Harmonies Pulse Discussion

[dschingis27]

As you guys mention the "pitfall" of 2p Harmonies (spending much effort on blocking rather than enjoying your own build), I am reminded of my experience with competetitive 2p Carcassone (base game). I tried it a few times but ultimately hated it while I enjoy the 3p, 4p variant a lot (mostly with friends).

I was wondering why I love the 2p Harmonies so much compared to 2p Carcasonne and I think it's because Harmonies is still way more strategic than tactical compared to Carcasonne, and blocking is only one aspect in 2p Harmonies while blocking is kind of the main game in 2p Carcasonne. Harmonies is also shorter and more "crunchy" while 2p Carcasonne has many turns and more randomness. I think I hated that your opponent constantly gets in your way (which I also always hate in Ticket to Ride) while in Harmonies you have some influence on your opponents options but at least your board is safe from your opponent and your plans can often work out even if your opponent tries to block you.

[tbhp]

Yeah, I often see people complain about games where players can have their plans ruined, or even have a group of players team up against another. Whenever I read those, I think to myself we are lucky to not have those issues in Harmonies. There is a level of interaction in trying to control the cards and the tiles your opponent gets, but you can never really block them out of options. I mean, sometimes you can essentially have them trapped in the end, but that's more a result of having played well over the course of the game, rather than some arbitrary momentary thing like a player deciding to cut out the resources of another player, which just seems like poor game design to me.

In multiplayer and at high level especially, you have to think of your game first because everyone is going to do high scores, so other players should be targeted only when they represent a real threat to your own victory (or second place if several players qualify). Those instances are a lot more specific, and players have many options to still do well even if they don't get what they want on certain turns.

[Yippiedada]

To dschingis27:
Yes I get what you mean for the 2p Carcassonne games, I had my suspicion that the 2p version was designed to be played by 2 people who don’t quite like each other heh… We get so evil playing that.

Back to Harmonies 2p, I don’t really think it’s a pitfall to block at the expense of your own board building, it somehow feels more like a positive player interaction to me. The blocking from my opponent gives me good motivation to draw animal cards requiring varying coloured tokens, so I won’t get stuck so easily. Also, the 2p version offers a good sense of agency as you can plan your board knowing that 3 clusters of tokens stay put when it’s your turn again, as opposed to an almost complete sweep at a 4p game.