Thoughts On Rebalancing?

[FSKFSK]

After playing many times, some cards are just plain broken and need to be nerfed.

"Galactic Survey: SETI" should cost 10 instead of 9, give one fewer explore symbol, and should give you 1 point per PAIR of enemy explore symbols (rather than each). Right now, a turn 3 SETI is possible, and a turn 3 or turn 4 SETI is pretty much auto-win.

"Galactic Federation" should also cost 10 instead of 9, and should give you one point per PAIR of enemy developments (rather than each). This card is pretty much a guaranteed 13+ drop if played on turn 5 or later.

Genes need to be buffed. Most of the gene worlds need +1 somewhere, either another gene icon, another military/income/VP. Maybe "+1 VP per pair of gene symbols"? There also should be more gene cards.

Explore should let you keep an extra card. Maybe Survey Team gets the ability "Keep an extra card when exploring"? Right now, being forced to explore on turn 2 or turn 3 due to a bad draw is almost equivalent to conceding the game. I know that you can try to keep a playable card on turn 1 or turn 2, but usually the correct play is to dump your hand for the most possible income. I.e., +3 income keeping no cards is a better play than +1 or +2 income keeping a card or two.

[ChiaraJoff]

I’m confused. Are you suggesting that they should change the cards that are printed in the hard-copy game? I can’t believe that wouldn’t go against their license. Cards that are over- or under- powered here are also over- or under-powered in the printed game, so your beef would seem to be with RioGrande and not BGA.

[FSKFSK]

If they ever do a 2nd printing, they should rebalance the cards. The current card list is so unbalanced that they should get permission from the designer to rebalance.

That's one advantage of an electronic game vs. print game. If there's bad balance in your design, you can just fix it. They also can data mine the player data. They'll see that SETI and Galactic Federation are OP. The player dealt them will win disproportionately often.

The "preset starting hands" are also unbalanced. The one that lets you start with Alien Toy Shop lets you get 4 income after turn one. Play Alien Toy Shop, Survey Team, and dump the other 4 cards. You could put any 4 cards with Alien Toy Shop EXCEPT FOR SETI or Galactic Federation and that would be the correct play. There are other preset starting hands that can only get 2 income after turn one.

[wodan46]

Galactic Federation and Galactic Survey: SETI are strong finishers yes, but:

1: They cost 9. Without cost reductions it is the only card you play the turn you play it. By comparison Galactic Imperium and New Galactic Order can be played with a large Military world. Alien Tech Institute and Free Trade Association can at least be played with a 1 cost Civilian world, maybe more.

2: They give zero Income, meaning an early drop can stunt your economy. By comparison Uplift Code and Mining League get your win condition online without missing a beat on the economic snowball, Alien Tech Institute and Free Trade Association don’t give as much Draw but are reliable and cheaper.

3: For Galactic Federation, Developments give little Draw on their own and playing Development+World early on is inefficient Draw usage too, which means getting the most out of it requires possibly suboptimal play.

4: For Galactic Survey: SETI, Exploration icons are basically the most useless attribute in the game outside of SETI and Survey HQ, which means any card featuring icons likely has it at the expense of other more useful properties, which is again suboptimal.

This is a case of cause and effect. Good players are more likely to have the draw needed to find and play SETI and Federation. Late-game they are liable to exceed the value of any other possible drop outside of what a tableau is specifically building towards. But that just means they’re how an economically strong player cashes in on their draws.

[FSKFSK]

Alien Technology Institute requires THREE alien worlds for it to be equal to Galactic Federation and SETI. That's a hard combo to pull off. Just because you get an early alien world, there's no guarantee you will draw more or draw Alien Technology Institute. If you're dealt Alien Technology Institute early and hold onto it, that's a waste of a card that could be reinvested instead. Holding a card is almost always a mistake in the early/mid game. You want to dump your hand for the most income (early game) or most VPs (mid/late game).

Military is also a huge gamble. You can have 10 income and draw no big military worlds. Military just isn't consistent enough to be reliable. The only time I go heavy military is if I get early military worlds that chain. I.e. a 1 military world that gives me +1 or +2 military, and then another military world that costs 2-3 and gives another +1 or +2.

SETI and Galactic Federation are good on their own, no combo required. Whatever strategy you are following, those are almost always 10+ VP cards. Yes, you're using a whole turn to play them, but 10 VP is more than you're usually going to get. You even get to keep the best card in your hand for next turn (which is why it should cost 10). If you can get them down on turn 4, that's 30+VP just from your turn 4 play (assuming a game lasts 6 turns). SETI also combos with explore icon cards, because now each explore icon is +1VP.

There are other developments that CAN give you a 10+ VP turn, but they require multiple matching cards for it to be a payoff.

[Raeoran]

SETI definitely overperforms, and substantially. For Federation, I wonder if it would be too convoluted to make it give 1 point per development and two per "large" development, as it does in Race.

The preset hands are explicitly meant as training wheels for your first game so I think them being imbalanced, while suboptimal, is fairly harmless.

[hiei]

I think the main issue with Settti is that, in 95% of the cases, it give s you 7 points for free. 2 survey teams and setti itself. If both survey team gave only 1 eye then setti would give 4 less points, and it eouldbt be so dominant while still be a good generic game ender.

On the other hand, uplift code is pretty bad, it is way to expendive to justify pmaying it for card economy and it doesnt give you many points for a 9 cost develop. Its also not worth rushing for, because the economic benefit is not decebt enougb unless you play 2 chromosomes alredy. If you are holding uplift code while stacking chromosomes and you draw setti, thwn you are very likely to be better plsying setti instead. Uplift researchers is a good card, but its nor worth holding Uplift Code for it.

