Asteroid Mining Consortium

[FrankJones]

The game is way more balanced 3-4p, the cost of certain cards makes that very clear. I see 2p as only a fun bonus mode good for online play when you want to play fast and not sit around for others' decisions. It is also more competitive due to kingmaking problems to 3p+, but more competitive dont not equal more balenced, I think confusing those terms is the source of much of the disagreement.

Agreed.

The awards work better with 3 players, and the milestones, and map blocking, and drafting. Basically, it's better as a 3-player game, but I never play 3-player because I hate the possibility of losing because of kingmaking.

And, as you noted, in 3-player, attack cards require more thought, because sometimes the player not involved in an attack card benefits compared to both the attacker and the attackee.

In a 3-player game, so what if you sabotage opponent A? You just spent money to attack player A while gaining nothing, and player B sits there with a smile.

[RoyalRook]

Sabo and raider are amazing in 3p. I learnt that in 3p seasons for TM, me and some of the top players talked about how the old meta not drafting or buying hit cards like sabo is just wrong. You get to kill or defend your rival, which is huge, like I can just straight up ruin corps like phob, unmi and ecoline bc asking skip an early 3p gen is far more destructive. Oh i just need to secure 2nd? Hit UNMI, it is the bottom of bottoms, barely a corp, just put him out of his misery early. The cards are balanced far more for 2p mathematically. 3p GIA, big, deimo and arctic algae are just straight up game winners on Tharsis for credicor and ecoline, because of the tempo, while in 2p you can play around it with parameters and board control. The ms and awards works better for 2p over 3p not just king making but also voids of free points and 1st award functions as 4th ms. So you dont need to fight for 2 ms by taking 3rd and 1st award, or rush 1st award and defend 1 of the 3 ms. When you made a good reward read in 2p it's a 10 point swing, 3p that could drop to 8 points swing for the same thing, in a 9 gen game that's just horrible, it's the same thing for less, and if the third is too weak to pick up the read it ruins the whole balance even more. Draft is more balanced bc you only have to be blinded for 1 cards and get back 2 off your own draft, comparing to 3p complete triple blind + half blind(pass between the other two players) with only 1 card back. King making is neither more balanced nor competitive. Finally but most interestingly, the player order is just too much, the third player doesn't get to act first till gen 3, 6, 9; why that's important? Corps like ecoline starting 3rd may not able to convert 1st greenery till Gen 5 instead of gen 1/2 if miss conversion on gen3 etc. I can write a novel but 2p is superior and more balanced in every way over 3p. There are good players who prefer 3p because their limited understanding of the game and fear of challenging a real top competition heads up, but no real top players would ever prefer 3p, it's for fun personal challenges or looking for a loss by asking getting double teamed, open king making challenge on a smurf account.

Let's talk more about AMC, things like when do you think on Hellas would be worth taking it over a top ranked card while rim is available. Post Tharsis AMC feels like undervalued on bga meta.

[PleaseAGB1]

There may exist games that address or handle 3p 4p kingmaking well... T Mars is not one of them. (Puerto Rico comes to mind as a particularly good one against kingmaking?).

Given how much kingmaking can and does happen in T Mars... I prefer 2p. I also like a quicker game, and one where I spend less time waiting for other people to 'make their move'. I don't mind longer 2p games (I am not one of those who rage when people one action) but, all else being equal, I'd rather spend less time waiting on other players (and longer games in general).