Kill "starving" in Stone Age

[Een]

So you decide that the designers made a mistake?
Or did they admit to having made a mistake? I would love to read that.

Well, eoc was careful to write "here's my opinion"
We players all have opinions about games

[Cappie]

So you decide that the designers made a mistake?
Or did they admit to having made a mistake? I would love to read that.

Well, eoc was careful to write "here's my opinion"
We players all have opinions about games

Yeah, opinions are great. And welcome. Allthough I find the starvation-bashing a bit absurd and tedious.

And I did indeed not fully read his "here's my opinion". Sorry for that.

[eoc]

I find it funny how that would probably 'fix' this issue.

It's easy to state with the benefit of hindsight, of course, but yeah – humans are funny like that. I wouldn't expect game designers to take psychology classes when trying to figure out mechanics (let alone wording or connotation potential*) but in this instance, some early playtester butterfly flapping its proverbial wings by getting hugely upset could have prevented a great deal of unhappy tribe chieftains all over the world Oh well, definitely an interesting phenomenon... unless you get too involved with it yourself!

* Coming up with their own catchphrase for the mechanic "what happens when you cannot feed the entirety of your tribe" could have helped avoid the subsequent coinage of a (for several reasons) problematic name in "starvation", which by now it's much too late to abandon in favor of a better suited one

@Cappie – I'm in no way bashing or even disliking what you call "starvation", so if my previous post came across like that, I'd recommend re-reading it with this clarification in mind. If anything, I'm bashing how parts of the playerbase handle its existence.

[Malta1978]

In my opinion, it goes totally against the spirit of the game. As a player, you're working on developing your society, including feeding your people. A strategy that completely bypasses this need takes something away from the game and reduces the fun significantly. Yes, it's an effective way to crush the opponent and you play to win, but this seems like a way to abuse a flaw in the game. Some have suggested people would complain about other strategic choices when they lost, if it wasn't this, but none of the examples are comparable, as they are about using the tools that allow you to help your tribe in the most efficient manner. Preventing your population from eating, just so you can win... That's rather different.

Somehow, I think the playtesters got scared away by the 10-point per round penalty, failing to go all the way with the "don't bother feeding at all" strategy. Sadly, it's easily worth ten points per turn if you are an experienced player, capable of taking full advantage of the extra people. In my experience, it's extremely difficult to counter. If you use the tips from people that successfully countered it and block the things that end the game fast, the skilled "no feeding" player will just take everything else.

I'd love to see examples of real stone age societies, which had a lot of success without food. Before I see evidence this was a common thing, I believe the argument of the developer for keeping this option lacks credibility. It seems more likely they messed up and cling to excuses instead of admitting and fixing it.

[eoc]

I'm not even going to bother replying to most of this neverending story, but:

If you use the tips from people that successfully countered it and block the things that end the game fast,

The counter is to not simply "block" the actions that end the game, but to actually use them to end the game fast. The player who isn't going for their feeding bonus points has no interest at all in finishing the game quickly, since that would mean the investment into more meeple won't have enough time to pay off. What you could try, on the other hand, in a 2p game where you suspect your opponent might go for said strategy is blocking the babymaking action every second turn.

[CB Droege]

I'd love to see examples of real stone age societies, which had a lot of success without food.

It's a game, not history, but I also like when the mechanics fit the story, so I see it thus: There are traders and other villages in the area, clearly... If I don't have enough food at the end of the season, they end up having to make bad trades for it, and if they still don't have enough, they have to beg for it, which hurts my 'prestige' in the greater community (thus the points loss). There: history fixed...

[uhbygv]

I'd be tempted to say it could just be made a variant, except that I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use it.

[Grey Lord]

In Czech official rules, a player loses 4 points per each missing food.
It works well because it does not allow to not feed on purpose (and win) and at the same time you are not punished by 10 points for below average roll of dice when one food / material is missing to feed whole tribe.

[N_Faker]

In Czech official rules, a player loses 4 points per each missing food.
It works well because it does not allow to not feed on purpose (and win) and at the same time you are not punished by 10 points for below average roll of dice when one food / material is missing to feed whole tribe.

Interesting.

"Pokud hráč nemůže, nebo nechce, zaplatit za chybějící jídlo surovinami, musí si na počítadle bodů odečíst 4 body za každé chybějící jídlo (pokud nemá dost bodů, posune se do mínusu)." - https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/38311/czech-rules