Reasons why player 1 has a big advantage: I’ll use 2-player games as an example, because it only gets worse with higher player counts.
1) Goals. Claiming a goal first is a 6-point swing. 8-5 compared to 5-8. Let’s look at some of the goals:
“discard down to one character”. Player 1 has an obvious advantage here. If both players meet this goal in the same round, player 1 gains 6 points simply because he went first. And that’s just one of the four goals. Player 1 had an advantage in all the goals. Why? Two reasons: The first I already mentioned – if both (or all) players gain the same goal in the same number of turns, player 1 gets the top goal score.
The second reason: Player 1 has the first choice of location and get a strong location. Every time player 1 plays a card, that player has had one more turn than the other player, which has an increasing effect of a stronger overall player board with more support for the weaker characters (sealord and seahorse). The player who goes second is at risk of needing to play the sealord or seahorse with minimal support.
Possibly even worse, player 2 might need to do a risky scout with the seahorse that is more likely to help the opponent. It’s possible to have the disaster of a failed seahorse that cannot conquer any location.
This all has a “snowball” effect. Player 2 has a more difficult time making use of the Wave Teller to score two locations. Sometimes player 2 cannot score two locations at all, which is a big problem, or, the player can score two locations, but needs to skip over some useful depths to do it, putting that player in a weak position for the second cycle after playing the Matrona.
By the time the second cycle starts (meaning, after each player has played the Matrona, and retrieved all characters and mantas), player 1 is likely to have more and better mantas, more and better locations, stronger ocean characters, etcetera.
From there, the advantage continues to provide increasingly more advantage. It’s just very difficult for player 2 always trying to play catch-up. Each turn, player 1 has had one more turn, but player 2 has had the same number of turns.
2) Card selection. I discussed this vaguely in the previous paragraph. Player 1 can buy or conquer a location that player 2 very much needs. Maybe it is the only location with a useful coin resource, and now player 1’s sealord is strong and player 2’s sealord is useless. Or maybe player 1 took the only location matching the personal color of player 2, making it difficult for player 2 to gain value from the personal +2 power manta. In general, it’s just much easier for player 1 to use the seahorse-sealord-legioner (in whatever sequence) to acquire strong locations and synergy.
3) Ocean characters. Sometimes there is one very strong ocean character in the 0 or 1 coin spot, and player 1 has first opportunity to grab that character. Yes, that transfers the advantage of getting the first location nback to player 2, but, this os offset by the fact that player 1 now has an extra strong ocean character (let’s say Meg, which then causes player 2 to lose a character from hand). Before too long, the gain of Meg and the loss of one character will negate any advantage player 2 had from getting the first location. What does player 2 throw away if player 1 uses an early Meg? Blue Water agent? That’s bad; it’s difficult to go through the game without getting more ocean characters. Wave Teller? That’s bad – losing the chance to score 2 cards before playing Matrona? And devastating if one or two of the goals involve scoring cards. One of the other characters? Well, then player 1 has 4 characters that can acquire a location, and player 2 has only 2 such characters. Maybe a third by using the blue water agent, but, there is no guarantee there will be another good character that is affordable.
4) Kings. First choice of king is supposed to be the counter to the player 1 advantage. It does not work. There I not always much difference between the kings. Or, sometimes player 2 wants to take the stronger king, but, the weaker king helps a lot toward a goal (perhaps the 3-wild-mantas goal). Does player 1 take Mara, and allow player 1 to gain a Manta with Herbert or Francelot, while also making progress toward the 3-manta-goal? Okay, so, maybe player 2 takes that king – bu then gives up Mara. Giving up Mara is usually a huge mistake. There are numerous scenarios where the kings just do not make much difference. What if the kings are Xander and Sol? They’re both great. What if the kings are Francelot and Herbert? They are basically equally strong. Etcetera.
Taking all this into account, it’s just a steep uphill climb for player 2: and this becomes more apparent at the higher levels of play (more on that later). I have had quite a few games as player 1 where there just wasn’t anything the opponent could possibly do to slow me down. And I’ve been on the opposite side of that sometimes as player 2. I need my opponent to make mistakes, and those mistakes sometimes do not happen, and I lose, helplessly.
STATISTICS:
I like math and statistics and spreadsheets, so, I keep personal statistics on a spreadsheet. This is useful for analysis.
When I go first, my win rate is 97%. When I go second, my win rate is 77%. This is a huge difference. I have 9 times as many losses as player 2 than I do as player 1.
