need advice

[dessp7]

Hola todos,
can you explain in two words why i won this game?
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=679373583

At the beginning I thought I will win, because I have played strong opening with good MC setup (IMHO).
In the middle of the game I thought that i will definitely loose, because opponent has very good engine + overcome me with TR + took awards and milestones + took control of the map with many cities.

I was really surprised when I saw the final score.

Can you teach me how to understand the situation during the game and not loose track of scoring? I am playing without real time scoring, because we play this game sometimes IRL and there is obviously no real time scoring.

Thanks.

[FrankJones]

I stubbornly played on here without real time scoring for a lo time until I realized I was ahead in a lot of my games without realizing it, and I was wasting time trying to make elaborate plans to "catch up."

I'll take a look at your game.

[FrankJones]

Science tags are precious. Keep Lagrange Observatory. Getting extra cards is also very important.

Insects is a must-keep as well; top tier card.
Immigration Shuttles is not a great card; I rarely use it. Even as Credicor it's 30 MC for +5 production, and maybe some eventual points for cities.

Gen 2 draft. I'm keeping Fusion power. Extreme Cold Fungus is a weak card.
Then, you kept Physics complex (a bad card) while passing Invention contest (a good card) to an opponent who already has Media group. (The opponent passed it back for some reason.)

If you're not planning to buy Farming, don't draft it; draft the science card (Breathing filters) instead.

When your opponent played Strip Mine, I would say you are behind at that point. Insects would look really good in your hand though. You now have 2 plant tags already. Relatively easily playable plant tags.

Protected Valley is a good card for Credicor. 2 points, 3 income, establishes ground position, placement bonus, and works toward one of the milestones.
Miranda resort is 15 MC for 2 production and 1 point.

Imported Nitrogen is an excellent card, and you passed it to Teractor with Media group. Small animals is ... meh. It's okay. You don't have much support for it yet (Viral enhancers, decomposers, Ecological zone).

You got protected valley back; that's good. Lightning harvest is a maybe. You lack science tags. Your hand lacks synergy.

Trees! Great pull. I'll mention Insects one more time and then leave it at that.

Extreme cold fungus is too slow. It will never become a greenery. Your opponent will nuke the plants. You are Credicor, you could have played a standard project greenery for 19 and have been well on your way to gardener. Paying 19 for a greenery now is better than paying 16 for a Maybe greenery in 8 generations.

Caretaker contract is questionable. Temperature is at -30 and might be the last parameter. And what if Thermalist gets funded?

You have no building cards, and you have 3 dangling plants. Mohole should go on a 2-plant spot, not the 2-steel.

Also, you want to establish position close to the equator where the plant placement bonuses are, and where you can water-walk your greeneries, racking up points and rebates. Your two tiles have you in a bad map position.

Nitrite-reducing bacteria gives you a quick 2 TR in 2 gens for 12 MC, and some ongoing benefit. Seems reasonable, though it's distracting you from other important cards, and those TR do not take away any of the 42 TR to be gained from global parameters.

[FrankJones]

Gen 5 regolith eaters, when you have extreme cold fungus, sems questionable to me. I think that play by your opponent helps you.

you bought Commercial district but did not by the cheap energy card. Where is the energy coming from to play Commercial district?

Cloud seeding is a bad card. Methane from titan is a much better card, and you can afford it. I would have taken methane from Titan. It also would be your second Jovian tag, setting up value for Water import from Europa or Ganymede Colony or TF-Ganymade.

Methane from Titan + Phobos + Satellites is also worth considering.

Lightning harvest and commercial district are just taking up 6 MC, sitting in your hand not doing anything. I would say you are probably buying too many unplayable cards here.

Taking Tundra farming over noctis farming is a major error, I think. There's your 3rd plant tag for Nitrogen-rich asteroid, which should be a priority.

Gen 8 aquifer pumping by your opponent is highly questionable. If you can fall into ice asteroid or giant ice asteroid, you can make that a very inefficient play. Maybe your opponent has nothing to use the alloyed steel on.

