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Elyv posted:I agree with your main point, but what you're saying about chess doesn't really hold true against humans. Even at the grandmaster level, if you read through their game analyses, you see them trying various ideas to force the opponent to play more precisely and improve their own position. If they didn't stand a chance once they were behind, they would just resign and save themselves the time and mental energy. Yes, but grandmasters are all very close in strength to one another. Zero-luck games provide the best feedback when the skill difference is small, because you can often point to the winning or losing move, whereas in a game with more luck, small differences in move quality tend to get lost in the random noise. As you say, resignation is typically a feature of zero-chance two-player games... but objectively speaking, the correct place to resign for a beginner playing a grandmaster is usually going to be five or six moves in, if that. By that point, they will have screwed up their opening so badly that even if they got up and another grandmaster sat down in their seat, he'd be unlikely to find a win. So, in that kind of matchup, the choice is between resigning so early you never actually played the game as you understand it, or playing most of the game in a hopeless position. Either way, there's little for the weaker player to learn, as the game was actually lost long before it reached a point where they could see why they were losing. When teaching Go, I typically don't offer full board teaching games to players more than 10 stones weaker than me (and it takes most people at least a year to get to that point). It's not because I'm a snob, it's that the game is going to be so lop-sided that there won't be much worthwhile for them to learn from it. People intuitively think that the stronger the teacher, the more you can learn, but that's not the case in my experience. You learn the most from someone who's just a little better than you, because they're thinking about things you're capable of seeing once they're pointed out but might not have occurred to you... whereas a high-level player pretty much isn't playing the same game; all the low-level stuff has become automatic and they're thinking about stuff that just makes no sense until that low-level stuff is automatic.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:27
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Poison Mushroom posted:Which is a little disappointing, really. Agreed. Building your awesome awesome ship and having someone else check it and see that you have an illegal connection holding on half of your ship is great. And I say this as someone who doesn't like Galaxy Trucker.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:09
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Poison Mushroom posted:Which is a little disappointing, really. Yea, I don't think I like the idea. You should be allowed to place anything anywhere next to your previous pieces, however you like. After all building is finished, then it should tell you what was placed wrong and why, remove those pieces, so you can proceed flying with your Swiss cheese of a ship. It is not in the spirit of the game to have a big brother watching over your shoulder and slapping your hand as you are placing them, correcting your mistakes. echoMateria fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 18:30
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Can someone explain how the app deals with the in real time building of the ships, on multi and single device? Is it the standard pulling tiles from a grid in real time?
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Dec 21, 2014 18:39
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Some Numbers posted:And I say this as someone who doesn't like Galaxy Trucker. There's something wrong with you... but I'll forgive you if you're ok or better with Space Alert.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:39
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Fat Turkey posted:Can someone explain how the app deals with the in real time building of the ships, on multi and single device? Is it the standard pulling tiles from a grid in real time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqc6c12jM2c I got curious. It looks good. I wish I had an iThingy.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:41
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OmegaGoo posted:There's something wrong with you... but I'll forgive you if you're ok or better with Space Alert. You are not wrong! I have a lot of respect for Vlaada as a designer and I really like Dungeon Lords and Tash-Kalar, but something about "spend a bunch of time stressing and then lose all agency and watch the game destroy you" doesn't sit right with me. In Dungeon Lords, after the year, you still have agency in dealing with your adventurers; you can still get obliterated by spells and by the fatigue being wrong and that's fine. In Galaxy Trucker, I build my ship, push it off and then sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the cards to decide my fate. I think all of Vlaada's games are really well-designed and well-put together. However, for me, personally, most of them aren't fun.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:46
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Some Numbers posted:I think all of Vlaada's games are really well-designed and well-put together. However, for me, personally, most of them aren't fun. Hahaha. This sounds like me with Princes of Florence. That game is elegant, simple, and well-designed, but I refuse to play it again.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:54
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Some Numbers posted:You are not wrong! I have a lot of respect for Vlaada as a designer and I really like Dungeon Lords and Tash-Kalar, but something about "spend a bunch of time stressing and then lose all agency and watch the game destroy you" doesn't sit right with me. I understand your point but I think that to characterize Galaxy Trucker's flight phase like that doesn't give it enough credit. There are still decisions to be made, even if you are at the whim of the event deck. It's not like the resolution phase of Space Alert.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:00
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Gimnbo posted:I understand your point but I think that to characterize Galaxy Trucker's flight phase like that doesn't give it enough credit. There are still decisions to be made, even if you are at the whim of the event deck. It's not like the resolution phase of Space Alert. You're right, I'm being more than a little hyperbolic; there is still agency in the flight phase, but the decisions tend to be pretty binary: "which planet do I take?" "do I spend days or not?" So, yeah, you still get to do stuff, but your decisions don't feel as interesting or as weighty?
