Inventors - something frustrating.

[demiurgsage]

(though I am not sure if there are less 4s compensating for this and also the current meta game seems to have a lot of players favoring 9-pointers over other inventors, increasing demand for 4s).

There are 8 "3" and 6 "4" tokens in the box. But not all of them may appear in the game.

Interesting, the stats seem to confirm that blue wins the most often, followed by purple and red, and green and yellow have the lowest win rate.

Where can you see these stats? You can see how much points you score on average with different color but I don't know where to see the percent of winning with different colors. Of course, these things should correlate.

[senatorhung]

Where can you see these stats? You can see how much points you score on average with different color but I don't know where to see the percent of winning with different colors. Of course, these things should correlate.

if you look at your stats for the game, you can see the winner stats.

using my stats as an example: https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!players ... &game=1075

Played with the red team 0.2 0.21
Played with the blue team 0.21 0.28
Played with the yellow team 0.19 0.14
Played with the purple team 0.21 0.24
Played with the green team 0.19 0.13

first column of numbers is all players ... so 20% each matches being allocated at random.
second column is winners. 28% wins for blue, 24% purple, 21% red, 14% yellow, 13% green.

including stats for player order would also be useful here to confirm the previous poster's comment about the difficulty of winning witth green in 4th / 5th in player order.

[sourisdudesert]

Hi,

In fact these stats are for BGA use and was visible yesterday evening by mistake. Keep in mind that the raw numbers are irrelevant for 2 reasons : the number of games considered is way too little (last 150 games) and the fact that some colors are more difficult to play for beginners (but may be more powerful if well used by stronger players).

[Ankeszu]

These stats didn't show another thing also. I believe not only your color and order of players matter but also which teams ARE in the game. It is slightly different on 5p game, where all teams are in game, and on 4p game, where one set is out, so i.e. noone have 2 Math skills in the beginning (and ofc flow of the game is different)...

[senatorhung]

Hi,

In fact these stats are for BGA use and was visible yesterday evening by mistake. Keep in mind that the raw numbers are irrelevant for 2 reasons : the number of games considered is way too little (last 150 games) and the fact that some colors are more difficult to play for beginners (but may be more powerful if well used by stronger players).

i think, like with inspector vs killer, you will find that these results will not even out. but i take your point about the number of games played not yet reaching a significant amount. still hope the game devs can take these stats into account if they decide to tweak the game in the future.

speaking of stats and tweaks, i just played another game of battle sheep with a competent player, and again, think i won merely by being first player (well i did play solidly too, but ...). it's still not as onerous as inspector vs killer (where a skilled killer rarely loses except to random luck), but i would be interested in seeing how many Battle Sheep games were won by the first player, especially in 2.player games (the first player advantage is lessened somewhat in 3 or 4 player games). who, knows, maybe BGA can make a name for itself as a testing ground for re.balancing unbalanced games

a 2.player variant that i would suggest for BGA would be to follow the model given by The Battle of LITS, where the last player, after the board is built and the first player has placed his/her stack, has the OPTION to inherit that position. if they do inherit, the first player would then place again and move immediately, with the game proceeding normally from there. that would also help minimize any skill discrepancy between experienced players who know the value of a strategic board layout, and those who only see cute fluffy sheep, and find themselves hemmed in after only a few moves.

[diamant]

When someone is alone to win a card, I think he could get the right to get 2 bonus ( if not all the card).

This is not in the spirit of this game.

Also the equillibrium of the 4 inventor cards is not evident ... it seems to be easier to manage Einstein team? (but I'm not currently sure of that, just a feeling)... but maybe could it be good to allow a draft of 3vp cards, 6 vp cards and 9 vp cards? (also as option)... BGA is a good mean to test that...

That's right (about the equillibrium). In the Bombyx rule, the players elect the first player. Logically, il should be the player with the worse color.

So, I suggest that the players could choose their colors when they can see the invention cards of the first age, in the reverse order of the turn (order of the turn at random).

[braven]

So, I suggest that the players could choose their colors when they can see the invention cards of the first age, in the reverse order of the turn (order of the turn at random).

I really like that idea. I think I will use that house rule for the physical board game. That seems the fairest. I imagine most people will pick blue, red or purple if going later and either yellow or green will always get discarded in a 4 player game, depending on the tile/card options.

[makkuu]

^ That would give great advantage to turn order though.

I think the problem is that currently the top priority is Inventor Development. It trumps other possible goals: get VPs, get streaks - those are secondary goals; if you focus on them as top priority, you tend to lose to Inventor Development. I think these 3 aspects of the game need better balance:
- Inventor Development
- Gathering VPs
- Streaks

If it's actually viable to win with focusing on something else than Inventor Development first, then even if you get a bad team for the situation, you just adapt by focusing on the other goals in the game.

[ollyfish2002]

I like the way you would change the game, but is it possible now ?
The game is ready to be sold. Rules cannot be changed at least for the first boxes.
I hope Fred Henry would read all your posts or BGA admins can point this out to him.
my2p

[Shaq Jenkins]

^ That would give great advantage to turn order though.

I think the problem is that currently the top priority is Inventor Development. It trumps other possible goals: get VPs, get streaks - those are secondary goals; if you focus on them as top priority, you tend to lose to Inventor Development. I think these 3 aspects of the game need better balance:
- Inventor Development
- Gathering VPs
- Streaks

If it's actually viable to win with focusing on something else than Inventor Development first, then even if you get a bad team for the situation, you just adapt by focusing on the other goals in the game.

Agreed. In a game I played recently, I was blocked from gaining any progress tokens in the first round. I went last and there weren't that many progress tokens to begin with. It was clear that I had no chance of winning the game even though we had only played 33% of it. I tried to focus on gathering victory points and streaks, but that didn't work. I still came in last place, which I found frustrating because I didn't necessarily play bad - I was just unlucky.

If you don't progress your inventors, you can't place the highest number of blocks on inventions, and therefore, you can't gain the tokens/cards that you need to win. This is particularly frustrating when you have a team of inventors that are hard to upgrade, such as Team Green. There definitely needs to be more of a balance so that there's multiple strategies you can use to win. I think streaks should be worth more points - if you get a run from 0-5, you should gain 10 points instead of 5. Maybe a card in a streak can be worth double - so if you have a streak of 0-3, it would be worth 6 instead of 3. That will make streaks just as powerful as progressing inventors.