After your opponent plays Aquifer pumping, The opponent has 6 danglin plants. Deimos them! And then use the steel from Deimos to pay for deep well heating so you can play commercial district next to 2 of the opponent cities.

[FrankJones]

Now you've paid cash for cards you could have paid for with the steel from Deimos, and you allowed your opponent to convert a greenery for 4 points.

I don't like gen 8 designed microorganisms by your opponent, unless it is needed to get out Quantum extractor or mass convertor or Anti-grav, which is not the case here.

Gen 9 draft, Advanced ecosystems is a must pick. You have the guaranteed tags to play it late game for big points. Viral enhancers, eco zone, and decomposers are still out there too.

As drafted, I am only buying indentured workers. It's late in the game for the other cards to pay off. You still have no energy for Development center.



Gen 10 draft, you have no space cards, and no energy, and you still have development center. I'm, not sure shuttles is a wise pick. Virus is good. Earth office is probably worth it; you only need one earth card for it to repay the cost.


Now things get odd. You have gardener but did not claim it. Then your opponent has mayor but did not claim it. That makes the standard project city by your opponent a very bad play, already having several city adjacencies for greeneries.

Now a very odd play of caretaker contract. Nobody is taking the 5 points for the 3rd milestone.
You can get 1 TR from 8 heat by raising temperature; what benefit does caretaker contract provide?

[FrankJones]

Development center was your third science tag, enabling the play of lightning harvest, 6 MC for 1 VP, 1 income, and 1 energy, but it sits there unplayed.

These are inefficient moves. You're winning because your opponent is making more severe mistakes.

The gen 11 SP city by your opponent is very puzzling. The opponent already has too many cities.

The move where you put down ecological zone shows the importance of map position. Your tiles are blocked in without access to the equatorial-rich plants and ocean bonuses. It all started with Mohole being put in the wrong spot.

Wave power was unnecessary. You already have the better Lightning harvest and Lunar Beam.

Your opponent is continuing to put down cities for no reason. That's probably why you end up winning. The Cities don't even necessarily help with Pets very much since you have Immigration Shuttles.

Okay, I finished viewing the game.

You won because you played better than your opponent did. Your opponent ran out of cards and wasn't sure what to do, and started doing the wrong things.

But, maybe you were in the lead and in control the entire time. You did win by 14 despite getting 10-5 against you in the ML and Awards.

[dessp7]

Hi FrankJones,
thank you for your analyze.
I can try to explain some moves (I doubt you need my explanation tho XD).

First of all, do you think that playing without live scoring is waste of time? I am doing that to became more good with the game and to be able to keep board situation also on offline games (IRL). Maybe it worth to play it enabled at start, till I will remember all cards and synergies, then turn it off?

Secondly, this was real time game, so I had not to much time I can think, look at card spreadsheets for their values, to consider which one is better, so I did a lot of mistakes. Question of topic is " how to understand during the game, am i winning or not?" But, thank you for your additional comments on bad moves.

I almost never use immigration shuttles, but at the opening with credicor having +5MC, I thought it will give me huge advantage (I am usually struggling getting that initial engine).
Regarding Insects, I didnt know will I have that plant tags or not during the game. In some game I have one or two, in that case keeping it in opening hand I think not very good idea. Meantime, it is S card, maybe I should be more towards it.

I have not kept fusion power, because of that requirement of power tag. I hade some games having card with that requirement, and never managed to play it because of that. And it require two, I have 0.
So, filters is a late game card (dont need that science tag at all now) and Farming even more late game card, so I took plant/microbe card (and that microbe thing give me a lot of TR later on this game, because of synergy. So, maybe bad card, but became good, right?)

I took physics complex so my opponent will not take it. He already has +2 energy production. This card giving a lot of VP when you have enough energy, I am afraid of it.
I took farming for same reason, so he will not take it and play. He is terractor, so he will put many cities. I didnt want to give him forests also.

