Opinions on 3P Kingmaking

[RoyalRook]

You absolutely dont place the final greenery bc you will be changing the placement with your action, you only observe the frozen moment in time, the 3rd player at that moment should be a non factor by passing all his actions.

Your second point is irrelevant, since you cant predict the final outcome in an on going game, only the end game sequence is relevant.

[primrose1234]

Of course I place my greenery. The player that is leading in cultivator never was actually winning cultivator. Not placing it would be a bannable action for me.

If live scoring wasn't turned on which is only an online feature, you would always convert and hope you might win. That being said live scoring should be turned off in 3p.
Maybe you wouldn't even know you flip cultivator.

[FrankJones]

Good points all around.

I agree with everything in Bogeyun's posts.

Regarding BGA's policy against Kingmaking, I don't think BGA intended for one player's maximization of score to ever be considered kingmaking. If one player's maximization of score ends up affecting other players' scores - well, that's just a part of multiplayer games. In some ways, it is happening throughout the game; we just might not realize it until the final generation.

This is not a TFM issue either. Many other games have situations in which one player has no choice but to affect the overall placement of players in a game. Earth and Azul are too strong examples.

Personally, I solve this problem by only playing 2-player games. There is no perfect solution for 3+ player games.

[FrankJones]

Of course I place my greenery. The player that is leading in cultivator never was actually winning cultivator. Not placing it would be a bannable action for me.

If live scoring wasn't turned on which is only an online feature, you would always convert and hope you might win. That being said live scoring should be turned off in 3p.
Maybe you wouldn't even know you flip cultivator.

Turning off live scoring could help mitigate this issue, yes.

On the other hand, in some games (earth, Terraforming Mars), none of the scoring factors are secret, and the score at any given game state can be calculated by observation

Speaking of which - I've noticed that real-time scoring seems to be preferred here on BGA for TFM, but the opposite is true for "Earth". I am not sure how many players here play both games, but I've always found that puzzling.

Wingspan, another highly popular game, always seems to use real-time scoring. I'm not sure there is even an option to disable it.

To me, one advantage of digital implementations compared to OTB games is that the digital interface streamlines and simplifies tedious tasks (dealing, shuffling, placing pieces on the board, and calculating the score).

I know one big concern players have is they do not want their time wasted, even if it is just a few seconds. (This has been made abundantly clear in a different unrelated thread). But with real-time scoring off, how much time is wasted by playing trying to calculate the score to see whether they should end the game or try to go one more generation?

[primrose1234]

This is a valid point. For me fair play is more important than time saving.
My anger towards 1 actioning is mostly when you agree to 2 actioning for 30min and when it becomes crucial, one player leaves that agreement for a small advantage. If you say you wanna 1 action from start that's another thing.

[FrankJones]

That, I agree with 100%. If the players agree to do something a specific way and then one person breaks that agreement, that's definitely poor sportsmanship and should be called out.

[xspuipuke]

If anyone‘s interested, in the game that inspired this post, P1 was winning the award in question either way. It was a tie for 2nd place in that award between P2 and P3 and, by placing their final greenery, P3 could deny P2 those 2 points for the tie.

Thank you all for your contributions so far. Very interesting viewpoints.

[RoyalRook]

I was very active for all 3p seasons, I gave this topic lots of thoughts, so it’s great that we get to exchange some ideas.

Live score level the play field dramatically, since newer players would have a much clear understanding of the game. I consider king making is a real issue during the end game only, when an irrelevant player say the distant third would able to decide the winner. The proper thing to do in my experience is to do null actions that way the other two players can compete directly and accordingly(knowing the 3rd wouldn't do anything) in the end rather than being gift a win. More clearly for OP case, the two players knowing the third won't place an additional greenery and play the end game accordingly (fund, sp greenery etc...).

It's one thing to lose a regular game but far worse for arena 3p matches, since 2nd or 3rd place finish via king or prince making carries a far more significance for the highly ranked player.

[primrose1234]

It is not that easy. It is impossible to do nothing since even doing nothing is an action.

[RoyalRook]

Pass