Jia Yaik Yong
Malaysia
Johor Bahru
Johor
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Played a six-player game today which ended with me in third place at the end with only 5 elektros left after powering 15 cities. The winner had thirty something elektros or so.
...however, while we were finishing a game of 7 Wonders a little later, I put my hands in my pockets and lo and behold, 38 elektros! 
Moral of the story, do not wear cargoes when playing this game, use a shirt pocket instead! 
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Marcus Fries
United States
Quincy
Massachusetts
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I put 6 security envelopes in the box for play to avoid having to hide your money like you did.
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Jia Yaik Yong
Malaysia
Johor Bahru
Johor
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That sounds like a good idea, maybe I'll do that!
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Ken Stuart
United States
Patrick AFB
Florida
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I'm curious to know: was it a 3-way tie for first with 15 cities? Money doesn't really mater if you didn't power the most.
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Jia Yaik Yong
Malaysia
Johor Bahru
Johor
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wizcreations wrote: I'm curious to know: was it a 3-way tie for first with 15 cities? Money doesn't really mater if you didn't power the most.
Yeap, it was. However, if I had known that the money was in my pants all along, I could have built another city and power it.. 
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Ken Stuart
United States
Patrick AFB
Florida
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I bet that's frustrating! At least you know that you were the real winner
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Apollo Andy
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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I know the official rules say that you aren't supposed to know how much money the other players have because it slows the game down, but it's actually the exact opposite.
For a while, we kept the money "secret" and people just got a piece of paper and pen and kept track of how much money everyone else had which REALLY slowed the game down. We decided to just make it public information (since it really is anyway) which actually sped things ups.
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Christopher Dearlove
United Kingdom
Chelmsford
Essex
SoRCon 5 2-4 Feb 2012 http://www.sorcon.co.uk
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ApolloAndy wrote: I know the official rules say that you aren't supposed to know how much money the other players have because it slows the game down, but it's actually the exact opposite.
For a while, we kept the money "secret" and people just got a piece of paper and pen and kept track of how much money everyone else had which REALLY slowed the game down. We decided to just make it public information (since it really is anyway) which actually sped things ups.
Use poker chips. If playing open money then just leave stacks in sight and most of the time people can see how much money people have with no need to ask. If playing closed money add a screen (plenty of games to borrow some from).
But if playing closed, recording on paper and pencil is clearly a rules violation. Play open, or don't record.
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Steve Bauer
United States
Gilbert
Arizona
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Dearlove wrote: ApolloAndy wrote: I know the official rules say that you aren't supposed to know how much money the other players have because it slows the game down, but it's actually the exact opposite.
For a while, we kept the money "secret" and people just got a piece of paper and pen and kept track of how much money everyone else had which REALLY slowed the game down. We decided to just make it public information (since it really is anyway) which actually sped things ups. Use poker chips. If playing open money then just leave stacks in sight and most of the time people can see how much money people have with no need to ask. If playing closed money add a screen (plenty of games to borrow some from). But if playing closed, recording on paper and pencil is clearly a rules violation. Play open, or don't record.
It is clear that it is not clear as you and ApolloAndy came to entirely different conculisions.
No where in the rules does it say you can't use a paper and pencil to keep track of money. I have never seen a group that would allow it and I agree with Christopher from a piratical stand point if you want to keep track it is better to play with open money. But this is a personal preference and not a rule.
Played Power grid on Friday and an hour into the next game (Agricola) one of the players build 100 Euros out of his shirt pocket. Not that he forgot about it during the game, just forgot to put it away at the end of the game. The inevitable laundry disaster is also a hidden danger of hidden money.
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Kevin C.
United States
Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
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Quote: But if playing closed, recording on paper and pencil is clearly a rules violation
I think this is more of an ethos thing than a rule. At least, judging from all the past threads on hidden but traceable information, there is certainly no consensus about it being “cheating.”
For some, it adds a superfluous memory component to the game which sullies a “pure” strategic experience. (For example, you win because your opponent can’t remember how many red cubes you have, not because you outmaneuvered him.) For others, it is a part of the design and the game should be played as the designer intended.
Groups are certainly free to do as they wish, but to call it a “clear rules violation” might be a bit too strident.
