Game settings that would make Terraforming Mars on BGA more fun

[Slarden]

These are not my original ideas, they were implemented in another web version of TFM - and they definitely make the game more fun and were popular with players on that site.

These are game setup options, not changes to all games. They would only exist if the person creating the game made these choices.

1) Give a setup option to put a limit on the # of times a person can take only 1 action per turn. The web version I used limited it to 2 per game if this option was selected. 5 per game or 1 per round is probably more reasonable. Unfortunately there are people that do this every round and every turn forcing others to do the same to avoid giving this person an advantage - it just adds alot of time to the game and trying to convince people to play nice and save us all time is often futile.

2) Give a setup option to restrict colony trades to once per turn. In other words if you have 2 trade fleets you can trade once on a turn, take another action and then trade the next turn. This makes the early trade fleet advantage less game-breaking.

[jaymc1130]

Actual legitimate matchmaking for Arena.

Pairing 700+ with 100s is ridiculous, non competitive, frustrating, unenjoyable, and a waste of everyone's time. Not to mention that the 700 rated player accepts all the risk and gets zero reward, everytime.

Proper matchmaking SITE WIDE for ALL GAMES in arena mode is a requirement to give "competitive" modes any real legitimacy at all. Right now it's a complete and absolute joke.

Double trades do seem like it would be more fair to prevent. But I like my double trades... One action limit to once per gen? Seems fine, don't honestly care that much, but there are some scenarios where this would enforce unsound play patterns and detract from the maximum possible competitive lines of play. Most of the time there won't be a need to do it more than once per gen though, so there's that.

[Yahyra]

I see (err read) this post and its intent. There are some house rules I can think of that I think would make the game more fun.

My understanding, from the previous posts here on BGA, is that any house rule cannot be implemented. The fine folks who volunteer their time (thus, who 'work' here but are not paid for their work) have had a few posts on here about this (especially the 1 actioning). 1 action'ing is in the rules and thus will be on BGA for the foreseeable future (as I remember and understand their posts).

Perhaps it would be wise to have a sticky / top of forum notification about this no house rules will be on BGA, etc.

[FrankJones]

Correct, house rules would need to be approved by the Fryx family. And, they have shown great reluctance to approve house rules that fundamentally change the game, which would definitely be the case with any rule forcing 2 actins per turn.

From a strategic standpoint, I have personally always viewed the rule as, "take an action unless you are okay with passing and being finished with the generation. If a second action is desirable, do a second action." We never saw any reason to perform an immediate second action unless some benefit came from it. And there are many such situations - just as there are many situations in which a second action would be a blunder.

[MaddenMan]

Venus next and the promo cards.

[Chappolini]

as jaymac said: Pairing with players roughly your elo. 700 vs 100 is just no fun at all....Nothing else is as important as this!!!

[Lytical]

Ability to ban corps or cards, there is nothing more fun than that. I would love to have a 5 setter with someone that we both ban one card, one map and one corp each game.

[FrankJones]

as jaymac said: Pairing with players roughly your elo. 700 vs 100 is just no fun at all....Nothing else is as important as this!!!

I agree with you and Jay.

But just being realistic here, BGA is not likely to make sweeping changs to the arena format. My guess is they view Arena as a way of matchmaking based only on Arena points as a gimmicky different way of having a rankings leaderboard from the traditional Elo leaderboard. People who want matchmaking of similarly skilled players can do so by playing outside the Arena and using Elo filters.

Those who prefer the fun and challenge of competing for Arena trophies need to navigate the choppy waters of inconsistent matchmaking. This provides two very different ways of climbing leaderboards.

I'm not making a personal judgment call on any of this; I'm merely suggesting how BGA likely views it.

For a game like Terraforming Mars, which takes a long time to play turn-based, the problem is exacerbated. Compare this to games of high complexity such as "Earth" or "Aquatica", which despite high complexity and a steep learning curve, can be played in 20 minutes real time and fairly quickly turn-based, so, if a bad matchup occurs, it's no big deal; the game quickly ends and a new one can be started.

Again, keep in mind, this thread is in the Terraforming Mars forum, but this is a BGA issue that affects all games.

[KarmicKoala]

Having the option of including prelude corps without the actual prelude cards.
Custom options seem to elude to this being possible but I'm not sure if you can currently set it up when creating a game.

[rambling_coherently]

There is zero excuse for the hilariously bad Arena matchmaking. Even if they want to use arena for matchmaking, then they could use arena rating instead of just arena tiers. Or they could make it so players can drop in arena tiers, instead of just hitting Elite once and then never going back down, despite dropping to 100 Elo.

It is also laughably bad in Ark Nova, which is another game with a very active Arena mode.