Does anyone know why in 2 player the first player gets the massive disadvantage?

[jknitnerd]

I understand that in the rules the 1st player gets a certain amount of honey, second player, third player, etc...what I am interested in finding out is why this is the case, especially when in a two player game there is zero advantage to being first (selection rotates so each player has a chance to get first pick of a section). What am I missing? Searching online I could not find any playtesting info, or existing blog or forum post about why this decision was made. An informal survey of other Applejack players seem to echo the disadvantage the first player has and I would love to understand the logic for this choice.

[DashingDonnie]

Playing first is a disadvantage period, more so in a two player game. I would much prefer to be last and have 22 honeypots and am always disappointed if I am selected first as honeypot management is more critical.

BTW you have played with my wife Groovyisle as she mentioned you like to knit.

[jknitnerd]

I wonder why they decided that the first player would start with so much less honey? There must be logic to it...

[jkekoni]

I would like to see statistics from this platform how often the 2nd player wins.

I think there is certainly a disadvantage to 1st player.

The compensation does make sense. 1st turn 1st player choses from 4 tiles, 2nd from 3 tiles.
1st player has 1 more tiles before many scoring points.

The 4 honey is however too much. I do not know if -3 honey or -2 honey and -2 end score would be better.

[Foxxclaw]

For roughly half of the harvests in the game, the first player will have one more tile in their orchard than the second player. That's enough of an advantage that you need to compensate for it somehow. I have wondered whether adding the honey at the end of the game rather than at the beginning of the game wouldn't be better, as the extra honey has a significant effect on strategy in the first round. At the same time, though, the game seems well balanced to me so far. Also, the asymmetry seems to me to make the game more interesting, so unless the stats are showing that the game is in fact more poorly balanced than it seems, I think the game works well.

[nandblock]

This topic was raised (by me) and answered on BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/307557 ... sation-why

[jknitnerd]

Thanks for sharing the BGG link! I agree that the honey difference early has such an impact as to what you can afford and build. I do wish there was a way to see the data as to the number of times the second player wins in a two player game. Anecdotally, unless the second player is just learning the game and the first player is not, it does seem like the second player wins > 80% of the time.

[Sclarnin]

This has been my experience as well, and as others have said, added honey early in the game is a very significant advantage which has cumulative effects throughout the game. The main advantage of first player seems to be one additional tile option on the first move. Beyond the overall stats of how often first player loses the game, I'd be interested in stats about point spread. I've had games with multiple players who had good strategy, but the final points margins for some winners was smaller than the initial late player advantage. If someone wins by 30 points, they're either extremely lucky or they just have better strategy. But how often has it happened that the first player lost by a few points based entirely on turn order advantage? I've had this on more than a few occasions, both as winner and as loser.