Board Game Arena

I generally play two actions about 70% of the time if I'm not taking a game super seriously.

However, there are many situations where playing one action is much better, especially if you're the starting player in the next generation. For example:
1) You want to ensure your opponent skips first to protect your milestone or track bonus (probably in the next round).
2) You want to gain plants but are concerned about being attacked.
3) You have cards that depend on opponents' symbols.
4) You want to know whether the game will end this generation.

And I agree that selling a card may NOT count as an action. Controlling tempo by selling cards is allowed but can be a bit exhausting and tends to favor a greedier card style. Since TM doesn't have "active free actions," we could consider a house rule to test if this approach works well :p

I guess the thread is going in circles now, but FrostTomcat: the point is that everyone should be aware 1 action is tactically better (except for a few situations, like milestone races or finishing a conversion), but your opponent can and should match your tempo. If they do, then when you take 1 action your opponent responds with 1 action, and the game is strategically the same, no tactical advantage is gained by either player, but it now takes twice as many round passes to finish.

This matters a lot in turn-based async games, especially ones with tournament timers; but even in realtime it's an annoying amount of extra clicking/waiting/passing back-and-forth added, which is why it's generally considered "polite" among high-level players to respect everyone's time and play 2 actions mostly most of the time.

In almost any cases one action is advantageous, unless when specific actions must be done quickly.

The request is understandable, but I don't think it's appropriate to set a house rule like that and expect others to accept it.

Selling a project card shouldn't have counted as actions, but here we are.

I am getting tired of 30 minute last turns because 1 or 2 people only play one action every time

I read through this entire thread, because I'm frustrated with the people who stall every turn. Activate Microbe card, skip second action. Sell card, skip second action. I play this for fun, and while I'm a competitive person, I feel like it's disrespectful of people's time to stall all the time. When they take 1 turn, I find myself taking 1 turn to retaliate, and then it slows the entire game down.

I've been really enjoying learning and playing the game, I'm only like 200 ELO, but yeah, if this stalling tactic is how everyone plays in the intermediate to advanced level, and only beginners and experts play 2 actions per turn, I may find some other games to play, and just play this with friends.

efidiaf wrote: ↑03 November 2024, 07:39 In almost any cases one action is advantageous, unless when specific actions must be done quickly.

The request is understandable, but I don't think it's appropriate to set a house rule like that and expect others to accept it.

Selling a project card shouldn't have counted as actions, but here we are.

The thing is that it's only advantageous when you are the only one doing it. If we both have 10 actions to take and I go 2 at a time and you only 1, you obviously have an advantage. But everytime I run into players who take 1 action "because it's better", I do the exact same and then nothing has changed except us extending the time of the match by 30-60 minutes.

ChesterDeBester wrote: ↑30 January 2025, 15:18

efidiaf wrote: ↑03 November 2024, 07:39 In almost any cases one action is advantageous, unless when specific actions must be done quickly.

The request is understandable, but I don't think it's appropriate to set a house rule like that and expect others to accept it.

Selling a project card shouldn't have counted as actions, but here we are.

The thing is that it's only advantageous when you are the only one doing it. If we both have 10 actions to take and I go 2 at a time and you only 1, you obviously have an advantage. But everytime I run into players who take 1 action "because it's better", I do the exact same and then nothing has changed except us extending the time of the match by 30-60 minutes.

This.

It gets even worse when you're playing more than 2P as well because it only takes 1 person to start this cycling causing the game to unnecessarily last an extra hour.

ChesterDeBester wrote: ↑30 January 2025, 15:18
The thing is that it's only advantageous when you are the only one doing it. If we both have 10 actions to take

Very rarely do both or all players have the same number of actions to take. 1 person will have more actions and can intentionally stall so they can play most advantageous for them. It would take the person who has less moves to realize this and just play 2 actions anyways.

KoalaFox wrote: ↑31 January 2025, 02:55

ChesterDeBester wrote: ↑30 January 2025, 15:18
The thing is that it's only advantageous when you are the only one doing it. If we both have 10 actions to take

Very rarely do both or all players have the same number of actions to take. 1 person will have more actions and can intentionally stall so they can play most advantageous for them. It would take the person who has less moves to realize this and just play 2 actions anyways.

That doesn't change the point at all, because if people want to be competitive they will still both take 1 action per turn. The example I used is 10 actions each, but even if it's 30 actions versus 20 the "right" course would then be to take 20 single actions to limit the advantage of the other, slowing down the game significantly.

This thread may be working as I only played a couple of people using one action all the time. You can down vote anyone you don't want to play again.