End of game scoring in Solo mode

[patrober]

Ive played this a lot in solo mode and for the games i dont win (which is most of them!), I dont understand how my score is calculated. Always a negative score. It doesnt seem to be the difference between the two scores.

Anyone any idea how its calculated?

Cheers!

P

[patrober]

Ok, worked it out. I was assuming my running score included everything but it doesnt include any literary award scores which are added at the end. So the score when you lose is the difference between your score after adding the literary award, and Penny Dreadful's score.

[Mogri]

BGA always considers a positive score a win in solo, so your score goes negative to indicate a loss.

[quietmint]

Yes, exactly. I had to make the score negative when you lose co-op. It is the difference from winning (60, or whatever score needed to win based on player count).

In rare cases when you score >= the 60 threshold but Penny still won the game, your final score is -1.

[djast]

Just curious: the rules don't seem to say anything about winning in Coop/Solo play if the players score with the Literary Award included exceed Penny Dreadful's score--it only says that the side that completes their final lap first (the players or Penny Dreadful) wins the game.

Is the current implementation of comparing the two sides' scores after one side has caused the game to end an arbitrary decision, or is there a rule clarification somewhere that talks about taking total score into account when combining the Literary Awards and Cooperative Anthology variants, rather than the winner being the first side to cross the finish line?

I think that by a strict reading of the rules, Literary Awards shouldn't mean anything in Coop/Solo play. I wouldn't necessarily advocate taking away the option, but if it's basically a "house rule" to give the players a handicap against Penny Dreadful, perhaps the game should pop up a warning when creating a game configured with both Literary Awards and a Cooperative Anthology option.

[quietmint]

I don't think it's a "house rule" at all, nor do I think there's any confusion about how it works.

Since the variant rules for co-op do not explicitly prohibit the use of Literary Awards nor mention any specific changes, using it in a co-op game means it should work the same way as in the standard game: The bonus gets applied at the end of the game. I agree it can reduce the co-op game difficulty, since Penny cannot earn this bonus. Of course, it is already your choice whether you wish to use Literary Awards when creating a table.

These optional rules provide variants for Hardback. You can choose to use any combinations of the following variant rules to add complexity and challenge to the standard Hardback rules.

...

Literary Award cards are worth the amount of Prestige points shown on the bottom-right corner of the card, but only at the end of the game. [...] In the same way, Prestige points from Literary Awards do not count toward the 60 Prestige points needed to end the game, but these points will certainly help improve your total Prestige in order to win.

[djast]

While the comment you cite in the rules for the Literary Award variant does indeed indicate that points from Literary Awards "will certainly help improve your total Prestige in order to win," the rules for Co-operative Anthology appear to change the victory condition to:

If the players complete their final lap first, they win the game - their collected writings become instant classics! However, if Penny Dreadful completes her final lap first, the players lose - and suffer the shame of seeing Penny's name on the best-seller list.

rather than the normal victory condition of:

When the final player completes their turn, the player with the most Prestige is the winner and the finest author of the age! In the case of a tie, the player with the most ink remaining wins the game.

That would suggest to me that Prestige scored after Penny has already completed her final lap (and thereby won the game) would not be relevant. Am I missing something?