Asteroid Mining Consortium

[Corvus Mortis]

This was a wild ride! It felt like you took an amazing starting hand and rather than controlling the heat track and just winning the game with a terraform rush, you decided to spam standard project cities and prolong the game several extra generations. Were you just messing with him since you were up 20+ points most of the game? I don't see how your opponent could have won this game if you just used arctic algae for oceans/greeneries and standard project asteroids (and bought and played mohole area). But that's looking at the game in retrospect. I'm sure it felt much harder during the game with his mc engine.

How do you suggest we control the heat when we see no heat prod until gen 6 and also don't have the oceans to end? We never have a lead wide enough or cash sufficient enough to just start SP'ing out. Trying to do so but still having the game drag to 12 would be a sure-loss. Buying and playing Mohole Area in gen 6 does not help us get out of this game; it risks our milestone and is barely more efficient than SP'ing a few asteroids with standard tech. It would have been a blunder to play it.

We can't play this game counting on our opponent continuously helping us on the heat track either (which he does in the actual game). This forces us to go long-game. Trust me, this is not a win if you just start SP'ing and play gen 6 Mohole. And this is the type of play that I see folks mistakenly make when they are in these positions: they think "I am in a terraforming setup, I should just do anything to get out", but end up just SP'ing into a loss. Had I found efficient heat track influence or prod earlier, I certainly would have gone that direction.

[Corvus Mortis]

Gen 5: You dont need great dam. You also had to slow play here to pressure him to gardener. After convoy got you rights, I wouldve fund miner for 8 here, since he has an easy landlord with that much heat and standard tech. You just dropped a pretty naked Noctis to float 4 plants. Thats just an invitation for plant hate.
Convoy - Fund - Workers - Rights - take Heat. Play slow and make him SP for gardener while you can eventually snatch it with noctis and 2 SPs.
Also no need to fund Builder here, safe cash for Gardener.

I am lost. How am I supposed to get gardener? Before I even took an action in Gen 5, Corvus had 2 greeneries, 2 plants, and was sitting on towing a comet with arctic algae.

As for slow-playing, I am not sure what you man. Do you mean take single actions? Because, I am afraid to do that, since many of the top players here have said they would automatically red_thumb me for doing single actions. Even though I have completed games with 92 actions in 22 total minutes, which I think hardly qualifies as wasting people's time.

Gen 4 you had plenty of cash to SP greenery for Gardener and I would have with my easy path to it. Gen 5 aspirin's comment is that you should force *me* to SPG for Gardener if I want it. You did not see Towing, so there's no reason to be playing around it nor is it relevant to commentary, but even if I have it you are spared Big Asteroid in the generation. I'm quite light handed, so not getting down Big Asteroid before Towing is painful - now I have to find another titanium target. Additionally, by slow playing (you have Advanced GHG to sell and you only need 1 sell to force me to make a decision), you'll get me to commit to Towing convert and can instead of playing Noctis -> Mining Rights -> Builder + having your plants smoked, you can SP 3 oceans for Kelp and get a conversion down unimpeded. In fact, if you just sold GHG, I probably would have played Big Asteroid anyways (on 3 plants instead of 4) and you can force me to sell for Gardener.

[jaymc1130]

Gen 5: You dont need great dam. You also had to slow play here to pressure him to gardener. After convoy got you rights, I wouldve fund miner for 8 here, since he has an easy landlord with that much heat and standard tech. You just dropped a pretty naked Noctis to float 4 plants. Thats just an invitation for plant hate.
Convoy - Fund - Workers - Rights - take Heat. Play slow and make him SP for gardener while you can eventually snatch it with noctis and 2 SPs.
Also no need to fund Builder here, safe cash for Gardener.

I am lost. How am I supposed to get gardener? Before I even took an action in Gen 5, Corvus had 2 greeneries, 2 plants, and was sitting on towing a comet with arctic algae.

