Turn-based games

[dizinovi]

I've seen quite a lot of good players play turn-based games, ranging from 5 up to 40 at a time, so I have a few questions on that:

1. How do you keep track of the game? Do you write down every draft, every skipped card, every opponent's move that might be revealing of their game plan? I can barely keep track of the 1 game I am playing in real time, and I am allegedly a good player.
2. Do you min-max everything 2 generations ahead taking into account all the odds you'll see certain cards, what cards you might have to cut, how many cards you are allowed to buy as a carrying cost without delaying your core economic development and so on? Do the opponents do the same, assuming they are 500+ rated and don't play turn-based games save for that one against you?
3. With that in mind, does the game quality decrease or increase overall? Obviously, if you are yourself tryharding your blunders will decrease, but do 600+ players who don't play turn-based a lot make rookie mistakes like forgetting they passed NRA gen1 which was 2 days ago in real time so in gen4 draft they pass you a bad playable third plant tag instead of a kinda good card, putting themselves in a fight against an insane ground game which they would surely avoid in a real time game?
4. Is peak ELO easier to get tryharding in turn-based since opponents are gonna make such blunders more often due to not tryharding as much? Because many good players will play near optimal and without serious blunders in real time, whereas forgetting what happened yesterday is very likely if you don't write it all down and can lead to decisions that lose the game instantly.
5. How long do you actually play when all the offline time is removed and it is only you staring at a board calculating?

[Lytical]

I play it because it's the only way for me since I don't have time for real timed. I wrote down important information. But I do slow down when playing against a top player. The biggest problem for me is to play the same against a top player, so I need to remind myself that. Depending on the opponent a turn based could go fast because sometimes we both are on at the same time so it's almost like a real timed.

[Yahyra]

I don't know the answers to the questions the original poster (OP) posted but... I agree with the sentiment. I can barely remember what I passed gen 1 when playing in real time; I have zero hope of remembering this in turn based games. I can understand, and at times have played, turn based games with friends to avoid the timer annoyances. I am sure there are great use cases for turn based games with strangers but I am of the opinion it is not for me for the reasons OP shared.

[Lytical]

Also for turn based competitive on TM it's just me who is doing alot of turn based. It's just a life style thing because I want to play lived, i just can't do it. The golden age for turn based was 3p arena, that was fun especially the first season for non corp era. And it's tactically needed since it's much harder to control, the game for 3p are more chaotic and harder to win consistently comparing to 2p. When you are high in the ranking you can't afford to finish 2nd, so it’s more intense.

[tsukareteru]

I've seen quite a lot of good players play turn-based games, ranging from 5 up to 40 at a time, so I have a few questions on that:

1. How do you keep track of the game? Do you write down every draft, every skipped card, every opponent's move that might be revealing of their game plan? I can barely keep track of the 1 game I am playing in real time, and I am allegedly a good player.
2. Do you min-max everything 2 generations ahead taking into account all the odds you'll see certain cards, what cards you might have to cut, how many cards you are allowed to buy as a carrying cost without delaying your core economic development and so on? Do the opponents do the same, assuming they are 500+ rated and don't play turn-based games save for that one against you?
3. With that in mind, does the game quality decrease or increase overall? Obviously, if you are yourself tryharding your blunders will decrease, but do 600+ players who don't play turn-based a lot make rookie mistakes like forgetting they passed NRA gen1 which was 2 days ago in real time so in gen4 draft they pass you a bad playable third plant tag instead of a kinda good card, putting themselves in a fight against an insane ground game which they would surely avoid in a real time game?
4. Is peak ELO easier to get tryharding in turn-based since opponents are gonna make such blunders more often due to not tryharding as much? Because many good players will play near optimal and without serious blunders in real time, whereas forgetting what happened yesterday is very likely if you don't write it all down and can lead to decisions that lose the game instantly.
5. How long do you actually play when all the offline time is removed and it is only you staring at a board calculating?

I rarely play turn based these days but during Hellas season I played like 95% turn based so have a fair bit of experience with it.

BGA has a notes function in turn based games (would be pretty useful in real time too imo but it's not available). In that I would note things like notable cards discarded or gained from preludes, cards I've passed them and I believe they bought, etc. Sometimes (particularly if the game is quite slow moving e.g. opponent in different time zone) I would write out my plan for the gen. I think it's quite common to keep that level of note.

I dunno if I would say the game quality increases or decreases but in real time I'm often playing on instinct whereas in turn based I am more methodical and calculating everything more precisely, sometimes several gens in advance. Despite that I think my win rate is pretty much similar in both.

One good thing about the turn based player pool is that the average elo is quite high when filtering elite only. In real time you often get 100-200 elo players in elite simply because of volume of games but it's quite difficult to get that same volume in playing only turn based. In turn based felt like I'm mostly playing 500+ elo players with the occasional 300

[Peach 2d]

I have 7 games on at the moment. Frankly, that’s just a few more than I’d ideally have. I signed up for a couple of 2p and 3p tournaments – and then suddenly they start, next rounds begin for older tourneys, a round robin kicks off, you finish a game in an elimination tourney and the next game starts instantly, etc., and the number of games balloons. Ideally I’d like to trim this to maybe 1 or 2 tourneys for 3p, and perhaps 1 or 2 elimination tournaments, and maybe one Arena game, for a max of 4 games at any one time. Having different games on in different phases is good fun.