When I go first, I trigger end-game 85% of the time. When I go second, I trigger end game 72% of the time.
When I go first, My average score is 27 points higher than my opponent’s average score. When I go second, this differential drops to 14. Going first, for me, seems to be a 13-point advantage, and that is WITH the opponent getting first choice of King.
When I go first, on average, I take 0.85 turns more than the opponent does (Because of the final round not having an equal number of turns. If player 1 ends the game, which I’ve shown is much more likely for player 1, then player 2 gets one less turn). My average number of points per turn is approximately 5. Meaning, if the game goes 16 turns, my average score is 80 points. But, the average value of my final turn that I take after triggering end-game? That extra turn is worth an average of more than 10 points. That’s huge.
So, that shows how crucial it is to trigger the end-game. It means gaining an extra turn (as player 1), or, denying that extra turn to player 1 when playing as player 2. Let’s examine this more:
Regardless of who went first – if I trigger end-game, I have 55 wins and 2 losses. 96.5% win-rate. The two losses? One was a tie, which I lost because of having one less Manta. The other was a 3-point loss where I carelessly cost myself 4 points on the final turn and therefore had a definite win that I simply missed, one that was visible based on the visible information and not relying on having revealed different cards or anything like that.
What happens if my opponent goes first AND triggers the end-game? My win percentage drops to 36%.
Lastly – I have a decent number of games against one of the top players on the site. This player is the strongest player I’ve played against, by far. We are not supposed to name other people in public forums, so I’ll refer to this player as “Joe”.
When I go first, I am 3-0 with an average score of 75 to Joe’s 37.
When Joe goes first, I am 1-5 with an average score of 64 to Joe’s 72.
So, what happens when we play? Do we each just forget how to play well when we are player 2? No. We just are both strong enough players that we are going to win almost each time we are player 1.
This makes me hesitant to play other top players. I always offer a rematch if I am player 1, but I do not know that will be reciprocated. And I do not want to take an unavoidable loss as player 2 only to have the opponent decline a rematch where I will be player 1.
There seems to be little interaction among the top players. We rarely play one another. Partly because some of us like turn-based and some only play real-time, but even among top players who play the same speed, there are few games where top players are challenging each other.
I believe this might change with more balance to offset the player 1 advantage.
1) Goals. Claiming a goal first is a 6-point swing. 8-5 compared to 5-8. Let’s look at some of the goals:
“discard down to one character”. Player 1 has an obvious advantage here. If both players meet this goal in the same round, player 1 gains 6 points simply because he went first. And that’s just one of the four goals. Player 1 had an advantage in all the goals. Why? Two reasons: The first I already mentioned – if both (or all) players gain the same goal in the same number of turns, player 1 gets the top goal score.
The second reason: Player 1 has the first choice of location and get a strong location. Every time player 1 plays a card, that player has had one more turn than the other player, which has an increasing effect of a stronger overall player board with more support for the weaker characters (sealord and seahorse). The player who goes second is at risk of needing to play the sealord or seahorse with minimal support.
Possibly even worse, player 2 might need to do a risky scout with the seahorse that is more likely to help the opponent. It’s possible to have the disaster of a failed seahorse that cannot conquer any location.
This all has a “snowball” effect. Player 2 has a more difficult time making use of the Wave Teller to score two locations. Sometimes player 2 cannot score two locations at all, which is a big problem, or, the player can score two locations, but needs to skip over some useful depths to do it, putting that player in a weak position for the second cycle after playing the Matrona.
By the time the second cycle starts (meaning, after each player has played the Matrona, and retrieved all characters and mantas), player 1 is likely to have more and better mantas, more and better locations, stronger ocean characters, etcetera.
From there, the advantage continues to provide increasingly more advantage. It’s just very difficult for player 2 always trying to play catch-up. Each turn, player 1 has had one more turn, but player 2 has had the same number of turns.
2) Card selection. I discussed this vaguely in the previous paragraph. Player 1 can buy or conquer a location that player 2 very much needs. Maybe it is the only location with a useful coin resource, and now player 1’s sealord is strong and player 2’s sealord is useless. Or maybe player 1 took the only location matching the personal color of player 2, making it difficult for player 2 to gain value from the personal +2 power manta. In general, it’s just much easier for player 1 to use the seahorse-sealord-legioner (in whatever sequence) to acquire strong locations and synergy.