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Dec 21, 2014 19:03
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Some Numbers posted:You are not wrong! I have a lot of respect for Vlaada as a designer and I really like Dungeon Lords and Tash-Kalar, but something about "spend a bunch of time stressing and then lose all agency and watch the game destroy you" doesn't sit right with me. You know you can look at all but a quarter of the cards while you're building your ship, right? (Otherwise the game would be a terrible luckfest.)
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Dec 21, 2014 19:04
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Some Numbers posted:You are not wrong! I have a lot of respect for Vlaada as a designer and I really like Dungeon Lords and Tash-Kalar, but something about "spend a bunch of time stressing and then lose all agency and watch the game destroy you" doesn't sit right with me. Eh, I don't think you lose all agency once you launch in Galaxy Trucker. You've got stuff like deciding when to spend energy on shields, double engines/guns, where you're going to put cargo, whether you're going to stop at planets or plough ahead, and loads of other stuff. Sure, the "building a ship" part is more important and you can build ships that require more or fewer decisions once launched, but it's inaccurate to say you "lose all agency" once you launch.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:08
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And then there's Through the Ages, Dungeon Petz. Really, there's only so many Vlaada games that have a real time component followed by a resolution phase, I'm very confused by people who say they don't like Vlaada games when what they mean is they don't like trucker or space alert.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:11
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I knew even considering posting about Vlaada was playing with fire. Vlaada is a great designer. He makes really really great, clever and awesome board games. I like a number of his games and I RESPECT all of them. However, I don't enjoy all of them. I know I'm invoking the word that we hate around here and I'm trying really hard to stress the distinction. Just like we've always said people can have fun playing objectively worse games, it's equally possible for people to play objectively amazing games and not have fun. I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with any game that Vlaada has made and you guys don't need to bristle. I just don't enjoy Galaxy Trucker.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:22
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And I'm saying, that's perfectly reasonable and "I dislike trucker and/or space alert" is also a very reasonable statement. "I just don't really like most Vlaadas" being what is said *instead* seems really confusing to me!
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Dec 21, 2014 19:25
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Some Numbers posted:I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with any game that Vlaada has made and you guys don't need to bristle. I just don't enjoy Galaxy Trucker. I think people are jumping on a perceived generalization. It looks to me that you don't like Galaxy Trucker (and possibly Space Alert), and that's fine! But it also seems people are responding as if you said "Vlaada sucks! All his games should burn!" So... yeah. Galaxy Trucker is one of my favorite games, and I absolutely love Space Alert, but I totally understand they're not for everyone. They are definitely not usual fare.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:27
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Na people are reacting to him saying he finds most of them unfun when he says he likes just as much as he dislikes
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Dec 21, 2014 19:33
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I think it's kind of sad that he has to attach "but I think Vlaada is a cool designer!" to all of his posts. He knew he would get jumped on for not liking a Vlaada game.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:49
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My wife doesn't like Space Alert because she doesn't like being under time pressure in games. Perfectly reasonable. She also loves Pandemic because it's basically a puzzle game and that is right up her alley and oh poo poo now I've done it
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Dec 21, 2014 20:50
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I think the reduced agency in the second half of Space Alert and Galaxy Trucker is what makes them work. In a standard difficult coop game, when things are falling apart around you, it's hard to just sit back and laugh at how much everything is dying because you're busy going "dammit dammit we need to fix this what can we do" and generally trying to figure out what you can do to try (and fail) to salvage the situation. In Space Alert I know there's nothing to be done, so I may as well just sit back and watch the fireworks. In the Galaxy Trucker flight phase there are still decisions to make, but they are strictly reactive, so you're still not trying to plan what to do next. To me "loses agency" feels like the wrong way to think about it. I wouldn't describe an archer as "losing agency" when their arrow leaves their bow.
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Dec 21, 2014 21:00
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Mister Sinewave posted:She also loves Pandemic because it's basically a puzzle game and that is right up her alley and oh poo poo now I've done it Ok, I'll bite. What's wrong with Pandemic?
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Dec 21, 2014 21:08
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Mister Sinewave posted:She also loves Pandemic because it's basically a puzzle game and that is right up her alley and oh poo poo now I've done it Just cut out the middleman and play Ricochet Robots already.
