Why did i lose victory points when i increased the temp ?

[PleaseAGB1]

The real answer to the OP is, "the problem is you have enabled live scoring which is an evil thing which spoils a lot of the drama of this wonderful game"

Hi all, poster - thanks for sharing your opinion(s). Sincerely enjoy the dialogue. There is also, somewhere on this forum, a thread on the popularity of live scoring... as I recall, most of the posters (and I happen to share this opinion), enjoy live scoring. Of course, those who do not are welcome to turn off live scoring.

[PleaseAGB1]

Ps - I joined the ranks of the many who have worked on BGA on a volunteer basis (aka for zero remuneration) - I added to the FAQ (Thanks Victoria et al) an entry about the whole 'I lost VP when I increased temp' affair. Feel free to point people to the FAQ from now on if someone else posts about it. Teamwork makes the dream work.

[FrankJones]

I used to play without real-time scoring, for reasons I later deemed silly.

I often did not realize I was winning, and therefore needlessly went one more generation.
Opinions vary, obviously, but I see little benefit to having players be confused as to who is actually ahead and behind in the game at any given point.

That being said, the popular game "Earth" seems to have a significant preference toward hiding the score, which puzzles me. Hidden score is the setting for the current arena season. And, my open invites for non-arena games take a while to fill, perhaps because I have the scoring set to visible instead of hidden.

[Rosie Napper]

Unless you play real time, there is no point in playing WITHOUT live scoring as you can always calculate the score at any time. You could do so even in real time games if the opponent takes too long.

This is a quirk of playing online. IRL, one of the great aspects of TM is judging when to end the game or when to let it go one more gen. Obvs, when playing IRL you can't calculate the score without disturbing your opponents' stacks (which I'm pretty sure isn't good etiquette on any table).

Personally, I think it's a shame that this element is lost online because it definitely adds to the game IRL.

[Rosie Napper]

Not saying it would be the same for all games but - for me - definitely true for TM

[PleaseAGB1]

Just double checking my understanding of the T Mars rule book, and the usual rules for in person tournaments (such as World Series, Dutch open, etc. ), is there a rule about 'not disturbing your opponents stacked played cards' to view the VPs listed therein? The amount of resources on a card etc. ?

Of course, cards in hand are hidden and not public information (and, you know, not to be disturbed).

The times I've played T Mars IRL, we have all agreed to make every card on the table freely available to all players. We keep score (as best as we can we are human we can miscalculate). Perhaps the gamers I have played with are particular friendly? To each their own of course; to those who prefer a surprise ending to their T Mars games, have fun like that.

[FrankJones]

Unless you play real time, there is no point in playing WITHOUT live scoring as you can always calculate the score at any time. You could do so even in real time games if the opponent takes too long.

This is a quirk of playing online. IRL, one of the great aspects of TM is judging when to end the game or when to let it go one more gen. Obvs, when playing IRL you can't calculate the score without disturbing your opponents' stacks (which I'm pretty sure isn't good etiquette on any table).

Personally, I think it's a shame that this element is lost online because it definitely adds to the game IRL.

I know how many victory points each card is worth just by looking at the name of the card, which will be visible, since the cards are stacked to show the tags.

To me, the issue is not that playing IRL disguises how many points each player has, but rather, that it would really slow the game down for a player to calculate various players' scores in the middle of an action phase.

To me, this is an argument for trying to keep track of the card VPs as the game progresses, perhaps on a scorepad of some sort.

Very few games actually state in the rulebook that it is disallowed to check the current score. I know the Scythe rulebook says the game is designed to make it unclear what the score is - and yet, even Scythe has an option for real-time scoring when playing the game in digital format.

Certainly, part of the skill of TFM is knowing how many generations the game is likely to go, and, recognizing whether one player has the ability to delay or shorten the game if needed for strategic purposes.

But, I'm not sure to what extent, if any, it was the designer's intent to have people confused about the actual score, or to incorporate an aspect of memorization / deck knowledge into the strategy.

Inexperienced players are already at a disadvantage. If one asked me, "Can you please tell me how many VPs you have on your played cards, because unlike you, I do not have this information memorized", I would be happy to give that information.

[Rosie Napper]

when we play IRL, the names of cards are definitely not visible when they're stacked. The cards stack very neatly when only showing the tags & cost which has always led me to think that fryx' intent was to keep the scores a little uncertain.

If the scores were meant to be public information, the rule about playing event cards face down would mess this up.

[xspuipuke]

Events are played face down because their tags are not supposed to count. You have to disclose to me at any time what cards are in your event pile if I ask. This is public information.

Plus, I don't even need to see the names of the cards. The cost is enough to know what you played, as I will have seen the card the moment you play and from what you do in the game, I can deduce what card that was, even if I do not perfectly remember them. So, no, with experience there is no such thing as hidden scoring in Terraforming Mars.

[Rosie Napper]

You have to disclose to me at any time what cards are in your event pile if I ask.

Where is this stipulated?