Galactic federation is also busted imo, but it is sligthly less broken than setti. And its power can be useful outside of scoring unlike settis.

For the other colors, i think rare are fine as economic boosters while allien worlds are good on their own working as progress makers, ie, cards that help you the transition from early to mid game and then from mid game to late game. I find ATI as something similar, except that it depends on the allien wordls while the allien wordls dont depend on ATI.

Blue is not a good color imo. The worlds arent very good in any aspect, outside 1 or 2 exceptiond, and their support cards dont make it. Consumer markets needs at least 2 blued to be decent and FTA doesnt score decently and it just gives you 2 cards. I that regard, i consider minig league as much better at helping a transition in the mid game.

Military can be extremely powerful, being a playstyle able to end the game in 5 turns, but it is very inconsistant. The high score develops arent very good when you are cutting income to (hope to) get high scoring worlds by either exploring or chainibg low power military worlds. However, when you can afford one, conbined with a strong rebel world, they can end the game super fast. I think by their nature of high risk, high reward, they are fine in general.

[Tootles]

Like that short discussion. Most important fragment for me is "in my opinion" that is used several times in the posts.

I am the editor of the original game "The City", published by AMIGO in ca. 2011. I remember lots of discussions with Tom Lehmann, the designer of the game, about exactly such things when I had the feeling that "in my opinion" the balancing might be improved. In every single case he could tell me exactly how he could win against my "oh my god, much too strong"-strategy with specific cards or vice versa how he would use my "much too weak"-cards to win against me.

What I want to say: Tom is an excellent designer regarding balancing in games. He did that for so many games before incl. different games he did not designed himself but was asked to give comments on the cards (e. g. Dominion). So in most cases I am pretty sure that the cards and the values resp. the functions are exactly right as they are.
Often there seems to be a misbalancing because of different players strengths or experiences.

If you "challenge" Tom with your specific theories about single cards in the forum on BGG, I am sure that he will disprove most of them. Try out.

Best regards
Christian

[Phoxtrot]

Like that short discussion. Most important fragment for me is "in my opinion" that is used several times in the posts.

I am the editor of the original game "The City", published by AMIGO in ca. 2011. I remember lots of discussions with Tom Lehmann, the designer of the game, about exactly such things when I had the feeling that "in my opinion" the balancing might be improved. In every single case he could tell me exactly how he could win against my "oh my god, much too strong"-strategy with specific cards or vice versa how he would use my "much too weak"-cards to win against me.

What I want to say: Tom is an excellent designer regarding balancing in games. He did that for so many games before incl. different games he did not designed himself but was asked to give comments on the cards (e. g. Dominion). So in most cases I am pretty sure that the cards and the values resp. the functions are exactly right as they are.
Often there seems to be a misbalancing because of different players strengths or experiences.

If you "challenge" Tom with your specific theories about single cards in the forum on BGG, I am sure that he will disprove most of them. Try out.

Best regards
Christian

Interesting.
Yet, while it is indeed possible to win against any card that doesn't mean that it is well balanced.

And I certainly wouldn't call "Roll for the Galaxy", another Lehmann game, "well balanced" or even "relatively well balanced", at least not at a 2-4 player count. I have 107 wins there which include a single win with a consume strategy and probably 1 defeat against that strategy as well.

For jump drive, I do think the Seti is OP in late game. It's OP because it will very often be the best or second best card you can draw in late game. Still, Jump Drive, *is* relatively well balanced. There is often a non-trivial decision to make which is quite good for such a short game.

The various strategies do have their cons and pros but that isn't enough to make a perfect balance.

[Lofski]

I remember lots of discussions with Tom Lehmann, the designer of the game, about exactly such things when I had the feeling that "in my opinion" the balancing might be improved. In every single case he could tell me exactly how he could win against my "oh my god, much too strong"-strategy with specific cards or vice versa how he would use my "much too weak"-cards to win against me.
[...]
If you "challenge" Tom with your specific theories about single cards in the forum on BGG, I am sure that he will disprove most of them. Try out.

Coming up with a very specific, theoretical situation where a widely perceived balance issue is not a problem does NOT prove that the issue doesn't exist. A good example of this is Magic the Gathering, where a vast amount of blatant balance issues have appeared over 30 years. For all those broken cards and combos, one could have easily theorized a situation when they can be beaten. And it happened in practice too. But while not 100% sure to win, those cards and combos were just too consistent, and needed to be banned.

When lots of people bring up the same balance issue, board game designers and publishers would do well to take those concerns seriously. I'm not saying games should be errata'd whenever someone complains about balance. The wise way of dealing with it would be collecting analyzing statistics of high level play. These days many designers do that, kudos to them.

Back in the day when Race for the Galaxy's Brink of War had been out for maybe 6-12 months, lots of people (including me) were posting on BGG that prestige and cards giving and using it were too good comparatively. Especially Pan-Galactic Affluence was mentioned often. One fact was supporting this perceived imbalance; the de-facto way to play RftG digitally (made by Keldon) back then had an AI that was trained with neural networks. The AI always went very heavily for prestige, and it would be very hard if even possible to beat when it got good prestige cards. I still could beat it maybe 2/3 times, since it wasn't able to do that well without prestige cards.

Tom Lehmann is very good at designing game mechanics and tying them together, but I think he (and you) might have too much faith in his ability to balance games perfectly. When me and others were talking about the prestige issue on BGG, he just basically brushed it off, implying that we were just noobs, and that Keldon's AI was badly trained. But I was quite a good player back then with over 200 games played and a high win rate on Keldon's server. Some of the others were probably even better.