Useless cards in age1 - Proposal

[Chris Me]

Hello,
in age1, there are the cards that everyone wants to get (resources + sciences) and the useless cards (3points or 1 shield cards).
The result of this is that:
- the game in age1 can be stereotyped (always the same)
- there is a big advantage for the first player because with the set up of the pyramid in age1, he can generally choose to pick up the good cards and let most of the useless cards to the second player.

In order to avoid this, I would suggest that the player starting the age2 is the one who took the last card in age1, in all the cases, even if the military cursor is not in the middle position . And the same for starting age3.
The fact that you will not automatic start the next age if you are in a weaker military position, will involve that a military attack starting from age1 will be much more rewarded than now and can become a real threat !
With the current rules, for the second player, if he decides to pick up the 1 shield cards in age1, he will lose his advantage to start the age2, so there is rarely interest to pick up these cards.

My proposal would make age1 much more exciting with real difficult choices between all the cards (resources, sciences AND military cards).

In the same idea, we could have all the blue cards of age1 with 4 points instead of 3.

With a combination of these 2 proposals, the age 1 would become much different from now, with a lot of diversity from 1 game to another in the pick up choices between ALL THE CARDS...and with much more reduced advantage for the player1.

What do you think about it?
Christophe

[Wonderful Plays]

Interesting proposition, but sadly BGA will never make changes not covered in official releases. So there is unfortunately 0 chance of this or any other solution being implemented.

[KongKing123]

Indeed, until there is some sort of a 7 Wonders Duel "second edition" (like with 7 Wonders), issues like these and the first player advantage are almost certainly here to stay.

The Agora expansion does manage to make red and (especially) blue more useful in Age I, though it introduces other problems.

[ukidon]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Letter Tycoon have optional changes to the rules for balance purposes for experienced players?

I.e. the table creator can change how "Doubling ability behaviour" works since the default rule is not balanced:

1. Doubling abilities multiply
Two doubling abilities applied to one word results in 4x earnings, three in 8x, etc. This follows the rules as written.

2. Doubling abilities add
Two doubling abilities applied to one word results in 3x earnings, three in 4x, etc. This is a variant designed for more experienced players.

3. One doubling ability maximum
At most one doubling ability is applied per word, for a maximum result of 2x earnings. This is a variant designed for two-player games between more experienced players.

[diamant]

Indeed, until there is some sort of a 7 Wonders Duel "second edition" (like with 7 Wonders), issues like these and the first player advantage are almost certainly here to stay.

The Agora expansion does manage to make red and (especially) blue more useful in Age I, though it introduces other problems.

I agree.

The advantage of the first player at 7 Wonders Duel is statistically similar to the advantage of the whites at chess.
This does not justify a rule change, unless the game designers propose a variant to balance the games.

In the absence of such a balancing variant, it would still be possible to take into account the unequal chances of games at 2 in tournaments. By organizing tournaments with matches of 2 games between 2 players, rather than simple games. But such matches would have lower interest in the absence of a tie rule, when each player wins a game. And such a rule of tie breaking would still be the responsibility of the game designers...

[MoiMagnus]

The advantage of the first player at 7 Wonders Duel is statistically similar to the advantage of the whites at chess.

One could also compare it to Go, where second player get a bonus 6.5 points (or 7, or 7.5, depending on the variant).
This is because Go, to the contrary of chess, has an easy way of offsetting first player advantage without significantly changing the strategy.

I'd argue that on this point, 7WD is much nearer to Go than to Chess, and that between starting Gold, bonus victory points, or even arguably some initial military strength (though that one would be contentious), there is enough levers to compensate for first player advantage.

Secondly, chess has a very important property that make first player advantage not that problematic: draws are frequents. This make playing two matches quite reasonable: you just need to win with white and draw with black (rather than win both, like you would on 7WD).

Admittedly, there is an arguments against trying to fix first player advantage in 7WD: the presence of a lot of other kind of randomness, sometimes ones that will decide the output of the game. While the first player has, a priori, a significant advantage, when cumulating all the randomness along the game (including who is the first player), they might end up to be the player that was truly screwed.

[Chris Me]

Hello everybody,
in fact, my topic was not really (or not only) focused on the first player advantage...but more on the fact that the first age is a little bit stereotyped, with always the same cards that nobody wants (red & blue cards in age1). With my proposal, all the cards would become interesting since the beginning, making age1 combinations/choices much more diversified in function of your strategy.
But of course, I can understand that changing the official rules could be disturbing...and could open other debates

[Gwendolyn78]

I agree that Age 1 is always the same. I don't take blue or red cards, only to discard them to get monney.

But if you give the blue en red cards in age 1 more value I think you get a different strategy.
Where are you going to get the money you need in Age 2 and 3?
You have to decided witch strategy you're going to follow from the first card. When you do that I think Age 2 and 3 are going to be less exciting because you know what your opponent is doing and what you have to do.
You're going to get the boredom from Age 1 in to Age 3 and it is the last of the game that has to be de most exciting.

But for the makers of 7WD it is something to try out.
If you have the boardgame you can try it out yourself. Get some agreements on rule changings and try it out with friends.
Let us now if it's better of not!

[tkok]

I thought this last week as I started to think that I use military strategy very rarely. Usually if you are not going to be the last player of Age 1 anyway you can take one or two of military or rush to 3 military and eat the 2 coins from your opponent without too much of down side. This works well as players don't usually value military cards so they are free for grabs. Same undervaluation goes for military wonders and you can easily end up with those.

One good thing about the military cards (and I think same works for blues) is that they are often chaining, so taking a military in Age 1 will reduce the need for coins in later ages.

I have now won couple of games with military victory in Age 2 so this seems to work well. Of course you have to be aware of cards layout and green tokens. But I would courage you to try to play differently before you suggest changes into "useless" cards, after all it might be your playing style that needs a refresh and not the cards