Learning harder games

[TS61008]

So my husband and I just played Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization. The tutorial was great but a lot to learn. During our first game, I got stuck because I bid on a historic territory and apparently didn't have what I needed to pay for it. (my mistake but I didn't know) And yes, it takes me a bit to learn a new game. I lost 20 reputation points.

My suggestion would be for at least the harder games for there to be a newbie option to choose when doing the first game or call it something else but then no penalty for if you get stuck and time has to run out. (I clicked everything, went back one screen and didn't resolve my problem) All we could do was let the time run out and have my husband boot me. Or maybe an option to have both players agree to quit with no penalty although that kind of penalizes him too.

I wouldn't want to encourage quitting but I take several times to learn the harder games. I wouldn't play a game I didn't know with a stranger because of that. Once you learn the game you obviously wouldn't want to pick that option but perhaps it would encourage more people to try new games.

There are many games still want to try but this is kind of a deterrent.

[Meeplelowda]

My suggestion would be for at least the harder games for there to be a newbie option to choose when doing the first game or call it something else but then no penalty for if you get stuck and time has to run out. All we could do was let the time run out and have my husband boot me.

There are already a few ways to deal with this situation. First, you can start the game in friendly mode, which has both no time limit and no penalty for quitting. Second, if you start a real time game in regular mode and it looks like you are about to run out of time, you can just both agree convert the game to a turn-based game (that option, and often many other game options, is in the hamburger menu in the upper right of the screen) which is effectively unlimited time if you plan on finishing the game in the next couple of hours. Third, you can just start the game as a turn-based game. Just because you *can* take hours per move in a turn-based game doesn't mean you *have* to, so once again it's effectively no time limit. My girlfriend and I almost always play any game that takes more than 10 minutes in turn-based mode. It allows for bathroom breaks, answering the phone, moving the laundry to the dryer, etc.

Or maybe an option to have both players agree to quit with no penalty although that kind of penalizes him too.

This exact option already exists (and is also in the hamburger menu). It's called agreeing to collectively abandon a game. Even if you aren't in friendly mode the game will terminate with no penalties for anyone. Also, you can just start a game in friendly mode to begin with which lets you quit with no penalty.

[TS61008]

Thanks for both suggestions. We will check them out. We really like board game arena but ended up buying this game on another platform because of this issue. Kind of frustrating when we both live in the same house and pay for both subscriptions just because we play a lot and feel it is only fair. Perhaps this will help avoid this happening in the future. Thanks again.

[TS61008]

There are already a few ways to deal with this situation. First, you can start the game in friendly mode, which has both no time limit and no penalty for quitting. Second, if you start a real time game in regular mode and it looks like you are about to run out of time, you can just both agree convert the game to a turn-based game (that option, and often many other game options, is in the hamburger menu in the upper right of the screen) which is effectively unlimited time if you plan on finishing the game in the next couple of hours. Third, you can just start the game as a turn-based game. Just because you *can* take hours per move in a turn-based game doesn't mean you *have* to, so once again it's effectively no time limit. My girlfriend and I almost always play any game that takes more than 10 minutes in turn-based mode. It allows for bathroom breaks, answering the phone, moving the laundry to the dryer, etc.

We found that part about being able to both concede without penalty. We also tried the game in turn based which did solve most problem. We never did find the friendly mode.

[Meeplelowda]

We never did find the friendly mode.

I'm assuming you start your games from the single-game page as opposed to the superior Play Now page (see my signature). On the single-game page set the Game Speed slider all the way to the left on the infinity symbol.