As for slow-playing, I am not sure what you man. Do you mean take single actions? Because, I am afraid to do that, since many of the top players here have said they would automatically red_thumb me for doing single actions. Even though I have completed games with 92 actions in 22 total minutes, which I think hardly qualifies as wasting people's time.

Single actioning is sometimes required for correct competitive sequencing. This shouldn’t be a major concern for you to do, if the game forces you to do so. What Aspirin really means by play slow is don’t do anything ultra committal and make your least expensive delevoping plays as stalls so you can wait and see what opening the opponent leaves you to make a move. If they allow stealing Gardner in that spot it seems like a pretty reasonable move (he won’t, but if he does…) to get back into the game. Doing anything else isn’t going to change the delta between your scoring pace and his scoring pace enough that you have much in the way of winning chances, but flipping Gardner does quite a lot in that regard and you aren’t exactly under pressure for any contested milestones. So have patience and see if your opponent makes a blunder by slow playing there and maybe getting back into the game is a realistic possibility.

[Corvus Mortis]

Gen 5: You dont need great dam. You also had to slow play here to pressure him to gardener. After convoy got you rights, I wouldve fund miner for 8 here, since he has an easy landlord with that much heat and standard tech. You just dropped a pretty naked Noctis to float 4 plants. Thats just an invitation for plant hate.
Convoy - Fund - Workers - Rights - take Heat. Play slow and make him SP for gardener while you can eventually snatch it with noctis and 2 SPs.
Also no need to fund Builder here, safe cash for Gardener.

I am lost. How am I supposed to get gardener? Before I even took an action in Gen 5, Corvus had 2 greeneries, 2 plants, and was sitting on towing a comet with arctic algae.

As for slow-playing, I am not sure what you man. Do you mean take single actions? Because, I am afraid to do that, since many of the top players here have said they would automatically red_thumb me for doing single actions. Even though I have completed games with 92 actions in 22 total minutes, which I think hardly qualifies as wasting people's time.

Gen 4 you had plenty of cash to SP greenery for Gardener and I would have with my easy path to it. Gen 5 aspirin's comment is that you should force *me* to SPG for Gardener if I want it. You did not see Towing, so there's no reason to be playing around it nor is it relevant to commentary, but even if I have it you are spared Big Asteroid in the generation. I'm quite light handed, so not getting down Big Asteroid before Towing is painful - now I have to find another titanium target. Additionally, by slow playing (you have Advanced GHG to sell and you only need 1 sell to force me to make a decision), you'll get me to commit to Towing convert and can instead of playing Noctis -> Mining Rights -> Builder + having your plants smoked, you can SP 3 oceans for Kelp and get a conversion down unimpeded. In fact, if you just sold GHG, I probably would have played Big Asteroid anyways (on 3 plants instead of 4) and you can force me to sell for Gardener.

These are exactly the kinds of things I would call tactics. Considering how your opponent would have to reply if you took a certain line, then weighing your own opportunity costs against what theirs could be. In this case your opportunity costs are low because you have very little to do, and forcing me to SP would have been very painful — potentially delaying NRA, Big Asteroid, etc.

[FrankJones]

Gen 4 you had plenty of cash to SP greenery for Gardener and I would have with my easy path to it.

So, beginning of gen 4, SP greenery, SP greenery, then decide what to do next based on your response? I am threatening Gardener but I still have plenty of flexibility if you don't make a move toward gardener yourself. I can see that, but I do have questions:

Am I playing my ocean first? Or am I just placing the greeneries next to no oceans, gaining insufficient plants for another one, and still having those plants get smoked?

I think what it comes down to may be that optimal play in this game is not fun or interesting to me. I hate preludes. I like long games. I hate standard projects. I like combos and tag synergy, discounts and card draws. I like those insane gen 12 or gen 13 sequences where one or both players is taking 30 or 40 actions and doing a lot of fun things.

Regarding gen 5. it's not as though Towing a comet is the only card that would combine with Arctic algae to give another greenery. By Gen 5 I had already thrown away any chance with my refusal to play the cards I had and my decision to invest heavily in Soleta.