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Dec 21, 2014 21:19
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Rexides posted:Ok, I'll bite. What's wrong with Pandemic?
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Dec 21, 2014 21:21
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Gimnbo posted:I think it's kind of sad that he has to attach "but I think Vlaada is a cool designer!" to all of his posts. He knew he would get jumped on for not liking a Vlaada game. Except...people aren't jumping on him for not liking a Vlaada game, as noted! It's the conflation of "I dislike one or two games by a designer, but like one or two other games by that designer" with "I dislike most of a designer's games". My main complaint is lazy posting, which I suppose I shouldn't care about. 
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Dec 21, 2014 21:25
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Rexides posted:Ok, I'll bite. What's wrong with Pandemic? Instead of discouraging quarterbacking, it heavily encourages it by the way cards are traded. I also find that most of the time when we lose it's not because of outbreaks but because the deck of good cards runs out and the game says "Uh even though you've contained all the diseases for some reason everyone is dead now".
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Dec 21, 2014 21:25
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Ah, yeah, quarterbacking is definitely an issue. My group was lucky because we started playing the game together and no one is really in a better position that the rest in terms of skill, so it just plays out as the designer intended, most of the time. Also, the good deck running out means you are out of funding 
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Dec 21, 2014 21:29
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Gimnbo posted:I think it's kind of sad that he has to attach "but I think Vlaada is a cool designer!" to all of his posts. He knew he would get jumped on for not liking a Vlaada game. Vlaada is a lovely designer who makes lovely games about poo poo and his name is too hard.
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Dec 21, 2014 21:41
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Rexides posted:Ah, yeah, quarterbacking is definitely an issue. My group was lucky because we started playing the game together and no one is really in a better position that the rest in terms of skill, so it just plays out as the designer intended, most of the time. It's also just a sort of inherent problem that a lot of co-op board games have. Most of the interesting decisions happen at the "meta" level above what any individual player is capable of doing on their turn. Since there's no reason to hide information, you end up in a situation where you're basically playing a single player puzzle with multiple people. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a lot like putting a jigsaw puzzle together as a group activity. Quarterbacking is more of a symptom than an actual flaw.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:08
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Paradoxish posted:It's also just a sort of inherent problem that a lot of co-op board games have. Funny enough, while you posted this, I was thinking: With all this talk of quarterbacking, I was wondering if there are any co-op games where quarterbacking isn't a problem, or at least reduced. Then I realized my girlfriend just bought Hanabi. It's a co-op game where quarterbacking is prohibited by the rules. Also, Hababi rules and people should buy it. Something tells me people may have already heard of this, but just in case... In Hanabi, you are absent-minded firework makers right before a big show. You have to make the fireworks quickly and correctly, or the show will be ruined, or worse! The goal is to make piles of cards in order 1 through 5 of each of the five colors of fireworks by playing cards from your hand. Sounds easy, right? Well, the interesting bit is that you cannot see your own cards. You hold your cards facing outward so that everyone else can see your cards, but you cannot. Obviously, there's no table talk allowed, but as an action, players may give you information based on the color or number of cards in your hand. "You have one card of value five" or "You have three yellow cards". You point to the cards so they know specifically which you're talking about. You can't selectively choose to not point to something; if someone has two 3s but you only want them to use one of them, you can't just point at that and say "you have at least one 3"; you have to find another way to get that across. You also cannot tell someone about information that is absent such as "You have no red cards" because you must be able to point at something. This action requires a token, so if the team is out of them, you can't do it. You can restore these tokens by discarding cards. If, for instance, you know that you have a 1 and there is already one of each 1 on the table, you can safely discard it. Sometimes, it's not that clear and you have to take a risk. The other action you can take is to play a card from your hand. If the card starts, extends, or ends a line, you are fine and it's added to the board. If it does not, you lose one of three fuse tokens (different from the other tokens, the name of which I forget) and are that much closer to losing the game. For instance, if you play a blue 2 and there is only a blue 1 on the board, you are fine, but if there is a blue 1, 2, 3 and 4, you discard the card and lose a fuse token. Play continues until either you run out of fuse tokens and the display blows up or you run out of cards, in which case each player gets on more turn, and if you haven't blown up, the display is scored. This game is hilarious and awesome. It's alternatively tense and light, as you try your best to make your friends understand whether telling them about a card in their hand means to play it or discard it. It's brisk and short too, so it's a nice filler without being brainless. I was impressed.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:13
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Speaking of ... Playing Tash kalar right now...  Other player is in deep thought so decided to check the thread. sonatinas fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 22:31
