Why is "Luck 1"? It is wrong

[G00dy]

This game has more random than just 1, it is more 2 or 3, like Ticket to Ride or Terragorming Mars and so on.
Arguments: 1. Out of 10 spirits 2 are a complete disaster - elk and ibex. They are drafter randomly.
2. Tiles are drafted randomly
3. Animal cards are drafted randomly.
We are talking about 4 player game format in particular.

[tbhp]

The game with spirits can certainly feel unbalanced. When you get one of the less powerful spirits, sometimes there's not much you can do against a Butterfly, Lion or Turtle that is going to cruise past 120 points in 9 turns.

Maybe I'm not pragmatic enough though. I always try to build in synergy with my spirit, but maybe sometimes that's not the best approach. Maybe sometimes you should think less of your spirit, and more of the synergies present in the deck itself. Essentially playing a spiritless game, with some spirit points on top of that.

I have seen players like opu928 use this more pragmatic approach, so I suppose there is something to it, and it might help make the game with spirits more balanced, although it requires you to give up on the "spirit" of the game with spirits, letting go of the notion that you must absolutely build a board that fits your spirit (when I was new to the game I even tried to make things fit thematically, like the forest animals for the forest spirits, which obviously wasn't the best winning strategy).

To go back to the general luck aspect of the game, I think for the spiritless game at least, the presence of luck in the draw of animals and tiles doesn't amount to all that much luck in reality, because playing well should allow you to keep things under control most of the time. With that said, the rating of 1 still seems too low, since there are obviously games with less luck than Harmonies.

[LeLion92]

My take on this would be that Luck = 1 corresponds well to spiritless 2-player games. But then add 1 Luck point if you use nature spirits, and 1 more if you have more than 2 players.
So Luck = 3 for 4-player spirit games indeed.

About facing over-powered spirits, I am tempted to go even further than tbhp. Maybe we should not only ignore our own spirit, but also actively block the opposite one? For instance, taking all yellow tiles and let the fewest possible to a Butterfly. It is something I am willing to try in the near future.

[tbhp]

Countering spirits is a good idea but you need the tiles to be useful in your own game. Ladybug and Bee are often good picks to counter the yellow spirits. With that said, Butterfly remains overpowered even without lots of yellows. Lion can more easily be tamed if you manage to prevent it from building two large fields. Turtle can be cut short since its river needs some length to become effective.

I disagree on the luck in multiplayer games. Of course, the odds of winning those games may be lower by virtue of having more players in them. But as far as luck itself, I’d say in my experience they actually involve less luck. That’s because in a multiplayer game, everyone is more focused on their own game rather than in trying to counter someone. This means that those games tend to reward more the players who put thought into constructing a good board, which to me means less luck. Another aspect is that in a 4 players game, the full bag is likely to be used by the end, and almost all the animals are going to show up. This means that if you plan things well, you are less likely to fail because of not getting the tiles or the animals you want. Here again, it tends to reward more the players who thought things through better.

[LeLion92]

Interesting point, but I tend to disagree.
With 4 players you have the same intrinsic luck factors than with 2: draws of tiles and animals (+ spirits).
But you have two big edge factors less: (1) direct control on what is available for your opponent (blocking), (2) easy two-step planning from the tiles market (e.g. if you have two sets with the colours you need, planning your next round with the certainty to have this colour still available).
So the luck/edge ratio increases.

[mss chanandler bong]

I think most parameters are off. Luck should be 2, strategy should be 3, complexity should be 2.
Sure you can accumultate ELO if you play well, but it happens way too often that a new card that would be very handy for you opens on your opponent`s turn and they take it, or that the tokens that you oh so needed get revealed on their turn and they take them while you sit with bald tree stumps. Or you get lucky and get those token/cards on your turn, it`s all the same. Not relying on one colour of the tiles is important so you don`t depend solely on luck, sure, but one lucky card/set of tiles can let you score extra 10-20 points that you wouldn`t get otherwise.
Given how many complex 4-6 hour long games there are, Harmonies doesn`t have complexity or doesn`t need strategy in the same way those heavy games do.
You have a handful of cards, some colour tiles and a board. You don`t depend much on your opponent. It`s not /that/ complex and definitely not 5/5 - not as complex at it can get.
You can get to top 100 on bga mostly by figuring out good combinations for the card combos+token scoring and getting the knack of the game overall.

[tbhp]

There's certainly times where your opponent gets given a significant advantage that you can't prevent. I think the majority of my spiritless losses have happened in games where my opponent got a deadly pair that I wasn't able to deny (think ray/penguin, bee/wolf, hedgehog/boar). If your opponent already has one of those cards, and then the other shows up when it's their turn, you can't do anything about that. It doesn't happen very often, but it's a hanging threat that will make you think twice before picking up a card.

Luckily, many of those cards are pretty weak on their own. Penguin, Bee, Hedgehog are underwhelming cards when they don't combo with anything else. So, every time someone takes one of those cards hoping to get the pair, they are putting themselves at a disadvantage unless they are lucky enough to get the other card. So you should be favorite to win those games the majority of the time.