It is more important to me that I enjoy this specific game than achieving a lofty Elo. I'll stick to non preludes with colonies, because I find those games fun. And I'll stick to opponents in my Elo range.

If I want to master a game or games, I'll focus on the other games I mentioned, which are more suitable to my likings and tendencies and experience and skillset.

Maybe grinding TFM while dealing with some level of randomness reminds me too much of the poker grind.

[FrankJones]

These are exactly the kinds of things I would call tactics. Considering how your opponent would have to reply if you took a certain line, then weighing your own opportunity costs against what theirs could be. In this case your opportunity costs are low because you have very little to do, and forcing me to SP would have been very painful — potentially delaying NRA, Big Asteroid, etc.

I am probably just burnt out on the game / bored with it.
I thought our 8-gen game was especially uninteresting and lacking in the "fun factor".
That has nothing to do with you or your play style. As my profile likely suggests, I like variety. I've seen every TFM card a thousand times or more.


Maybe it just comes down to that.

[jaymc1130]

These are exactly the kinds of things I would call tactics. Considering how your opponent would have to reply if you took a certain line, then weighing your own opportunity costs against what theirs could be. In this case your opportunity costs are low because you have very little to do, and forcing me to SP would have been very painful — potentially delaying NRA, Big Asteroid, etc.

I am probably just burnt out on the game / bored with it.
I thought our 8-gen game was especially uninteresting and lacking in the "fun factor".
That has nothing to do with you or your play style. As my profile likely suggests, I like variety. I've seen every TFM card a thousand times or more.


Maybe it just comes down to that.

Battling burnout in TfM is a real challenge. Sid is so famously burnt out that he only enjoys copiloting, but not actually playing any more (for example). My recommendation is take a break from playing if you feel like that and spend some time watching a stream or two to get your TfM fix, play some other games for a while maybe, or just go for a nice walk or something. We all have to fight that feeling, but you shouldn’t let it turn a game you love into something you come to despise. The game is still great, it’s still fun, sometimes though it needs to be set aside for a time because it’s not the only fun thing to do in the world and, sometimes, it’s hard to have fun playing it when you’re overly invested in the result of an individual game. Like poker, it’s a grind. You have to manage the mental fatigue in TfM the same way one would with poker I would say.

[rambling_coherently]

How do I estimate my likely true Elo?

If you wanted to know your "likely true Elo", you would play a lot of Arena and find out. Since you don't, you'll never know.

[Kulikk]

Gen 4 you had plenty of cash to SP greenery for Gardener and I would have with my easy path to it.

So, beginning of gen 4, SP greenery, SP greenery, then decide what to do next based on your response? I am threatening Gardener but I still have plenty of flexibility if you don't make a move toward gardener yourself. I can see that, but I do have questions:

Am I playing my ocean first? Or am I just placing the greeneries next to no oceans, gaining insufficient plants for another one, and still having those plants get smoked?

I think what it comes down to may be that optimal play in this game is not fun or interesting to me. I hate preludes. I like long games. I hate standard projects. I like combos and tag synergy, discounts and card draws. I like those insane gen 12 or gen 13 sequences where one or both players is taking 30 or 40 actions and doing a lot of fun things.

Regarding gen 5. it's not as though Towing a comet is the only card that would combine with Arctic algae to give another greenery. By Gen 5 I had already thrown away any chance with my refusal to play the cards I had and my decision to invest heavily in Soleta.

It is more important to me that I enjoy this specific game than achieving a lofty Elo. I'll stick to non preludes with colonies, because I find those games fun. And I'll stick to opponents in my Elo range.

If I want to master a game or games, I'll focus on the other games I mentioned, which are more suitable to my likings and tendencies and experience and skillset.

Maybe grinding TFM while dealing with some level of randomness reminds me too much of the poker grind.

Base + colonies is goated format, I respect that

[HappyMeaI]

Shadowverse just dropped on steam a few days ago, and it’s free to play guys. 50k concurrent players. Let’s take this battle to another universe for a bit.