I took Miranda resort so he dont get it. He also have 2 earth tags, so i wanted to keep him behind with MC production.

I took small animals to not let him set up forest production for his cities. For imported nitrogen I have not any insects and animals at that point.

I took caretaker contract because I thought he well on greeneries, with his cities, so I will control temperature, and can invest it in TR, I had good MC production, minus two card discount, I was waiting for good card draw to play long game.

I had 0 plant production, extreme fungus will work on bacteria, so I thought will be better to have 2 steel instead of plants, which will never became a forest.

How that ocean walking is working? In all my games, we are placing everything near empty oceans, then we put oceans (ocean cards are random and usually came in mid/late game). Never seen that ocean walk working on my plays, maybe I am in weak players pool thats why

I took cloud seeding to reduce his heat, so I can control it.
For commercial district it is too early to play, I was waiting him to place near cities, so I can get more VP and mess up with his forest.

noctis farming/tundra farming - yeah, I need to learn card values more. I didnt have time to understand which one is better.

Yeah, you are right, I forgot that deimos is giving +4 steel. And time was ticking, I was thinking that i need that commercial district to play, so I plaid energy card instead.

Yeah, you right about forester award, I missed that to pick

I put ecological zone between his 2 cities, to block him from putting forest there, was that a bad move?

My opponent was at 250 ELO, same as me, so I am not considering him much worse player than me. I guess we both not good ))

Thanks for commenting this out.
Do you think I will eventually learn to play better, or better for me just to drop this game? (I am watching videos on youtube, reading topics etc. )

[schulni]

You can 100% get better, so don't give up! I was mired around 200 ELO forever, and then around 400, and then around 500, and each time I had moments when I thought, "well, this is my cap; I'm just not smart enough to beat top players." If I had to boil it down to a few general concepts to get over the initial hump, I would say things like:

1) Learn the relatively value of each kind of production (the quantified guide that's out there is a good introduction), and then start to use that to learn what cards are good and bad in different situations. The more you are able to learn to not buy and play bad cards, the better you'll get quickly. There is almost nothing that will doom you faster than buying and playing bad cards, and buying but not being able to play cards. Card evaluation is very situational, so it can get complicated as the game goes on, but with experience you'll start to get a feel for what cards are worth playing when.

2) Have a plan to get at least one milestone. Losing all three is hard to recover from unless you have a strong card draw/metals production/science engine. You can usually get a sense from your opening hand and the first generation what to target. Monitor your opponent's progress toward milestones like a hawk. Don't fund any before you need to, but be careful of a sequence in which your opponent will end one generation by making several moves after you and start the next generation; they might be able to sneak one or more milestones during that sequence.

3) Try to have at least 25ish mc to start each generation. You can really stagnate if you only have 20mc or so going into buying cards. It's often better to pass and wait for better cards than to cripple your economy by playing marginal cards that don't help you terraform or make money.

4) Always know if it's better for you or your opponent to end the game faster, and know when the game is likely to end. A lot of getting good is monitoring tempo and doing the right actions at the right time. Pay close attention to the oxygen track bonus and the ocean bonus on the heat track; strong players are going to set up to try to get those. The heat production bonuses on the heat track are fine, but don't go out of your way to get them. Speaking of the heat track, it's really long, so controlling it helps you control tempo. It's a bad feeling looking at a low heat track and knowing it's going to be on you to raise it yourself because your opponent has an engine that will score more and more points the longer the game goes. Sometimes you need to do 5+ asteroid standard projects just to shorten the game (or end it by surprise earlier than your opponent expects). Buying a ton of cards after generation 6 or 7 that won't really pay off before the game ends versus just terraforming can often be a bad move. Like Acquired Company is a good card in the beginning of the game but 3mc production for 13mc in generation 8 is probably a bad play.

