Board Game Arena

bwalsh96 wrote: ↑03 June 2025, 19:40 I encourage you go ask that on the steam discord for this game. You wont find a single person who one actions unless it is required (i.e energy consumption). If everyone just rips two actions, the game moves at a faster pace. If you one action and I one action back, and we repeat, the tempo is unchanged from if we had just two actioned. You only gain something by taking one action if your opponent is taking two. People have their own play styles and don’t like being “told” what to do, so of course this argument always comes up. Ultimately, just do what you want. But the “standard” way among people who play this game a lot is to primarily take two actions to keep the game pace up. So yes, if you are one actioning every move I am also giving you a thumbs down. I saw that above and agree 100%, but the BGA community is like that with TfM so it’s bound to happen.

Yeah, agreed. Thankfully on BGA it's not common either (at least not in Arena), so all good.

bwalsh96 wrote: ↑03 June 2025, 19:40 I encourage you go ask that on the steam discord for this game. You wont find a single person who one actions unless it is required (i.e energy consumption). If everyone just rips two actions, the game moves at a faster pace. If you one action and I one action back, and we repeat, the tempo is unchanged from if we had just two actioned. You only gain something by taking one action if your opponent is taking two. People have their own play styles and don’t like being “told” what to do, so of course this argument always comes up. Ultimately, just do what you want. But the “standard” way among people who play this game a lot is to primarily take two actions to keep the game pace up. So yes, if you are one actioning every move I am also giving you a thumbs down. I saw that above and agree 100%, but the BGA community is like that with TfM so it’s bound to happen.

Again, this only holds true if your opponent knows what they want to do next. If they one action to think about their next action, then that is faster. And there are a multitude of reasons to think about one's next move.

Frank,

I’m not going to be too involved here because no matter what I say it comes off as me imposing my thoughts on the community. I just want to reiterate that it’s all about tempo. If both players are one actioning, there is no “benefit”. You state “if I need my opponent's greenery to happen so I can play a card, why would I double action”. But if we are both one actioning or two actioning… as long as we follow the same tempo… the answer to your timing is the exact same. You only “gain” this arbitrage in timing if you are taking 1 action while opponent is taking 2 of them. Does that make sense?

bwalsh96 wrote: ↑05 June 2025, 01:02 Frank,

I’m not going to be too involved here because no matter what I say it comes off as me imposing my thoughts on the community. I just want to reiterate that it’s all about tempo. If both players are one actioning, there is no “benefit”. You state “if I need my opponent's greenery to happen so I can play a card, why would I double action”. But if we are both one actioning or two actioning… as long as we follow the same tempo… the answer to your timing is the exact same. You only “gain” this arbitrage in timing if you are taking 1 action while opponent is taking 2 of them. Does that make sense?

To some extent it makes sense. But, sometimes the opponent will need to do 2 actions on multiple occasions to protect plants, or to gain a bonus, in which case I will have lost out on some potential advantages by not doing single actions.

Is this primarily an issue in real=time? Or turn based. Because in real time, I really don't think it adds any significant time to the game.

Also, if I am playing a game, how do I know who is on board with this agreement or who is not?

Also, my second action might depend on what the opponent does with his single action, whereas that might not be the case for my opponent.

Do the people in the agreement ask at the start of each gen, "Are we doing 1 or 2 this gen, because I have some moves that require 2 actions, but I know you have some cards that make it better for you if you do one action?"

FrankJones wrote: ↑05 June 2025, 01:28

bwalsh96 wrote: ↑05 June 2025, 01:02 Frank,

I’m not going to be too involved here because no matter what I say it comes off as me imposing my thoughts on the community. I just want to reiterate that it’s all about tempo. If both players are one actioning, there is no “benefit”. You state “if I need my opponent's greenery to happen so I can play a card, why would I double action”. But if we are both one actioning or two actioning… as long as we follow the same tempo… the answer to your timing is the exact same. You only “gain” this arbitrage in timing if you are taking 1 action while opponent is taking 2 of them. Does that make sense?

To some extent it makes sense. But, sometimes the opponent will need to do 2 actions on multiple occasions to protect plants, or to gain a bonus, in which case I will have lost out on some potential advantages by not doing single actions.

Is this primarily an issue in real=time? Or turn based. Because in real time, I really don't think it adds any significant time to the game.

Also, if I am playing a game, how do I know who is on board with this agreement or who is not?