Kevin
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Apollo Andy
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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Exactly. You're adding an advantage for people who can memorize things, not those who can outsmart their opponent.
If the designer designed a game in which memorization is more important than strategy and said game can be made into a game in which strategy is more important than memorization with a trivially simple rule change, why would anyone play the game as designed?
Of course in a casual game, most people don't care enough either way, but in serious play, it doesn't make any sense to ever conceal money.
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I would not allow writing down the money. If someone were insisting he could, I'd change it to open money instead.
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René van Bussel
Netherlands
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Dearlove wrote: But if playing closed, recording on paper and pencil is clearly a rules violation. Play open, or don't record.
I would not call it a rules violation. I would call it complete nonsense.
If playing closed and recording, then that is equal to playing open (only taking way more time). And so I arrive at the same conclusion.
Personally I've always interpreted this rule as: If someone asks how much money you have, you don't tell him.
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Steve N
United Kingdom
Devizes
Wiltshire
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I couldn't bear to play in a group that would take a game so seriously that everyone was using pencil-and-paper to record each other's money.
Urgh.
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Kevin C.
United States
Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
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Quote: I couldn't bear to play in a group that would take a game so seriously that everyone was using pencil-and-paper to record each other's money.
Well, if a "group" were doing this, they would all probably just play open money. I think the idea is that if open money were refused and one or two people at the table were doing this.
I think like many issues here, the extrapolations and possibilites we imagine are much worse than the practice. Groups have their own norms and games with strangers always require a bit of flexibility and acceptance.
So, people you game with on a regular basis already have congruent expectations and if a stranger decided to take notes, you would put up with it for a hour or so (or not) and then be done.
Kevin
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sbauer9 wrote: No where in the rules does it say you can't use a paper and pencil to keep track of money.
Nowhere in the rules does it say I can't punch someone in the face for outbidding me on a power plant I want. Sure, my opponents probable prefer that we use this "no face-punching" variant, but since it's not explicitly stated in the rules, unless it's declared before the game, it's a perfectly legal move.
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Apollo Andy
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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But why would you *want* a game in which money is closed? It turns the game into a memorization game instead of a strategy game.
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Kevin C.
United States
Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
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Quote: But why would you *want* a game in which money is closed? It turns the game into a memorization game instead of a strategy game
I think for some players, the memory aspect adds some tension and an “unknown” to the game. In games with hidden information, I think most people probably aren’t going to try and memorize each transaction. So there is an element of, “How much does he really have?” going on.
If you could simply glance over or look at a note sheet to see, “Ah…I have him beat by three blue cubes so he can’t purchase that before I do,” that uncertainty is gone.
At the end of the day, how you feel about this will come down to your own personal preference about gaming. Do you enjoy that queasy feeling because you can’t remember if he had nine or ten victory points or do you want all calculations to be out in the open and free from memory issues?
Kevin
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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ApolloAndy wrote: But why would you *want* a game in which money is closed? It turns the game into a memorization game instead of a strategy game.
That seems rather an absurd exaggeration. With closed money (which is what the publisher recommends in their FAQ, by the way) you still have some reasonable idea of how much money each player has if you're at all paying attention, and you use that in your reasoning ("he has about 50 elektros" instead of "he has exactly 53 elektros"). It's not a binary choice, as if any presence of memory negates all strategic aspects.
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Kevin C.
United States
Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
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Quote: Nowhere in the rules does it say I can't punch someone in the face for outbidding me on a power plant I want. Sure, my opponents probable prefer that we use this "no face-punching" variant, but since it's not explicitly stated in the rules, unless it's declared before the game, it's a perfectly legal move.
I'm always a bit taken aback by these hyperbolic analogies.
We are talking about a reasonable extrapolation of designer intent in boardgames. Should a game like PowerGrid be part memory game or not? The designer hasn’t gone as far as to say, “No notes should be taken,” so someone then decides it would be reasonable to play this way since the designer hasn’t specifically prohibited it. It is an extremely parochial conclusion.