3) Ocean characters. Sometimes there is one very strong ocean character in the 0 or 1 coin spot, and player 1 has first opportunity to grab that character. Yes, that transfers the advantage of getting the first location nback to player 2, but, this os offset by the fact that player 1 now has an extra strong ocean character (let’s say Meg, which then causes player 2 to lose a character from hand). Before too long, the gain of Meg and the loss of one character will negate any advantage player 2 had from getting the first location. What does player 2 throw away if player 1 uses an early Meg? Blue Water agent? That’s bad; it’s difficult to go through the game without getting more ocean characters. Wave Teller? That’s bad – losing the chance to score 2 cards before playing Matrona? And devastating if one or two of the goals involve scoring cards. One of the other characters? Well, then player 1 has 4 characters that can acquire a location, and player 2 has only 2 such characters. Maybe a third by using the blue water agent, but, there is no guarantee there will be another good character that is affordable.
4) Kings. First choice of king is supposed to be the counter to the player 1 advantage. It does not work. There I not always much difference between the kings. Or, sometimes player 2 wants to take the stronger king, but, the weaker king helps a lot toward a goal (perhaps the 3-wild-mantas goal). Does player 1 take Mara, and allow player 1 to gain a Manta with Herbert or Francelot, while also making progress toward the 3-manta-goal? Okay, so, maybe player 2 takes that king – bu then gives up Mara. Giving up Mara is usually a huge mistake. There are numerous scenarios where the kings just do not make much difference. What if the kings are Xander and Sol? They’re both great. What if the kings are Francelot and Herbert? They are basically equally strong. Etcetera.
Taking all this into account, it’s just a steep uphill climb for player 2: and this becomes more apparent at the higher levels of play (more on that later). I have had quite a few games as player 1 where there just wasn’t anything the opponent could possibly do to slow me down. And I’ve been on the opposite side of that sometimes as player 2. I need my opponent to make mistakes, and those mistakes sometimes do not happen, and I lose, helplessly.
STATISTICS:
I like math and statistics and spreadsheets, so, I keep personal statistics on a spreadsheet. This is useful for analysis.
When I go first, my win rate is 97%. When I go second, my win rate is 77%. This is a huge difference. I have 9 times as many losses as player 2 than I do as player 1.
When I go first, I trigger end-game 85% of the time. When I go second, I trigger end game 72% of the time.
When I go first, My average score is 27 points higher than my opponent’s average score. When I go second, this differential drops to 14. Going first, for me, seems to be a 13-point advantage, and that is WITH the opponent getting first choice of King.
When I go first, on average, I take 0.85 turns more than the opponent does (Because of the final round not having an equal number of turns. If player 1 ends the game, which I’ve shown is much more likely for player 1, then player 2 gets one less turn). My average number of points per turn is approximately 5. Meaning, if the game goes 16 turns, my average score is 80 points. But, the average value of my final turn that I take after triggering end-game? That extra turn is worth an average of more than 10 points. That’s huge.
So, that shows how crucial it is to trigger the end-game. It means gaining an extra turn (as player 1), or, denying that extra turn to player 1 when playing as player 2. Let’s examine this more:
Regardless of who went first – if I trigger end-game, I have 55 wins and 2 losses. 96.5% win-rate. The two losses? One was a tie, which I lost because of having one less Manta. The other was a 3-point loss where I carelessly cost myself 4 points on the final turn and therefore had a definite win that I simply missed, one that was visible based on the visible information and not relying on having revealed different cards or anything like that.
What happens if my opponent goes first AND triggers the end-game? My win percentage drops to 36%.
Lastly – I have a decent number of games against one of the top players on the site. This player is the strongest player I’ve played against, by far. We are not supposed to name other people in public forums, so I’ll refer to this player as “Joe”.
When I go first, I am 3-0 with an average score of 75 to Joe’s 37.
When Joe goes first, I am 1-5 with an average score of 64 to Joe’s 72.
So, what happens when we play? Do we each just forget how to play well when we are player 2? No. We just are both strong enough players that we are going to win almost each time we are player 1.
This makes me hesitant to play other top players. I always offer a rematch if I am player 1, but I do not know that will be reciprocated. And I do not want to take an unavoidable loss as player 2 only to have the opponent decline a rematch where I will be player 1.
There seems to be little interaction among the top players. We rarely play one another. Partly because some of us like turn-based and some only play real-time, but even among top players who play the same speed, there are few games where top players are challenging each other.
I believe this might change with more balance to offset the player 1 advantage.
