, game is done. Not to mention classic players who would get mad thinking you are up against hating him just because you are trying to do logical player balancing.

- The ending. The ending is terrible. I really hope I was wrong here. In Eclipse, you could at least burn resources racing to the end in order to observe all moves and make the last move reasonable in order to have a last swing of VP to win the game. In A Handful of Stars, the last player is well known. If someone is leading the main group 20VP mid game you might as well fold and start over already. But in normal cases where player balance works, scores are all open (unlike Eclipse where VPs are a guess though still very guessable) and everyone is close, you have a very good chance to make the lethal snipe given you have access to your target (RNG)

It is a RNG party game. Relax and enjoy fireworks and see how RNG screws people up but you might not see the whole picture! (Ah bad draws no research no ancient available gg). But if you want a competitive game, this game is too long a pain for bad random results - punishment in terms of expected value, big cost with a outliner result

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back-up-ed from BGG since it is OK to spam 10/10 because the publisher tells you to do so on twitter, but writing a sincere negative review is insta death penalty.

Scythe has now won GOTY from BGG, as well as the Origins and Dice Tower conventions. Is it really the best game of 2016?

https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/6m0p3t/scythe_has_now_won_goty_from_bgg_as_well_as_the/

This is a game where there is no strategic depth. Your starting strategy is dictated by the board you get. And then you try to dance along the standard path or otherwise you lose.

BGG ranking has been obsoleted after 2012 and that Pandemic Legacy twitter thing. So is Dice Tower who are calling people to get a life about the vote 10/10 twitter campaign or Origins.

I used to at least try those game who make it into BGG top 10 list once before commenting. Now it is a standard "amazon buy good review" thing which those game newly made it to top 10 are mostly complete rubbish.

People well underestimate how advertorials and paid reviews are polluting this hobby.

If you want sincere reviews, read those 1/10 rates on BGG.