Progressive Score

[Adamskiperth]

Why cant the current scores for each player be updated as the game goes on? There is the score icon in each player's box, but it remains on zero the whole time.

[Jason A Holt]

It's a design decision.

In the tabletop version, you play the game, then count up your score at the end. In playtesting, this led to the sort of gameplay that the designers liked.

It's possible, of course, to keep a running tabulation, but if the BGA implementation did this, then players would get the impression that they were supposed to be watching the score and making moves to thwart the player who currently seems to be ahead. The designers felt that a focus-on-your-own-expedition style of play would be more fun, so they asked the developer not to implement a progressive score tabulation.

[BenInJapan]

Personally, I do like to play these kind of games without thinking much about the points during the game, but I somehow always wonder if this would actually give an advantage to players just counting the points by themselves, which is possible here, as all information regarding the current scoring is publicly available...

Does anybody know if this gives an advantage?

[Jason A Holt]

Does anybody know if this gives an advantage?

Can we speculate?

Imagine a situation at the end of the game, when you're trying to decide whether to discover a new site. You have a way to get the compasses, but you don't know if you can get the resources to defeat the guardian. If the site gives you the resources you need, you'll score 8 (3 from idol, 5 from guardian). Otherwise, you'll score 2 (because of Fear). You also have an alternative research pathway for the round that gives you some number of points less than 8. I suppose, in that situation, knowing who else had how many points would tell you whether you could win by playing it safe or whether going after an unknown site with unknown guardian was your only chance of winning.

In practice, I doubt one person knowing the score has a very big advantage. But if everyone knows the score, then certain players might be at a disadvantage. Anyone whose strategy results in an early lead (probably an exploration strategy?) would be punished by people who want to gang up on the leader. Anyone whose strategy is to figure out what the leader is trying to do and stop it would be disadvantaging the leader and themselves. Anyone who can manipulate others into making bad plays because someone else appears to be ahead--that person would be at an advantage. But of course, it depends on the playstyle of your group.

At the level I play at, I'm just tickled to find the one move that gets me the compass I need to buy the artifact that lets me do one more thing. So tracking trackable information probably would not help me personally. But I assume there are a wide variety of playstyles and ability levels among Arnak players.

[Baroness]

I wish the game won't let players see other players' deck, only their own.

[KingSpooky93]

I imagine it's because the total score each player has isn't meant to be known (it's not open knowledge how many points players have on their cards), so it wouldn't make sense to show some of a players score.

[BenInJapan]

It actually is open knowledge, you know exactly which cards everyone buys, so you can just count the points manually. Also everyone's deck is available to display, so you can open your opponents decks and count by yourself whenever you like.

[anson95]

It actually is open knowledge, you know exactly which cards everyone buys, so you can just count the points manually. Also everyone's deck is available to display, so you can open your opponents decks and count by yourself whenever you like.

may I know how to open other's deck?

[BenInJapan]

There's a button "display deck", right below each players name with which you can display every deck.

[BruceGee]

I would like it if open scoring was an option. IMO this is one of the differences between playing online and playing on a tabletop. With the tabletop version, memory comes into play, and there are mnemonic tricks I practice if there is info that I need to keep track of. In an online turn-based game, I assume that everyone else is keeping track of all publicly available information, so I keep track of it too if I think it will be helpful. For instance, in Alhambra, I try to keep a running spreadsheet of what cards people have, and in the card draft of Agricola I write down what the cards are before I pass them.
In this game, there isn't enough interaction to make keeping track of the score worthwhile, as far as I can tell. But if there is, then people will do it, so why not let the game do it for everybody?