5. Things that are good that most inexperienced players think are bad: a) cards with negative point values - most of these are good cards! Indentured Workers is an awesome card (even if morally questionable), especially with Media Group (one of the strongest cards in the game). Anything that slows your opponent down or hurts them is usually good, particularly in two player. b) event cards in general - most are very strong, especially ones that terraform because they control tempo (giant ice asteroid for example is a card you should almost never pass on) c) placing tiles to get the best placement bonuses for yourself and block opponents from good placement bonuses - mostly around the middle of the map next to all the oceans, but other spots are good too. d) actions on cards - actions are really valuable because they set up uninterrupted moves; when you can do a bunch of piddly little actions on cards, like add a tardigrade here, do a space elevator there, while your opponent is doing all their moves for a generation, then at the end you have free reign to do a bunch of things in a row with full knowledge of what your opponent has done. Getting a feel for this sequencing is important; the strongest players know when to rush moves at the start of generations to claim tile placements, terraform track bonuses, milestones, and awards, and when to sit back and do actions on cards. Pay close to attention to the starts and ends of generations; many games come down to whose turn it will be to end one generation and start the next at pivotal times, like right before the ocean bonus on the heat track. That can be a big swing in a close game. The dream scenario is to end one generation and start the next with a long sequence of powerful uninterrupted moves, and actions on cards often give you an advantage there. e) card draw is powerful (but be careful about investing heavily in it in the beginning of the game because it can really limit your economy) - it lets you see more cards AND it gives you an action f) Vitor - Vitor is an awesome corporation but I see a lot of inexperienced players avoid it just because you have to fund an award with minimal information; the award part doesn't matter though - getting a rebate on the cards with positive point values, mostly cards you want to be playing anyway, is really valuable, and often gets more mc rebates than even the mighty Credicorp

6. Things that are bad that most inexperienced players think are good: a) standard project cities - they are mostly terrible. I often see weaker players pounce to play a standard project city next to two greeneries I've placed thinking that they've done some brilliant thing that will frustrate me, but consider this: would you play a card for 25mc that gave two VP and 1 mc production? That's a bad card, right? b) metals - don't get me wrong, metals can be good, but a lot of metal production cards are expensive and to pay off you need card draw and targets to spend the metals on; a lot of the steel cards tend to be be pretty weak after generation 6 or so c) cards that only provide VP - these can often be good plays at the end of a game when converting MC to VP is the most optimal move left, but in the beginning of the game they limit your economy for no benefit until the final scoring

[FrankJones]

Hi FrankJones,
thank you for your analyze.
I can try to explain some moves (I doubt you need my explanation tho XD).

First of all, do you think that playing without live scoring is waste of time? I am doing that to became more good with the game and to be able to keep board situation also on offline games (IRL). Maybe it worth to play it enabled at start, till I will remember all cards and synergies, then turn it off?

Secondly, this was real time game, so I had not to much time I can think, look at card spreadsheets for their values, to consider which one is better, so I did a lot of mistakes. Question of topic is " how to understand during the game, am i winning or not?" But, thank you for your additional comments on bad moves.

[Other stuff removed to avoid quoting the entire post]

Thanks for commenting this out.
Do you think I will eventually learn to play better, or better for me just to drop this game? (I am watching videos on youtube, reading topics etc. )

I think you're worrying too much about hate drafting relatively harmless cards.

I do think live scoring is a good idea. It took me 100 games to decide this, but I don't see much value in having it off.

Real-time games are likely to have more errors.

I'll send you a game invite for friendly mode.

[charliec247]

I saw FrankJones's analysis, figured I'd read it later, scrolled down to see who else replied, and something in his essay caught my eye:

"Your opponent is continuing to put down cities for no reason."

That. That is probably the main reason why you won.

There's like a 0.01% chance where SP City is a correct move.

You should definitely play with live scoring. It helps you play better. If I'm in a competition without live scoring I'm busting out pen and paper and tracking the scoring myself because this is valuable information that helps you make the most optimal play. In a casual game I'll just rely on instinct.

Go watch MarsExpert and ThreadPacifist videos on youtube. They will greatly help boost your game. Then it's just a matter of practice.

And lastly, don't quit. There's definitely room to grow.