Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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In a standard three to five player game, you'll see 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 15 cards.
Two player game's draft consists of two parts:
a) Both players take 5 cards. Each player selects a card to keep and a card to discard (=it's taken by "unknown opponent"). Pass draft piles (3 cards) to opponent. Each player selects a card to keep and a card to discard. Pass draft piles (1 card) to opponent.
b) Repeat the same draft with 4 cards more.
In this two player game variant, you'll see 5 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 2 = the same 15 cards!
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Michael Nerman
Canada
Winnipeg
Manitoba
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Clever.
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Mike Brewer
United Kingdom
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Quote: In a standard three to five player game, you'll see 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 15 cards.
I thought that the direction in which you pass cards the cards reversed each time, so that you do not see new cards each go.
Assume 3 players, seated in order A,B,C.
1. B sees his 5 cards, and passes 4 to his left.
2. B receives 4 new cards from C, and passes 3 to his right (back to C).
3. B receives 3 cards from A, but these are a subset of the 4 cards which he originally passed to A in step 1.
So you see 5+4+3+2+1 cards, but only 5+4 different ones (the ones you see in Step 1 & 2).
This is no different how many players there are.
Or have I been playing this wrong for ages?
Mike
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Michael Nerman
Canada
Winnipeg
Manitoba
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mikeb13603 wrote: I thought that the direction in which you pass cards the cards reversed each time, so that you do not see new cards each go.
Or have I been playing this wrong for ages? You've been playing wrong for ages, I'm afraid. You change the passing direction each round, so in the first round, you pass the cards to the left, until the person on your right passes you one card that you must take. Then in the second round, you pass the cards to your right...
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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mikeb13603 wrote: This is no different how many players there are.
Mike
In 4 or 5 player games you choose from 14 different cards (because you receive 15th card - your total 5th card - without choosing). As in my 2 player variant.
In 2-3 player game (with original game rules) you choose from 9 and 12 different cards.
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Gary Pressler
United States
West Lafayette
Indiana
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Seconded, this is a very clever solution!
I have a friend that has been wanting to play this, but I've been avoiding it with only 2P. This would make it sufficiently more interesting to give it a try.
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Mike Brewer
United Kingdom
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Quote: You've been playing wrong for ages, I'm afraid
Argh. (Although I still enjoyed it).
Mike
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Michael Nerman
Canada
Winnipeg
Manitoba
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mikeb13603 wrote: Quote: You've been playing wrong for ages, I'm afraid Argh. (Although I still enjoyed it). Mike
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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One concern I'd have with this variant is that, if you're always keeping one and discarding one, then you lose a lot of the hard decisions from the game.
The main tension in the two-player game is the choice between taking the card that's best for you and denying your opponent the card that's best for her. If I can take my card and trash hers it seems like a bunch of decisions are going to be easy ones.
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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BlackSheep wrote: if you're always keeping one and discarding one, then you lose a lot of the hard decisions from the game
Let's see on discarding process as if next (imaginary) player simply take the best card (or not give the best card for opponent) - as in usual 4-player game. You must make 2 decisions: 1) what card to take for you, and 2) what card the next (imaginary) player take for him (or not to give to opponent). It's NOT simply too (as in game with usual rules).
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Gary Pressler
United States
West Lafayette
Indiana
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I finally tried the variant last week. I liked it and will try it that way again.
However, Greg is also correct. Some of the tension goes away when you can both keep the card that helps you the most *and* discard another card that would help your opponent. For example, after a couple rounds, my opponent had two of the X*3 Yellow cards and one of the 3 Green "friends". I threw out at least two other 3 Green "friend" cards after that, while keeping other cards for myself.
We played with the advanced cards, which may have been a bad idea. It seemed easy to complete some of the story cards with only one opponent. Then again, I had more points from story cards than my opponent, but he still won.
All said, I still enjoyed playing. I just think there's still some fine tuning to be done.
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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GaryP wrote: We played with the advanced cards, which may have been a bad idea.
No! Bad idea is playing without advanced cards! /I tried it only once, in my first game.
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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Pard wrote: GaryP wrote: We played with the advanced cards, which may have been a bad idea. No! Bad idea is playing without advanced cards! /I tried it only once, in my first game.
Maybe I'm missing something but I find the advanced cards are a very mixed bag.
Some of the advanced cards (points for being #1 in a category) add a great deal of depth, while others seem to be an absolute waste in a two player game like the 1 of a kind cards that only have value in a pair with each other.
I find that in a two player game those 1/100 pair cards are basically dead cards. Since you will only see a fraction of the deck in two player the odds of ever being able to get both are infinitesimal. (you have two chances out of 100 cards, find the single match or the trickster), so no one ever plays them unless you get a very lucky draw and see both in the same draft or you're lucky enough to get the trickster early and then can take your pick of any of the 1/100 pairs to go with it. (which rewards nothing but dumb luck)
I have definitely been considering get rid of all the 1/100 pair cards in my two player games altogether, or perhaps boosting their value in at least a small way so there is a reason for someone to actually play them beyond the horrible odds of managing these particular matched pairs.
