Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

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Faedur
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 September 2013, 21:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Faedur »

ollyfish2002 wrote:Beri has proposed a variant, which seems to me more equilibrated
Maybe another variant could be about number of actions needed for each workers and not about coins. Because we all play the same number of actions, it is important to save them. Money can restrict your choices but there are no more difficulties after the first building achieved. Why not a variant without money ?
Faedur
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 September 2013, 21:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Faedur »

Among the three "higher" buildings, I think the aqueduc is the more intereting. Regarding on what they cost and the gain they produce, it is the cheaper one.
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ollyfish2002
Posts: 299
Joined: 29 January 2015, 09:32

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by ollyfish2002 »

Hello
I think the key point is plays. We have 3 plays per turn, this needs to be optimized. Don't try to put more than 1 worker on a building per turn (until end game).
Beginning of the game : use these plays to collect buildings and workers. Best buildings seem to be from 12 to 16 coins (better ratio from my calculation). Best workers are the one that are adapted to the buildings you have taken : maybe not masters, but if you let the masters going to the other players, they will be missing in the second part.
Middle game : try to build, finish and collect money to be able to open more than one building's yard per turn.
End game : try to reach 17 points and be able to have buildings finished in only 1 play.

You can replay expert players games : they collect all the buildings to have in their hand at least 17 points, the best workers too. They undo actions to see what will be the next cards. They sometimes switch for a more interesting buildings and keep some unopened. They don't use much machine tools unless they have ressources missing.
try this one (2p): https://fr.boardgamearena.com/#!table?table=33042119
and this one (4p) :https://fr.boardgamearena.com/#!table?table=33091030
It is for me always good to replay best players games to find the right strategy and how to improve myself.
Liallan
Posts: 1221
Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Liallan »

Faedur wrote:
Liallan wrote: P.S. The word is "workshop." (A place to do work. As opposed to a ship, like a boat, or to ship, like to send something. No such thing as a workship.)
But, that resource is actually knowledge. Did we end up with a translation issue there?
Yes I meant about work quality skill (is workmanship better ?) and this word sounded good for me but I am afraid I am french and didn't notice that it was knowledge in english version.
Yes, workmanship is like the skill. I work in a workshop (maybe), and I have good (or bad) workmanship. It's a bit like good sportsmanship, or gamesmanship, or even like having a membership in something. So "ship" is being used to describe a thing about the person. (My rather unofficial definition.)

But
Liallan wrote:The thing [...] is you need ones that complement each other, which I did not have [...]
And this is the challenge of this game indeed : to find the better combination in your team with less workers in order to cover most of building possibilities.

Then it is not so easy because half of buildings (and the better ones) need at least 3 in one ressource and there are only 12 workers wich produce a ressource thrice (4 craftmen and the 8 masters). And we can notice that not all combination of ressources are available with, for example there is no master producing stone and knowledge nor master producing wood and tile. Only laborers and apprentices offer all combinations possibility.
Totally agree here, that it is not always so easy. So far in the big 4 games I've played :P , I've not had any perfect combination of workers and have to choose someone that doesn't "fit in" so well, or a machine. (Sometimes better than others of course.) I also have not done the 20-coin buildings because of the required workers and it makes it difficult to work on 2+ buildings at once the efficient way. I find it better to stick with the bit lower buildings and see if I can find a combination of buildings/workers and have 2 going at once and sort of overlapping them. I think there is definitely something to ollyfish's analysis. In reality, we can't necessarily get the perfect combinations, but it does show that the high-point buildings aren't the most efficient ones and that others are "more bang for your buck."
At the end, is it only a matter of luck to be able to pick the good card at the right moment (so the importance of first player who have more luck combinations) ? Or a matter of reflexion to do that ?
Of course I have little experience, but I feel that having a first player advantage is more a matter of luck. My logic says there's no reason why good combinations should necessarily be out there at the beginning of the game. How can you take "all" the good ones if they aren't there? And other good things can show up later, just hopefully not too late. ;)

I am playing a bit differently in my current game just to see what happens. And this is supposed to be a simple little filler game. :geek:
Faedur
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 September 2013, 21:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Faedur »

Liallan wrote:I think there is definitely something to ollyfish's analysis.
Right.

I tried different strategies playing against my wife (well, we don't have children for now ^^) but even starting with two complementary masters, I was always missing one point in a ressource and had to use another worker, just like her though their combinations were cheaper than mines. Moreover "litlle" buildings weren't interesting at all because of the high costs of my workers. At the end she won many times T_T
Because a third of buildings have at least a 4-need ressource or two 3-need ressources, it is difficult to get the good combination with masters. It is probably more efficient with some craftmen and laborers to find perfect combos.
Faedur
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 September 2013, 21:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Faedur »

To come back closer to the topic, I tried to list the number of possible workers combos with each card in order to see which are more or less useful... But there are too many possibilities, 1722 with a pair of workers, 688880 with threesome, more than 2 million with 4 workers, etc. Of course all of these combos are not useful because they don't fit all with actual buildings.
After all, we already saw that workers are pretty balanced even if there are some lacks in ressource distribution possibilities.

So the question is now about ressource distribution in building cards. I don't know how to share a chart but let's try to make a sort of tab to see the number of building cards needing a ressource :
0 time : 16 for stone, 9 for wood, 10 for knowledge and 11 for tiles
1 time : 8 for stone, 11 for wood, 12 for knowledge and 9 for tiles
2 time : 7 for stone, 13 for wood, 12 for knowledge and 13 for tiles
3 time : 4 for stone, 8 for wood, 4 for knowledge and 7 for tiles
4 time : 4 for stone, 1 for wood, 2 for knowledge and 2 for tiles
5 time : 3 for stone, 0 for wood, 2 for knowledge and 0 for tiles

For example : there are seven buildings that need 2 stones.

Well that' seems particularly unbalanced...
Faedur
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 September 2013, 21:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Faedur »

Now I computed the ressource combinations we find in building cards ; here we are :
- stone and wood : 2 buildings
- stone and knowledge : 2 buildings
- stone and tiles : 3 buildings
- wood and knowledge : 5 buildings
- wood and tiles : 2 buildings
- knowledge and tiles : 1 building
- stone and wood and knowledge : 2 buildings
- stone and knowledge and tiles : 3 buildings
- stone and wood and tiles : 3 buildings
- wood and knowledge and tiles : 8 buildings !
- all ressources needed : 11 buildings

See what, wood and knowledge seems pretty usefull to start with, then add tiles to have many possibilities. Though we already saw that stone was most unbalanced...
Parsec36
Posts: 1
Joined: 11 August 2016, 06:10

Re: Card list not so fair... mathematics braining

Post by Parsec36 »

I like oilyfish's analysis, but I would tweak it a bit.

Considering that an action must be spent to draft a building, I would include that action with the minimum number of actions required to complete a building.

Then to make the math simpler, I'd use 10 coins = 1 vp.

This will make the larger buildings more efficient than they were, but they're still a bit awkward to work with because they tie up workers and cash for a few rounds.
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