2000 Arena Points: Stats and Observations Getting There

[Dnxdieu]

Very interesting data !
Considering these insane stats, pretty happy to be part of 2 wins (first place) against a player like you in arena
Even if the game are very quick in this specific format, It's interesting though because the timings become really important for the objectives, I imagine that it forces players who initially didn't focus on them enough to look at them.

Indeed, you gave me quite a double thrashing early on. In fact, I think it was losing to you twice that made me start tracking my stats to determine whether playing turn-based was a good idea or not (I thought my win rate could be worse than Live). You were game 1 and game 11 of the dataset, and it wasn't until I reached game 14 that my ELO per game went positive. You definitely impacted my view of Inventrix, as that was one of the corps I lost to you with. The other was Helion which I've subsequently found pretty flexible for this format.

Glad to helped you to reach the top in a way !

'd probably then introduce Preludes for the season afterwards. What Preludes does is swing the game from engine being the strongest strategy on average, to terraform rush being the strongest strategy. This will be quite a change for many players on BGA, as playing cities early is still quite a dominant, although weak, strategy. Bringing in Preludes adds a further level of skill, which may make it harder for newer (but good gamers) to compete with people who've played on Steam for a while.

Do you consider that the simple addition of prelude strongly encourages the complete rush (often) of terraforming and that it renders the strategy engine almost obsolete?
It opens up a lot of possibilities for winning and also provides flexibility in the event of a bad start with the initial hand. It forces you to adapt to the choices of the adervs once the corpo and the preludes have been revealed.

I don't know what the practice is at a high/good level with these parameters, and it's more likely to be with 2 players, because with 3 players the games are too fast to hope to build an engine that's too heavy.

[Yahyra]

Maybe this is common knowledge... is it really such a big deal for BGA to have more than one 'Arena" queue? I know there's many folks who feel strongly that 2p is a better game/ higher tester of skill, others feel 3p is the one, etc. . Why not have both? Isn't T Mars the most popular game by far? 12k games ongoing at all times ? Ppl still queue.

(Btw, RoyalR I think posted he hates 3p because of all the kingmaking that goes on especially with emotional players (who play out of spite, not logic) and who are less experienced. I wholeheartedly agree and that's why I focus on 2p games).

Thanks to all for the great posts and discussions. I feel that no other forum (including the ubiquitous boardgame geek) offers this level of engagement.

Best wishes.

[Hefesto1337]

I feel like in corporate era 2 players the game relies too much on who got the better engine

3 players fix this in my opinion and the game feels a bit more complex and interesting, problem is king making of course

[RoyalRook]

Thats not true, especially if we don’t play with prelude with some super engine cards. The preludes are not mathematically balanced well for the TR ones, huge asteroid for example need rebalancing. I mostly rush and punish engines.

[Corbz]

I feel like in corporate era 2 players the game relies too much on who got the better engine

3 players fix this in my opinion and the game feels a bit more complex and interesting, problem is king making of course

I definitely disagree with this. Terraforming is equal if not stronger than Engine. When preludes are included, Terraforming is definitely dominant.

Back to 2 player v 3 player. Whilst the community is still learning the game, the third player can have too much of an overriding factor on who wins, even when they don't realise it (hate cards directed constantly at one player, funding awards that someone can take 1st from you, etc.) I would strongly advocate for 2 player arena next time and then 3 player once the community has skilled up a bit.

This view is even coming from someone who's won 31 Arena games in a row in 3 player format.

[RoyalRook]

I feel like in corporate era 2 players the game relies too much on who got the better engine

3 players fix this in my opinion and the game feels a bit more complex and interesting, problem is king making of course

I definitely disagree with this. Terraforming is equal if not stronger than Engine. When preludes are included, Terraforming is definitely dominant.

Back to 2 player v 3 player. Whilst the community is still learning the game, the third player can have too much of an overriding factor on who wins, even when they don't realise it (hate cards directed constantly at one player, funding awards that someone can take 1st from you, etc.) I would strongly advocate for 2 player arena next time and then 3 player once the community has skilled up a bit.

This view is even coming from someone who's won 31 Arena games in a row in 3 player format.

Oh that's cool, I have been stepping away for about 2 years before the BGA implementation, so they are now saying prelude favors TR? Are you saying for all maps for just considering Tharsis? For Tharsis, I take experimental forest and great aquaifer, beyond that engines are just better no(just in general)? If I am doing the arena again I am definitely going to be more disciplined, this season I really just played whatever, not good for ranking for sure since it's 3p. Can't wait for 2p. I guess I am saying this with Point Luna and Vitor in mind. Was there any major meta changes in the past two years you can think of?