I recommend a rule change for the end game

[watershipdown]

I have played this game 27 times now and have lost 12 time. Out of those 12 losses, 4 have been by 1 point (and have won 0 games this way) as the player who went second and could have at least tied it if I got to take as many turns as the player who went first. I'm sure the rule can't be changed since the rulebook stated that the game immediately ends when one player runs out of tokens, but I would like to issue a recommendation to change this rule if at all possible. Some sort of tiebreaker could be implemented, like the player who scores the most points after each player takes one action (keep playing if it is a tie).

[GentletrollNOTB]

I also think, that the first player has quite the advantage - especially in tight games.

[veetenorio]

The very same happened to me.

Uwe had better ways to make things fair to the second player in other games. The way this one ends is plain unfair.

[paupertim]

I think this is likely something that would better to be put on BGG rather than BGA.

For a light game like this, I think the first player advantage is fine.

[paupertim]

Also, the game wouldn’t have a good way to do tiebreakers, so even if you tied on a normal game with 22 markers per player, you wouldn’t have extra markers to do additional rounds.

[Pietr_ucci]

The tile sorting and combinations are so variegate, that the goal of the game is to be faster to complete the tasks (12/18/22). Since the amount of tasks on tiles, and frame, is very much variable, it doens't really matter the amount of turns you take, but the ability of creating the winning condition before the other player.

[SunShine37]

It does seem a bit unfair (especially when it happens to me more than once !) that I did not complete my turn in that "final round".
This gives the first player an unfair advantage...can there be an alteration to this online game that addresses this issue ?
Thank you

[Hagardunor]

I have opened a bug report in order to try to overcome the problem. I think this could be an important update, so the developer would probably discard the proposal, but it's worth a try.

The link to the bug report is this one (if you agree with the proposal, please vote to make it climb as close as possible to first priority) : https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=139314

It reads like that :

Presently, the games end during a round as soon as a player has placed all their token. And this player is designated the winner.

If this player was the one who started the round, the consequence is that he/she played one more tile than all other remaining players, giving him/her one slight advantage over other players.
Moreover, if this same player places his/her last token at his turn to place the second tile of the same round, he would have had also one more tile played than other players.

What I would recommend is the following :
1) once a player has placed all their tokens, complete the round as usual
2) if this player IS the one who STARTED the ROUND :

• • if their last token was placed on their turn to place the FIRST tile of the round, let all other players place one more tile, then end the game. Declare him/her the winner if no other player has placed all their tokens during the last moves. Otherwise, declare a draw for all players with no remaining token in hand
  • if their last token was placed on their turn to place the LAST tile, play one more round during which all other players play JUST ONE TILE. Use the same process as above to declare a winner or a draw.

3) if this player IS NOT the one who STARTED the ROUND :

• • all other players place one more tile, BUT the player who started the round DOES NOT play a second tile. Use the same process as above to declare a winner or a draw.

Example #1 for a game with 12 tokens and 3 players (name them X, Y, Z):
- Round 1, player X starts the game : he/she places one tile. Y and Z place also one tile each, then X ends the round by placing a second tile
- Round 2 : player Y starts the round and places one tile. Players Z and X place one tile each, then player Y ends the round by placing a second tile
- and so on for many rounds.
- round number N : at the end of this round, all players have placed 11 token
- round number N+1, player X starts the round and places a tile. Assume he/she places one last token, hes/she would win with present rules.
Instead of that, player Y places one more tile which allows him/her to place his/her last token. Then player Z also places one more tile and cannot place his/her last token.
- the game scoring would be :

• • 12 for X, draw
  • 12 for Y : draw
  • 11 for Z : game lost

Example #2 for a game with 12 tokens and 3 players:
- round number N : at the end of this round, all players have placed 11 token
- round number N+1, player Y starts the round. He/she places one tile and cannot place his/her last token. Player Z places one tile and can place his/her last token. Player X places one tile and cannot place his/her last token. Then :

• • Player Y DOES NOT place a second token.
  • Player Z scored 12 and is declared the winner,
  • players Y and X scored 11 and lose the game

Example #3 for a game with 12 tokens and 3 players:
- round number N : at the end of this round, all players have placed 11 token
- round number N+1, player X starts the round. He/she places one tile and cannot place his/her last token. Player Y places one tile and cannot place his/her last token. Player Z places one tile and cannot place his/her last token. Player X places a second tile and can place his/her last token. Then :

• • Player another round where ONLY Y and Z place one tile each
  • For instance, player Y can place his/her last token, and player Z cannot place his/her last token
  • End score would be :

• - X scores 12, draw
  - Y scores 12, draw
  - Z scores 11, game lost

There would remain some little bias if all players had not started the same number of rounds, but I don’t think there is a satisfactory way to remove this remaining bias (otherwise than playing as much games as the number of participants, each player starting round 1 once, then add the scores of all games to declare the final winner).
Of course the bias is not evident when there are great differences in scores, but when the players are very close to eachother as in the 3 preceding examples, this proposal can make a hudge difference.

[ufm]

You should ask the publisher, as they have the rights to change the rules.

[Hagardunor]

Thanks for your answer.

However, before I conctact the publisher, your feeling and comments about the previous suggestion would be welcome

Regards