Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
After last nights play, I think that this game has severe flaws and is quite broken in it's mechanics.
-
Ron
Austria
Vienna
ASL ... yes, this is my Desert Island Game. If I have to give up all my 3000+ games and only allowed to keep one, this would be it. This bloody game stood the test of time. Around for more than 25 years - simply the best.
Devote follower of the most holy church of the Evil Bob. Possessed and down the road to become chaotic, evil & naughty. All hail the Evil Bob and his stargate.
-
Although I played it only once, I didn't had that impression.
What flaws do you mean?
-
Richard Young
Canada
Victoria
BC
Old Ways Are Best!
Check Six!
-
JohanCarstensen wrote: After last nights play, I think that this game has severe flaws and is quite broken in it's mechanics. There are no quick fixes for these flaws.
Odd way to start a thread. Make a bald statement without any supporting detail and wait for...what exactly? I'll agree there may be flaws as with just about any game, but broken? I'd need a lot more to figure out what your concerns were.
-
Anthony Simons
United Kingdom
Royal Wootton Bassett
Wiltshire
-
Bubslug wrote: JohanCarstensen wrote: After last nights play, I think that this game has severe flaws and is quite broken in it's mechanics. There are no quick fixes for these flaws. Odd way to start a thread. Make a bald statement without any supporting detail and wait for...what exactly? I'll agree there may be flaws as with just about any game, but broken? I'd need a lot more to figure out what your concerns were.
What Richard said. Please, tell us more!
-
Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
-
After reading this thread, I think it has severe flaws and is quite broken.
-
Adrian Pop
Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj
-
JohanCarstensen wrote: After last nights play, I think that this game has severe flaws and is quite broken in it's mechanics. There are no quick fixes for these flaws.
Let me guess... you had a terrible score and lost.
-
Geoff Hall
United Kingdom
Yate
Bristol
-
Oh this should be good. Please elucidate as to the nature of these game breaking flaws. I'm interested.
-
Darrell Pavitt
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
The OP had this to say in his game rating:
Quote: Things that are broken:
* Regent role: this one is the most broken role in the game giving playes a chanse to gang up on one player even thoug they are living across the galacy, seriously broken.
* Regent role: victory points given during this role does not help people that has been falling behind to have a chance.
* Turn order: A player can have 2 turns in a row, build a fleet and attack without the other player having a chance to defend him self.
* Role bonus system: there is no need for a bonus system when performing a role.
Make of this what you will.
-
Adrian Pop
Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj
-
nyhotep wrote: The OP had this to say in his game rating: Quote: Things that are broken:
* Regent role: this one is the most broken role in the game giving playes a chanse to gang up on one player even thoug they are living across the galacy, seriously broken.
* Regent role: victory points given during this role does not help people that has been falling behind to have a chance.
* Turn order: A player can have 2 turns in a row, build a fleet and attack without the other player having a chance to defend him self.
* Role bonus system: there is no need for a bonus system when performing a role. Make of this what you will.
That is his personal opinion. But since he did not intend to bring it forward to discussion, there is no need to discuss it.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
I guess it's just me, but regent role has the effect that people seams to be able to gang up on one player take control of his planets and be able to build up a massive force with out the other player having a chance to be able to respond to that. That was what was happening last night. I have see similar effects in this game before as well. My conclusion is that the Regent role has severe built in problems. But that's just my thoughts right now. I call it broken in that sense that I can't see my self playing GE with the current rules especially regarding the rules for regent role. We played this game 2 years a go and I remembered it to be ok, but not this bad. We have been playing good games like Twilight Imperium and Eclipse lately and compared to that this game is outdated in my opinion. By the way I really wanted to like GE, but it has been harder and harder to find anyone still wanting to play it. The opposite goes for Twilight Imperium where we have been playing games almost each mount this year with about 7 players each time.
-
A. B. West
United States
Beech Grove
Indiana
-
What you say it true, but I want to point out one important aspect: the players decide when the Regent is taken. The player who takes it has the advantage as they get to place last - and that player could be you.
As for TI3 and Eclipse - I agree these are wonderful games.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
One thing that could be the solution to the problem seen could be to house rule that you can only influence systems adjacent to system that you control. And controlling a system requires you to have a influence marker there before the regent phase and a ship in that system. That would be more like the diplomat role in Twilight Imperium.
-
Adrian Pop
Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj
-
JohanCarstensen wrote: One thing that could be the solution to the problem seen could be to house rule that you can only influence systems adjacent to system that you control. And controlling a system requires you to have a influence marker there before the regent phase and a ship in that system. That would be more like the diplomat role in Twilight Imperium.
If you use your influence tokens on planets far away, then some other player will use his tokens on a planet near you, usually a neighbor to your right or left who may also be able to reinforce his claim using ships.