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
-
You can slightly reduce a deck (in your taste) specially for 2 player gaming.
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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Pard wrote: You can slightly reduce a deck (in your taste) specially for 2 player gaming.
Well yes, that's exactly why I said I was considering eliminating those particular cards. 
Beyond that I'm more drawn to increasing the initial draft size as outlined in the other variants posted here (7-8 cards without a first turn discard) rather than shrink the deck size further.
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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NuMystic wrote: I find that in a two player game those 1/100 pair cards are basically dead cards.
Not exactly so!
With reduced deck 2 players together will see almost all the deck. And your chances to receive any wanted card is about 1/2 (depending of - you will see it first or your opponent).
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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Pard wrote: NuMystic wrote: I find that in a two player game those 1/100 pair cards are basically dead cards. Not exactly so! With reduced deck 2 players together will see almost all the deck. And your chances to receive any wanted card is about 1/2 (depending of - you will see it first or your opponent).
Games using official 2 player rules draft from a total of 40 out of 100 cards.
To achieve the 50% odds you're suggesting you would have to reduce the deck by 60 cards!
Even if you do a larger draft variant of 7-8 per person you would still have to trim a LOT of cards (that work just fine in 2 player) to get close to that 50% chance of making a combo.
Meanwhile there are only 3 cards that are worthless outside of this super rare combo. (the other half of the combo is still useful on it's own for 3 points and the hunting ability)
So, reduce the deck size dramatically to make only 3 problem cards work, or just remove the 3 cards that suck in 2-player? I wish all choices in the game were this obvious.
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Igor Larchenko
Russian Federation
Ivanteevka
Moscow region
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NuMystic wrote: Games using official 2 player rules draft from a total of 40 out of 100 cards.
To achieve the 50% odds you're suggesting you would have to reduce the deck by 60 cards!
In my rules variant two players use every round (5+5)+(4+4)=18 cards, total 72 cards per game.
In our "2 player, no-aggressive, games" we remove from the deck next 9 cards:
Such, in our games we see (together) 72 of 91 cards.
We don't need aggressive cards, as we use discarding for remove unnecessarily cards (those that your opponent can receive).
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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I'll just stick with discarding the 3. We don't view those shadow cards as "aggressive" at all since it hurts both players and I have no desire to lower the potential value of the 4/100 variable score sets. Both make for interesting choices and strategies and I wouldn't want to lose or diminish at all.
I'm not a fan of having so many discards during draft for the same reasons others have already mentioned. You're just taking what you see as a aggression off the table during play and replacing it with far more directly aggressive drafting. (keep what I want AND take the best cards of the opponent out of play without any personal sacrifice)
I understand that your intention was to replicate the multi-player draft where the extra discards represent cards taken by other players BUT a real player is also drafting for themselves, where in your variant that discard is virtually always going to be used to directly hurt the other player.
To see more of the deck I'd rather just add one more card to the drafting phase and play an extra round. With three cards taken out this would yield a slightly higher percentage of the deck being seen than in an official rules 3 player game.
I can see having a few discards but would only at the very END of the draft when it's less desirable cards. This would keep players from having such aggressive control over their opponents hands at no cost to themselves.
I believe that many of the best designed games are built around having to make difficult tactical and strategic decisions. Having that much discarding power in a 2 player draft removes one of the few tough decisions from this game and replaces it with one that is both aggressive and obvious. (discard the most valuable card of your opponent AND keep the most valuable for yourself)
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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NuMystic wrote: I find that in a two player game those 1/100 pair cards are basically dead cards.
We keep those in. Sure they're long shots, but early on that might be worth taking. And it's not like the Queen, King and Gold Dragon are worthless.
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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BlackSheep wrote: NuMystic wrote: I find that in a two player game those 1/100 pair cards are basically dead cards. We keep those in. Sure they're long shots, but early on that might be worth taking. And it's not like the Queen, King and Gold Dragon are worthless.
Which is why we're only taking out the 3 chapter 4 tale cards, and not the Queen, King, and Dragon as I mentioned a few posts earlier.
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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Yeah, but what I mean is that taking the Queen, King or Dragon first is a decent play. It doesn't hurt you and it has the chance of a big future payoff if a Chapter Four card comes up.
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NuMystic ~
United States
Oakland Gardens
New York
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Oh, I get that, we just feel that in a game that already has a healthy dose of luck at play, those 3 cards wind up being either discards (if they come up first) or provide a HUGE swing for complete dumb luck. Neither which is a positive addition to the game from our perspective.
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Posted Wed Feb 8, 2012 7:32 pm