Besides, your example goes out the window because of local and state laws which would supercede anything a German designer had in mind about assault and the rules to his game. He doesn't have to put this in his rules because (besides being common sense), every legislature in the land has already done so. I would think it self-evident that regardless of what a game designer says, punching someone in the face over a boardgame decision is not legal in the least.
I understand in a way the desire to go right to visceral examples of violence to make the point, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with boardgame rules and designer intent. If you take notes and I don’t like it, I simply leave the game. If you punch me, I call the cops. One seems a reasonable reaction to a boardgame ethos question; the other seems not at all germane to the discussion.
Kevin
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Apollo Andy
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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Okay, let me restate my point a different way:
Why would you *want* a game in which there is any advantage to memorizing a whole bunch of stuff instead of all the advantage being with the person with the best strategy?
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Mike
United States
Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania
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ApolloAndy wrote: Okay, let me restate my point a different way:
Why would you *want* a game in which there is any advantage to memorizing a whole bunch of stuff instead of all the advantage being with the person with the best strategy?
Because then I've beaten someone who thinks memorizing five other players money matters in this game. Having the poker odds memorized doesn't mean a damn if you can't read people.
Hell, I'm not even sure where these magical people are that a)can memorize the information in the game and b) always or even usually win. I've seen plenty of 'we played closed and people wrote things down' comments, but I've never seen any 'we play open because Eidetic Eddie always won' comments.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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ApolloAndy wrote: Okay, let me restate my point a different way:
Why would you *want* a game in which there is any advantage to memorizing a whole bunch of stuff instead of all the advantage being with the person with the best strategy?
Let's look at it a different way:
Why wouldn't you want a game in which there is any advantage to memory? You talk as if it's inconceivable that anyone might enjoy anything having to do with memory skills.
FWIW I've seen plenty of people who aren't even particularly good at remembering running totals like money in games who still prefer playing with hidden holdings, not because they want to try memorizing exactly but because:
1. they find that otherwise the game gets bogged down in analysis paralysis
or
2. because they enjoy the skill of estimating in the absence of certainty
or
3. because that's how the designer specified the game and they trust the designer and like the designer's game as it stands.
So there's at least 3 common reasons I've heard for liking hidden holdings.
Personally I tend to prefer no memory element in games, but I don't take it as a given that memory element is automatically categorically undesirable as you seem to.
PS: Since you feel that it's obviously undesirable for there to be any kind of memory element in a strategic game like Power Grid, would you similarly have no objection to a player looking through the discard pile of power plants, since it's all public knowledge which plants have been discarded? (Serious question!)
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norman rule
United States
Columbia
Maryland
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almo2001 wrote: I would not allow writing down the money. If someone were insisting he could, I'd change it to open money instead.
If someone were insisting he could, he can find himself someone else to play with.
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Apollo Andy
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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RE: Memory Games
Sure. Some people, I'm sure, enjoy playing Memory or busen memo or Simon or whatever to test how well the can remember. For me personally, in a strategy game, I'd much rather be testing my wits against my opponent than testing my memory against his and the closer a strategy game is to testing who outwitted who instead of who outremembered who, the better, IMO.
RE: Power plants, location of step 3 card, etc.
Of course. If you could figure it out with a bunch of effort and it is advantageous to know, then why not just skip all the effort and have the knowledge anyway?
RE: the three reasons
All three reasons (in a serious game, again, not in a casual game) don't hold water.
1) It's gets even more bogged down in trying to remember or write down and then having AP anyway once you read your chart.
2) There is no absence of certainty. The certainty is there if you want it.
3) The designer is wrong. I know it's not a popular thing to say and the game is otherwise excellent in every way, but because of #1 and #2, in a serious game it makes no sense to have hidden money because it's not really hidden and it's takes longer to figure it out when you "pretend" it's hidden than if people just know. (Again, this only applies in a serious game where people are really trying to win).
RE: "Don't play with write-down-guy" responses
Sure. In a casual setting this is totally a moot point because (probably) no cares enough about the advantage to win. In a serious game (like, I'm talking a tournament) you don't really have a choice to not play against people and you certainly don't have a choice about whether they choose to memorize everyone else's $ information. Either you do and reap the benefit or you don't and are at a disadvantage.
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Posted Sun Jan 15, 2012 3:49 pm
