AoI Auction

[stagow]

I was wondering why this game doesn't provide an auction to determin starting player like TM or GP?

Starting player has such huge advantage, the game feels sometimes over before it even began...
Inventors with 2 worker power action or 2 book guild upgrade feels just broken.


There was a tournament in china with a new approach to this and I was wondering if this could be implemented?
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/343608 ... rticipants

TL;DR:
- please add reverse snake draft with reverse turn order to balance the first pick: 4321 1234 4321 1234
- please add auction for turn order: winner of auction can pick open seat in turn order.

[NiceGuy4you]

reverse snake draft should be the right thing

[leafsnack]

Yeah, the pick order is so unbalanced. And for a game that can take up to 2 months to complete, knowing you're going to lose to the Inventors before you're even done drafting does not feel good. The 1st player has such a huge advantage over 4, 2, and 3 that is never remedied. I've stopped playing AoI entirely now and gone back to Terra Mystica only, that's how bad this issue is.

The game is asymmetrical at its core, so the only way for it to be played competitively is if the players can even out the odds in the drafting/auction phase. I like your suggestion of auctioning purely for initial turn order, which would be the cleanest solution. I can see 1st position being bid down -20 or more in a lot of games. But I can also see how 1st and 4th are the only positions worth bidding points for, which would kind of warp the auction around them.

I think an even better solution is more like the TM auction: The four players do the entire snake draft as-is, creating four individual factions with their own terrains, palaces, bonus tiles, and position in the turn order. THEN, the auction starts, and players bid on which faction they want to play. Maybe the #2 Wasteland-Goblins are looking better than the #1 Forest-Blessed and #4 Desert-Moles, you can bid that one down to pick it for yourself. Having the option for a TM-style auction after selecting all the attributes would be the best way to balance the game.