If someone can steal one of your planets, build a starbase and then produce there, that is a clear sign that you have at least 1 inexperienced player. It's not necessarily you, but maybe someone who did not take advantage of his neighbor's inactivity in his own area during the Regent role.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
I agree I might have been playing other games the past 2 years but the fact is that the mechanics as written in the rules makes it possible for up to 5 players to gang up on 1 player. This fact alone is not that nice in a game that seams solid on the surface. But as I mentioned earlier there might be things that you could house rule.
-
Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
-
JohanCarstensen wrote: the mechanics as written in the rules makes it possible for up to 5 players to gang up on 1 player. This fact alone is not that nice in a game that seams solid on the surface.
Hm? I must be missing your point, because it seems to me that in every competitive interactive 6-player game where players can hurt one another, it is possible for 5 players to gang up on 1 player, if they decide that's what they want to do.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
The problem is that you can gang up i the regent phase. I'm totally for ganging up in the warlord phase.
-
Todd Sweet
United States
Geneva
Illinois
-
I'm curious how 5 players gang-up on 1? Players only have 2-3 tokens during this phase and multiple colors on the same system have no greater affect than 2. IE - If all 5 players put a token on your system, than that is the same as another player putting his token on your system.
It also takes 2 tokens to take over a normal system or 3 if you a have starbase?. If everyone is going after you, they are just helping 2nd place to become 1st place and then would gain-up on that person in the next regent phase, leaving you alone. If you are not in 1st place and getting ganged-up on, then it's probably not the game's mechanics fault.
-
Todd Sweet
United States
Geneva
Illinois
-
JohanCarstensen wrote: The problem is that you can gang up i the regent phase. I'm totally for ganging up in the warlord phase.
Why is this ok, but not in regent? One is a military solution and the other political. Either way you are losing systems and victory points.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
I'm talking about the possibility to go 5 to 1. In the warlord phase this is a theoretical possibility only but in the regent phase it's more of a real thing that can happen. In my 4 player game I totally deserved to be attacked by my neighbour but the person sitting in the other end of the galaxy also wanted to hit on me for no reason. That's okay if it's only about pure ship battles. But this early in the game, I had 2 systems the other ones 3 or 4, it's devastating. Especially if you don't have a chance to defend your self against a build up and attack. I basically had 1 system and nothing left to fight with after the attack. I would not call it broken if such things could not happen. The problem is that even how good you play you cant basically have a strategy and I have seen similar things happen during the regent phase before, just not this severe consequences.
-
Adrian Pop
Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj
-
Yes, king making is very possible to occur with inexperienced players. That is because an experienced player would not do that.
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
Tretiak wrote: Yes, king making is very possible to occur with inexperienced players. That is because an experienced player would not do that.
But in this case we are not even talking about King making, this early on in the game. My point is that it's a built in "bad" mechanic in the regent role. Bad in that sense that it can break the game totally for one player without that that player can do anything about it.
-
Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
-
Whether you call it "kingmaking" that early or not, the point is in any multiplayer game a player X could choose to attack some other player Y even though doing so doesn't help, or even hurts, player X. I.e. surely it was not really in the interest of all 5 of those players to gang up on you - probably one of them was benefiting a lot more than the others, and the others just went along with it due to inexperience or herd mentality or the logical fallacy "Hey, if we knock out Johan, then we all have a 1/5 chance of winning instead of a 1/6 chance" without realizing that probably they really didn't all equally increase their own chances but rather significantly increased the chances of one or two savvy manipulators...
Players can shoot themselves in the foot while shooting another player in any interactive multiplayer game (wargame or Ameritrash or euro or abstract or whatever).
That's a legitimate reason to prefer 2-player games if you want serious competition where there's no risk of an opponent playing stupidly/irrationally/vindictively/etc gratuitously taking you down with themselves.
-
dan schnake
United States
Indiana
-
If people are jumping you early in the game, either you're losing the diplomacy metagame or... Your game group has some issues with you.
Sorry it happened to you, though. Sometimes you need to lie low in the first part of multiplayer conflict games.
-
Richard Young
Canada
Victoria
BC
Old Ways Are Best!
Check Six!
-
The Regent role is carefully designed to allow the player who chose the role to protect that which he values most (by virtue of placing his influence last) regardless of how much "ganging up" is going on. True he can't protect everything, but I find it unlikely that, in a game where players are serious about what they are doing, they would all choose to conspire against just one player. On the other hand, if that player had a substantial lead over the others then the mechanic you are unhappy with would appear to be a great leveler and thus be a "good thing."
Multi-player games of strategy all suffer to some degree or other from all the things we've discussed about them: "Kingmaking," the "rich get richer" thing, gratuitous boning, and so on...
Now, there are some legitimate concerns regarding the Warlord role which you haven't addressed - what were your observations on that from the game you played?
-
Johan Carstensen
Sweden
Stockholm
-
There are basically no issues with the warlord role.
-
|
|
Posted Wed Dec 7, 2011 7:51 am
