Give us option to play without Hali B

[Wonderful Plays]

I've created a suggestion:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=50719

There is great amount of evidence that Hali B is way better than many other wonders. 7W is beautifully balanced game for how diverse it is, but I think with a very small change we can make life a little better.

I think this oversight will be corrected in 3rd edition, but we are probably at least 9 years away from 3rd edition.
The time to act is now, a lot of other games have bans, exclusion or variants like that, why can't we?

[RicardoRix]

No house rules. You'd need to get the designer/publishers permission - could be as simple as a BGG response to confirm your assertion.

[Wonderful Plays]

I don't think it is necessarily a house rule.

From the rulebook, page 3, setup

2. Each players randomly takes a Wonder board and places it in front of themself, picking their prefered side (Day or Night).
Note: For your first few games, we recommend using the Day side of the Wonder boards. For any following games, feel free to mix Day and Night sides. If you like you can also choose Wonder boards instead of distributing them randomly.

Enlargment mine, rest follows the styling of the rulebook.

There is no option to play with just A sides (and it's mentioned in the rulebook)
There is no way to draft wonder sides (and it's mentioned in the rulebook)
I know it's a bit of a stretch, but I think a change like that can fall into "choosing boards".

But I decided to contact author & publisher to hopefully get their blessing as well.

[RicardoRix]

With asymmetric games, there will always likely be a wonder / card / strategy that is statistically 'best'.
After you chase Hali B out the game, what next?
It maybe better to try auctioning rules at the start of the game or something.

[Wonderful Plays]

With asymmetric games, there will always likely be a wonder / card / strategy that is statistically 'best'.
After you chase Hali B out the game, what next?
It maybe better to try auctioning rules at the start of the game or something.

The problem is not really that Hali B is best, the problem lies to which extent Hali B is better and how little counterplay there could be depending on the setup. This could be done by redoing Hali B, but this is totally out of the question as this would be house ruling.

Auctioning might take longer than the game itself - but I'd be down to try it.

[Bardryn]

Maby let's make it a petition for more 'customisable' option in wonderpick. It micht be chellenging to properly enforce, bot it will give a lot of flexibility

[Skitinudo]

With asymmetric games, there will always likely be a wonder / card / strategy that is statistically 'best'.
After you chase Hali B out the game, what next?
It maybe better to try auctioning rules at the start of the game or something.

In my opinion, having an automatic score calculator already can be considered "ruining the original spirit of the game", and always influences who I trade with, yet nobody has issues with that.
I don't like the 1rst edition, I choose the option to never play it and I'm good. This option would not make people wait any longer in their queues... We are not talking about competitive Arena settings. That would be a difficult discussion.

Modding is great for videogames, and I always support community-driven balance changes and new content, as long as there an active "official and competitive" game mode.

Auctioning is for community-driven tournaments, not for fast-paced fun queue in a boardgame website.

[Baroness]

I suggest an option to play with Day sides only (as also suggested by the rulebook). With Day side only, there's no Halikarnassos night. The power levels of the boards are closer to each other with just the Day sides (no night).

For hardcore gamers/tournaments, player can choose Halikarnassos day, deliberately handicapping oneself (and the ugly feeling that goes with it).

[laggercat]

But I decided to contact author & publisher to hopefully get their blessing as well.

How did you do this?

I will contact them as well. Its just really annoying when Hali B wins over and over, especially when I am playing with it - there is almost zero thinking involved You can win on autopilot, its so easy.

A recent game I played with Hali B went very differently, however: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=211335312

In this game, I played Hali B and finished third of five. The reason was that the Giza player (who finished fourth) averages 28 points per game from green from 1400 games - he/she goes green regardless of wonder and game context. That's the way to stop Hali B winning. The problem is that you don't win. This player has an average ELO rating of around 120 from the 1400 games. I don't think I've seen a player with so many games and such a low rating.

[MoiMagnus]

In this game, I played Hali B and finished third of five. The reason was that the Giza player (who finished fourth) averages 28 points per game from green from 1400 games - he/she goes green regardless of wonder and game context. That's the way to stop Hali B winning. The problem is that you don't win. This player has an average ELO rating of around 120 from the 1400 games. I don't think I've seen a player with so many games and such a low rating.

Fun fact, that's one of the reasons why in our friend group, we used to find Hali (first edition) to be one of the worst wonders. A lot of players were irrational enough with Green and Red to make it quite difficult to consistently do anything with Hali.