high sectors vs. low sectors

[Cos-]

In the video BoardAndDangerous posted ( https://youtu.be/b6cmi0FEl8M?si=bjNht9rDkxB7x0V- ) he says you should choose to go for either all 1-6 or all 7-12 but don't build on both, and he also says that in general it's better to go for low sectors when there are more players and high sectors when there are fewer players. But I don't think he explains why, and I have some questions:

1. Why should you choose to almost exclusively do 1-6 or 7-12?

2. Is there a middle strategy that makes sense, where you do either high or low but still develop 5, 6, 7, and 8 because they're all high probability? Like, say you're doing high sectors - should you still build up your 6, or not?

3. What is it about the number of players that makes low sectors better with more players but high sectors better with fewer players?

4. Those cards that let you add one or two to the roll after you've rolled - I think I saw someone call them "pushers" - they're clearly very valuable when you're playing high sectors. But should you still try to get them if you're playing only low sectors, or are they worth less than most other cards in that case? Or, should the presence of several of these "pusher" cards to buy, be a reason you should choose to play high sectors rather than low?

[chytown1017]

Nice try, I am not telling you how to beat me!

[Solarman9]

Nice try, I am not telling you how to beat me!

rofl love it.

To original post, you have to be flexible. You should try to go where the cards dictate. The lower sectors are consistent and are reliable. The problem is you can get 4 points in 2 turns and then your opponent gets 6 from an 11. It is possible to play both games, just not easy. Throw in buying to block and you get a mixed bag. I have bought the 9 arrow to stop the one person with the 8 arrow and the other with the 10 arrow and never bought cards to go with it. I have bought all low cards and then the random 11 to block the person stacking 11. It's a wild ride with no definitive strategy that works every game. I have recently seen games that had 9 roll 10 times and 10 roll 9 times, add in a game where 2 only rolled 6 times and another it rolled 8, it really is that every game is different.

[W1Y0]

Solarman9 has it right - the randomness and luck involved is pretty high in SpaceBase and there are a lot of different ways to win and none which are 100% successful. Being open to possibility is pretty important.

But in response to your questions... focusing on 1-6 or 7-12 is useful because it allows you to focus; generally speaking, the more cards you can pile onto a single sector, the bigger the payoff will be.

However, as people who've taken statistics can better explain, on two six-sided dice, numbers from 1-6 will ALWAYS hit, while sums beyond 10 will generally be more rare... which is why cards on those sectors offer correspondingly greater rewards for similar cost. In brief - it's a probability thing.

Concentrating on 5-8 is a valid strategy, offering a good mix of cards likely to hit and decent rewards when they do... but nothing is a sure thing.

To question 3, the more players in the game, the more important red rewards are because there will be more rolls they can potentially pay off; in games with two players, blue rewards are much more powerful since you have a shot at them every other turn. And, again: 1-6 will ALWAYS hit on two six-sided dice, while 7+ relies on the correct sum.

As for "pushers" (as good a name as any) those are most useful if you can concentrate them on 1-3 and then use any rolls of two 4+ to increase the sum to one of the 10+ cards with the big rewards you're hoping for.

But, honestly: you can build an "engine" which will work excellently in one game and, if the dice rolls don't go your way, the same plan might fail spectacularly in another game. The "Gambler's Fallacy" is useful to consider. But hey - my ELO has fluctuated from 300+ down to 100 and back, so if you're interested in the opinion of a real winner, look elsewhere!

[W0lle]

One (theoretical) concept that no one has brought up so far to answer your first question is the idea of avoiding overlap.

Say you buy a card for 12 and one for 6, which one do you activate when you roll a 12 (6+6)? If 6+6 is better then buying the 12 was pointless. If 12 is better then you're missing out on value of the 6 purchase. That's why as a basic strategy you could focus on low or high sectors.

In practice completely avoiding overlap is detrimental in almost every case so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Cos-]

It sounds like the consensus here is that that pieces of advice from that video is wrong. In other words, you're all saying that NO, it is NOT always better to either focus on 1-6, or on 7-12. Not saying those two aren't reasonable strategies, but I was curious why you shouldn't sometimes choose to build up some low and some high spots, or to focus on the middle, for example - and it sounds like you all agree, those are also reasonable strategies to do sometimes.

I still wonder whether that video's advice about number of players indicating which sectors to focus on, is good, and why. Even if you're not always going to focus on either just 1-6 or just 7-12, is it good advice that lower sectors are better when there are more players than they are when there are fewer players, while higher sectors are better when there are fewer players than they are when there are more players?

And if those statements are true, why?

That closest someone came to addressing that question was this:

To question 3, the more players in the game, the more important red rewards are because there will be more rolls they can potentially pay off; in games with two players, blue rewards are much more powerful since you have a shot at them every other turn. And, again: 1-6 will ALWAYS hit on two six-sided dice, while 7+ relies on the correct sum.

I think it's very very obvious that _red_ gets better the more players there are, yes.

But how does this explain why high sectors get relatively worse the more players there are, while low sectors get relatively better the more players there are? Both low and high sectors can be built up to have lots of red rewards, in the same ways. And the red rewards on high sectors are worth more, in the same way that blue rewards on high sectors are worth more. So this red vs. blue seems like a different question and i'm not sure what connection you intended to make between these two issues (red/blue, which is obvious, and low vs. high, which is what I'm wondering about). Maybe there is one, but what is it?

[zenako]

One thing to consider is sequence of returns (like the stock market). By focusing on the low sector you are more likely to get enough coin early on to buy superior ships to play and to deploy more of the sectors, while someone with a "great" deployed 10,11, or 12 sector might end up with nothing to show for it for some time. With generally a limited number of turns to each game, having "empty" turns hurts. Low sector deployed ships tend to earn coins frequently. That can feed on itself by making more and more effective stacks.

That being said, not all low sector cards are equal. the 1 sector only activates on 1's. but the 5 sector activates on a lot of combo numbers and 5's as well. Bias purchases towards the higher low values (4,5 and 6) makes statistical sense.

[Cos-]

One thing to consider is sequence of returns (like the stock market). By focusing on the low sector you are more likely to get enough coin early on to buy superior ships to play and to deploy more of the sectors, while someone with a "great" deployed 10,11, or 12 sector might end up with nothing to show for it for some time. With generally a limited number of turns to each game, having "empty" turns hurts. Low sector deployed ships tend to earn coins frequently. That can feed on itself by making more and more effective stacks.

That being said, not all low sector cards are equal. the 1 sector only activates on 1's. but the 5 sector activates on a lot of combo numbers and 5's as well. Bias purchases towards the higher low values (4,5 and 6) makes statistical sense.

Sure, I think it's pretty clear that 6 gets rolled the most, and that 4 and 5 come up a lot more than 1 or 2 because they can be sums more often as well as individual dice. So sure, if you are building up low sectors (<7), 6 is the best, 4 and 5 are better, 1 and 2 are weakest.

But that's pretty clear and easy to see, and kind of tangential to what I was asking about here.

One thing that's not so clear and easy to see, is why lower sectors are relatively more important when there are more players in the game, while high sectors (>6) are supposedly a bit better than low sectors when it's a two player game. That is, how does the number of players alter the balance of value between low and high sectors?

(Not, how does it alter the balance of value between red and blue. That, again, is very clear and obvious.)