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Paradoxish posted:It's also just a sort of inherent problem that a lot of co-op board games have. Most of the interesting decisions happen at the "meta" level above what any individual player is capable of doing on their turn. Since there's no reason to hide information, you end up in a situation where you're basically playing a single player puzzle with multiple people. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a lot like putting a jigsaw puzzle together as a group activity. Quarterbacking is more of a symptom than an actual flaw. That's true for a lot of coop games, but I think Pandemic exacerbates the problem with its card-trading mechanic. In order to trade cards you need the player who has the card and the player who wants the card to meet in the city named on the card. That usually means that at some point, someone says "You, go here this turn, trading needs to happen." I agree that in a "state of nature" coop games tend to default to quarterbacking, but there are plenty of ways to design around that. Limiting communication is one method. Hanabi is the poster child here, of course. Witch of Salem has a rule that players cannot discuss the information they gain from using their glasses, so each player effectively ends up with a private task they need to take care of on their own. Tragedy Looper isn't quite a coop, but the "no talking outside of the time spiral" mechanic falls under the same broad heading. Space Alert makes quarterbacking almost impossible due to the time limit. I've tried playing 2-player Space Alert with each player controlling two characters. Even though we usually win nowadays, we lost horribly each time we tried two-player because it's just too much to track in too little time. Quarterbacking Space Alert would be like one player controlling four characters indirectly: it's just too much work. One of the reasons games like Pandemic are easy to quarterback is that each player has very little stuff of their own going on. A glance at the board tells you where each player's piece is, and the characters are all the same except for one special ability. Because of that, it's easy to tell at a glance what other players can do - and once you've seen the best option, there's no reason not to say it. In Sentinels of the Multiverse, each player has their own deck and hand of cards that say what they can do. There's no hidden information, but you can't just glance at the board to tell what everyone else can do, so there's no compulsion to tell the other players what the best move is and you generally just let them do what they can on their own. Arkham Horror does away with quarterbacking by making none of your decisions matter.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:31
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I played a lot of Avalon over the weekend because we had between 5-9 players the whole time. And when we had 5, we were pretty tired and not willing to start anything else. We did play Creationary and Cards Against Humanity and I only really had them out due to numbers and needing a break from Avalon. I did get maybe 20 minutes to teach Space Alert to 3 people as well. We played Avalon with no power roles or with Merlin/Percival/Mordred. We started without powers, brought them in and only went back to no powers when we dropped to 5 players. It was the first time I got to play a lot of games in a row and I'm really glad I did because the game doesn't tire that much with a large group. It's fast enough that people get to swap roles and not get bored. I had a very good win % but probably because I was mostly evil.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:37
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According to a preview I read of the Xcom board game, it deals with with the problem of quarter backing by limiting the time available to make decisions. The commander will have to make a decision and the there isn't enough time for everyone to discuss it, just enough time to ask the player with the relevant information and they both basically have to make a snap decision.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:45
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Early giftmas prize from my blushing bride. Seriously doubt I will win many games of Go against her, but it's low set up time replay ability means it will hit the table often. 
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Dec 21, 2014 22:52
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Someone make me some suggestions that are in the vein of Castles of Burgundy.
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Dec 21, 2014 22:56
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Magnetic North posted:
Yeah, I loving love Hanabi. Unfortunately, I don't get to play it very often because one member of my regular group really dislikes it.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:02
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about Hanabi.
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Myrmidongs posted:Someone make me some suggestions that are in the vein of Castles of Burgundy. Might give Troyes a look if you want more dice-placement.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:04
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Myrmidongs posted:Someone make me some suggestions that are in the vein of Castles of Burgundy. Suburbia is sort of along the same lines as CoB. Taking tiles, adding them to your suburb, checking to see what effect that tile had on the others on the board. There is a bit of book-keeping, sometimes almost too much to be frank, and the look of the game reminds me "Excel Spreadsheet - the Game", but I like it more each time I play it, and I love CoB.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:11
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PerniciousKnid posted:Vlaada is a lovely designer who makes lovely games about poo poo and his name is too hard. The name really isn't that hard, you buttmunch.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:17
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Lottery of Babylon posted:once you've seen the best option, there's no reason not to say it. We're the kind of players where once someone sees/says the best option, there's no reason NOT to DO it (unless you in turn see a better one.) Someone once described Pandemic as a co-op puzzle which isn't far off the mark. We can enjoy it because it's fun to work it together and wring every possible advantage.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:58
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