There's some luck involved, but not so much that you can't find a way to beat these players or make it much harder for them to find a win.FrankJones wrote: ↑17 May 2025, 00:39This does help, thank youkfernstrom wrote: ↑16 May 2025, 20:30
I play two-player and am pretty good at it, I have a few suggestions.
That is pretty much how I play 2-player, and I thought it was the optimal way to play. I similarly say to myself, "That can't possibly win" when I see my opponent doing some of the things you described that make you say to yourself that you are almost certain to win the game.
And yet, I have struggled recently, and I have had some tough losses against players who did not go for nobles at all, and won by getting 4 scoring cards from the 2nd and 3rd rows.
Maybe I did not read the board well enough. In at least one loss, I just could not get a noble because the deck just wouldn't put out the one card I needed, literally any card of one color type. But, I put myself in that position, assuming one would get turned over at some point.
If that happens once, I can chalk it up to bad luck, but multiple times makes me think I am not recognizing when it is happening soon enough to pivot to something else.
I think, in another game, my opponent reserved 3 bottom row cards (Each costing 3 tokens to buy). This ended up working, because the remaining bottom-row cards all cost 5 tokens. So, after drawing 3 tokens 3 times, there was nothing but trash available, and thins quickly went sideways for me.
I was very close to 300 Elo when I was at 20 games played. I didn't realize the k-factor of 40 is in place for the 21st game and does not change to the standard 20-factor until after the completion of the 21st game. As a result, I lost 28 Elo in my 21st game. Whoops.
In any player count, but maybe especially 2-player, it's possible for a frustrating sequence where every card bought (often at a good price) results in a free or 1-coin card popping up for the opponent. If that happens a bunch of ties in a row, it can be difficult to deal with.
Are 2-player games more prone to unlucky sequences than 3- or 4-player?
The ratings of the highest rated players in this game lead me to believe that the strongest players mitigate bad luck and makes me think I am at fault for all my losses, especially sine I am not playing players rated over 300.
Sure, there's a stage in the game where cards become free for the opponent to buy with ease, but the same should go for you too. At some point, a player is eventually going to get to 15 and you can't stop it. What you can do is get there first. Do you have an example of a game where you thought things were truly out of your control?
https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=673072335 This was the 28 point loss you mentioned. You had an amazing first turn advantage, a cheap white (which has a passable color density and a spare noble) card to buy early while maintaining a hold on the power color green (another spare noble and thicker color density.) Your opponent yielded green for no reason and gave you free reign over the board. If you were planning on buying the white and black card at the start you may as well have bought the black first to use as a bonus for the white. However, if your plan was to fight for the greens, then on move 10 you may as well have reserved the green 2 pointer. As your opponent was already at 10 tokens, they would either have to sacrifice another token on their next turn or buy something for green, letting you grab the 5th green token and buy the 2 pointer for green. Instead, you end up giving up your greens, and then even gave them a turn to buy the green card that popped up later.
Your reservation of the blue token move 16 is an odd one, the card is not that good and redundant, given the 2 point version higher up the opponent has likely been planning to buy anyways. Your buying of the white token move 21 isn't essential either, you have time to buy another blue to make it cheaper, not to mention taking away the black token your opponent fortunately ignored. You buy a blue from hand using gold when nothing was stopping you from picking up tokens to get it later or even just buying the cheaper blue on the field. You show no fear to their actual attack on the precious green, letting them buy a 1 pointer, 2 pointer, and 4 pointer unopposed and instead try using your reservations on cards that you might try to buy in several turns. This was a color vein that you should have had control over but instead completely surrendered to them. You do some strange late game defense reservation when their attack lines were too varied for it to matter and had already lost.
Threat identification is important. If you give too many cards the value of essential threat you make your opponent seem invincible and fall so far behind defending that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, reserving means you only get 1 token for the turn as opposed to 3. If you keep reserving, you end up with fewer tokens than they do. So when you reserve you better make sure the cards you're securing are worth the cost. If there really are so many good attack lines you may even want to consider just using yourself and aiming to score faster than they can.