That is true. But the idea is that if both people follow the same agreement, then both players lose out on the potential advantages from the single actions. As for how do you know someone is following the agreement: the idea is to match the tempo of your opponent. So, if your opponent does two actions, then you do two back, and they keep doing two aside from the end of a gen or something important like not floating power, then you can assume the agreement is on. But, if they keep constantly do one action, then you would always respond with one action and you can assume the agreement is off.
Technically you don't even need to know if the agreement is on or not--following the rule of matching tempo will figure it out for you.
And yes, if you have something where doing two actions leads to a significant disadvantage--where the second action leaves one power production floating, or where you might play a useless tag to be ready to claim builder, then go ahead and one action!
The idea of matching tempo is a) whenever you do one action, your opponent is free to respond in-kind to minimize your advantage, and b) to avoid one actions when it isn't necessary.

As for the time saved: let's assume a mid-length game of 60 actions per player. One actioning probably introduces an extra 25 turns for each player. Each extra turn takes probably 4 seconds between recognizing it is your turn, having to hit the skip second action and confirmation, so about 200 seconds extra or 3 minutes. Such a game probably takes 30 minutes, so it's about 10% of the game length. Not drastic, but I get why people have adopted this to try to shave off 10% of the game's length.

So, this whole discussion boils down to saving 3 minutes?

I somewhat see where you're coming from, but to me this is not in the spirit of the game. I may want or need to do one actions on my first turn, or 2, depending on the situation, and I don't think it's reasonable for me to be expected to "match pace" based on what my opponent does.

There may be instances in which I want to take 2 actions and then my opponent needs to take a single action, and then I need to do 2 more actions. Now what? Does my opponent think I am disregarding the unspoken agreement?

I don't see why it's unreasonable to evaluate the situation and decide whether one action or 2 is the most optimal play. In the end, it will likely end up being, most likely, something like 60/40, give or take a few percentage points. To me this seems like a solution looking for a problem rather than a problem in need of a solution.

I would think that the most important overall factor a player would consider when evaluating whether the gaming experience was positive would be, "How much overall clock did this player use?" Still nobody has really addressed that point which I've made several times.
Some people are just slower thinkers. Sometimes a game situation might require 3 minutes of thought to come up with an optimal play. Sometimes a situation might require FIVE minutes of thought and calculation, trying to figure out the opponent's likely cards and upcoming plays, whether the game will end this gen, etc. And since even the slowest setting only allows 2:3 per turn, a player might do a single action that he knows will likely begin his sequence, but use most of the 2:42 to plan out the rest - and then still find that he or she needs more time, at which point, do that one action, skip second, and use the next turn's clock to continue figuring it out.

Could a player abuse this by doing it every turn and making a game take forever? Sure, but that's one thing [other version] did get right - a total game timer. The flaw was that it did not have an incremental add-on for longer games that went past 21 gens, or that had a huge quantity of blue action cards. That, and those atrocious animations, and the nonsense where each player had to watch each other's animations and their own.

AN ideal setting, I think, would be something like "4 minutes maximum per turn, 40 minutes maximum for the game".

And before anyone says "40 minutes is unacceptable, remember that under the current system, any player could easily make the game take a LOT longer than that."

I think the time and effort spent trying to brow-beat people into accepting this groupthink could be better spent coming up with a solution that pleases everyone without making some players feeling pressured to play a specific way.

I pretty much agree with you on almost all of your points. I would indeed love a global timer with a late acting increment.

With the matching pace agreement, there will be situations where you'll have to break pace, but it will usually be clear why (getting power, taking a parameter bonus, etc.). The matching pace rule really more applies to menial stuff, like if you are just drawing cards, adding animals, or playing a slew of income cards that don't affect opponent. and yes, this solution is definitely not perfect, it is just some think saving a bit of time each game is worth occasionally losing tempo.

If a game takes long because my opponent is actually thinking, I personally would be totally fine with it.

To be honest, if I played against you who goes fast overall and only one-actions about half the time with a reason, I wouldn't have any real issues. I think much of the vitriol is based of the occasional experience of playing against someone who insists on one actioning almost the entire game, and is not particularly fast doing so. I don't think this is common at all, but the most negative experiences are the easiest to remember.

I won't say much more on this topic; I think my opinion can be summed up as: Try to do two actions if you can, if you have to one-action to stall expect your opponent to do the same.