1. Keeping track – I take notes in the Personal Notes pad for each game. Not every minor detail, but often draft info, major cards I know opponent has, and so on. Also significant cards that has been filtered out by preludes like Experimental Forest, ASA. Plus, if the game pace is slow with just a few moves a day, and I have a plan in mind, I may even give myself instructions once I’ve found a line that needs precise sequencing or things I need to monitor – so that I don’t mess up when returning to the game later on. That also helps when playing a few moves on the go, on a phone, when the better overview of a full size computer screen is not available. Playing on phones is blunder-prone, I know from painful experience, and so I avoid it most of the time.

2. Min-maxing and planning– not quite as detailed as your question. But I do have a much closer look especially for the opening hand and provisional planning for early development, generations 1 and 2. More detailed planning also comes back in other phases when bigger changes happen – or I can set them in motion. And also in the closing phase, or when you’re about to start sensitive stuff, like generating plants in the lead-up to a greenery conversion, and you can get plants into play under a cloak of security and freedom of intervention/plant hate and so on. Turn-based simply allows for more fine-tuning, card purchase discipline and so on. And I use it as best as I can. That links to the next point – see point 3 below.

3. Game quality – I think I play better turn-based. The key there is not just fine-tuning or more detailed planning. Instead, it is the ability to take a break, come back fresh, read the table again and consider different approaches without time pressure.

4. Peak Elo - I’m hovering somewhere in the 500-range, so not the player to comment on that

5. Actual play time – no idea really. Differs per game. For some games, thinking time stays under 45 mins. For particularly involved games, I may well spend an hour and a half. That simply wouldn’t work in real-time play.

Moving away from the general stuff, maybe two recent games by way of example:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=889847913 – this is a game I could never have pulled off in real-time. It took careful planning to get a milestone triple and a first award funded at 8MC while still developing sensibly. Admittedly with a shocking opening hand - but against an opponent doing a generation 1 Restricted Area placement on the Elysium 3-card tile and following up with a generation 2 Earth Catapult. In a live environment, I would have played this differently, with opponent probably doing far better. Here, opponent played a sensible game, scored well in all other score categories, but with more detailed planning than I could have done in a live game, I could lock him out of milestones and mostly awards as well.

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=891181184 – this is a game that offered big choices when a few impossible drafts came up: a generation 3 draft hand offering AI Central, Restricted Area and Anti-Gravity Tech – what do you pass to opponent and how does that impact the game? And another early draft with Large Convoy, Indentured Workers, Viral Enhancers and Plantation – I picked Viral Enhancers and Indentured Workers after seeing Large Convoy twice, thinking this through in more depth than I could have done in a real-time game, and leaving a potentially game-defining card like Large Convoy in opponent hands. I doubt I would have done that in a live game. Here, with time to think this through both in detail and the broad strategy around it all, I was happy to make that call.

Of course I've selected games in which I've won – there are some horrible losses as well, and I imagine opponents did similarly sensible planning in those.

[ArchDevious]

I think the most good players keep basic notes, key things like a passed NRA, etc. I have seen a player right down all revealed info, but that seems to be rare. One the other hand some will go full dry, but the logs do keep a decent amount of info already.

So even if I lose a little skill based of forgetting cards I do have more time to think, particularly on opening draft when 2 minutes isnt always enough time. So overall I think the pros and cons balence out and Im about same elo turnbased or live

[CapitalDecay]

I'm trying to play more turned-based games. While not a top player and only like playing at max 5 at a time, here are my answers:

1. How do you keep track of the game?

I personally keep detailed notes. Usually if there is something I need to sequence / claim. I write every card passed, discarded (out), taken (has), and their draft pack (hand) because the game doesnt show that in the logs. Example of notes of one of my games:

Code: Select all

Need to play quantum into claim

Hand
toll station, house printing

Passed
research outpost, special design, house printing

Out
lagrange, toll station

Has
Kelp

Again, this is overkill and usually by mid game, I don't take as good of notes and only keep track of important cards. But this has saved me when asking questions like "Was urbanized ever seen and still possible?"

2. Do you min-max everything?

I do not min-max anymore than a normal game. I do spend more time doing calculations and if I can end. Sometimes I'll spend 30 minutes trying to find a way to end and win.

3. The game quality decrease or increase overall?

I find turned based to be higher quality. I think since everyone has more time to think, it makes for better games.

4. Is peak ELO easier to get tryharding in turn-based

I'm not sure on this one.

5. How long do you actually play when all the offline time is removed and it is only you staring at a board calculating?

If you take into account the time doing more calculations and having to look at / remember game state, its probably double the time than a realtime game, but I think thats worth the price to be able to play async.

[charliec247]

I play turn-based because it gets me the most gaming overall and I normally cannot guarantee a spared hour to fully focus on an arena game of TfM. That said, I have realized that the quality of my play decreases when I play TfM turn-based, and it's something that I have come to accept alongside the losses that result from this.

I often just refer to the recent couple of moves in the game log and I would sometimes use the note-taking feature to note down some things, for example, a planned move, a card that I passed the opponent, or just a reminder to check milestones/awards before foolishly making my next move. But no, I am definitely not min-maxing everything or taking extensive time to think turns unless it is the endgame and I need to play efficiently to close out the game.

If I'm min-maxing throughout the game then I'd have to take very extensive notes and it'd just be a pain to read through them every single time I log in.

[StrandedKnight]

1. I don't write down anything. I just remember generally what's happening. But I play closer to 5 than 40.
2. I might go a little deeper on some calculations, but nothing close to what you're describing.
3. Game quality increases for sure. But I still do rookie mistakes, like forgetting to claim a milestone.
4. Yes, I think it is. The best players will have a greater advantage because there are fewer mistakes.
5. When I play turn-based, I mostly pick up my phone every know and then, make a few moves and log off again. But I will think about games when I'm not playing as well.