Starvation strategy abusers

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zdepthcharge
Posts: 4
Joined: 05 June 2014, 22:09

Starvation strategy abusers

Post by zdepthcharge »

The starvation strategy should be nerfed as it is extremely broken. The account below only plays the starvation strategy.

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*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.
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Jest Phulin
Posts: 1856
Joined: 08 July 2013, 21:50

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Jest Phulin »

Please take that up with the publisher of the game. BGA tries to enforce all the rules, and this is a listed strategy. If you browse through the game history of the player you reported, you will see that there are ways around that strategy: players have beat them.
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nandblock
Posts: 213
Joined: 23 December 2015, 02:13

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by nandblock »

That's entirely an issue with flaws in the original game design, not BGA's implementation. They are playing legally.
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Liallan »

Several comments on this.

First and foremost (to my mind), I don't believe in the idea of the site telling anyone what strategy they are allowed to use. I would never want to play at a site that had enforced strategies.

I also don't consider that strategy "broken." Most people who do that strategy are good players to begin with, which is something I don't think many people consider. Do you have a way to prove that player would not have 86% hits if they did a different strategy?

There are tons and tons of threads on Board Game Geek on this topic. I've never tried this strategy, and have only played against it once, when I was fairly new to the game and didn't even know it was "a strategy," and didn't catch on til too late. But I've read a lot of posts about it. People who use the strategy claim they can beat you nearly every time. And people who don't use it claim they can stop the ones doing that strategy, but stopping it requires knowing how, and I would guess takes a commitment to doing so. It's also a strategy that works better in the long-term and not so much in the shorter term. (I'd say if there's something I don't like, it's being forced into playing the only way I can in order to counter-act a specific strategy.)

I watched that game until I figured out that your strange lack of use of people wasn't a misclick. I get suspicious any time someone goes first and starts by taking the baby hut. Typically it doesn't mean anything, because often they simply spend the game jumping on the hunting grounds a lot. But the next opportunity he got, he was back on that baby hut. He predicably took hut multipliers, and got on wood, also blocking you out. You never once got on the baby hut and tried blocking him, and he's the one who grabbed the good people & hut multipliers, and you didn't much block those. By the third round, when someone is yet once again making more babies and not bothering with food, it should become obvious.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see that you made any attempt to block the strategy, and want to blame that on the strategy. In fact, you just gave up part way through the game and stopped bothering to play, and by not conceding, forced him to have to continue the game with you not really playing. Was that your way of punishing him?
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zdepthcharge
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Joined: 05 June 2014, 22:09

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by zdepthcharge »

Liallan wrote: I watched that game until I figured out that your strange lack of use of people wasn't a misclick.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that you made any attempt to block the strategy, and want to blame that on the strategy. In fact, you just gave up part way through the game and stopped bothering to play, and by not conceding, forced him to have to continue the game with you not really playing. Was that your way of punishing him?
You vastly misunderstood the purpose of my post. I am not blaming the site at all. I was simply putting it out there that that player uses the broken starvation strategy. I have played here with many people that also dislike that strategy. So I posted in the spirit of a public service announcement.

What you saw me doing in that game was tanking it. I realized quite early what the player was doing. Instead of countering in the "proper" manner of denying the player points so that they do not benefit from starving, I opted to make it glaringly obvious that the player could not lose. I placed all of my meeples on wood and then did not use them. My "strategy" was to show the player how amazingly boring they were making the game.

I will be the first admit that it did not work. The player still hesitated over placing his meeples while calculating the optimum play. The player was seemingly incapable of understanding what was happening.
Liallan
Posts: 1221
Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Liallan »

zdepthcharge wrote:
Liallan wrote: I watched that game until I figured out that your strange lack of use of people wasn't a misclick.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that you made any attempt to block the strategy, and want to blame that on the strategy. In fact, you just gave up part way through the game and stopped bothering to play, and by not conceding, forced him to have to continue the game with you not really playing. Was that your way of punishing him?
You vastly misunderstood the purpose of my post. I am not blaming the site at all.
I never assumed you were blaming the site for the strategy. On the other hand, how can you "nerf" it without the site doing it? It's not like people who like this strategy are going to simply stop doing it.
I will be the first admit that it did not work. The player still hesitated over placing his meeples while calculating the optimum play. The player was seemingly incapable of understanding what was happening.
I would have never interpreted your actions as trying to prove how boring his strategy was. I would have taken it exactly how I already took it - that you were just forcing him into finishing a game that you obviously had no intention of playing. Maybe he wasn't paying attention...
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Flemingr2002
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Joined: 11 October 2017, 21:45

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Flemingr2002 »

So If people are willing to use starvation, other players should collaborate and imediately join forces to win the same city slot each time, thereby ending the game quickly and not allowing the starvation player to build enough points in time. this colluusion strategy is about playing for teh common good over self interest. in the actual stoe age, the selfish tribe member would be banished or shunned as in a collective action by the village. I propose that all of us non-starvation players should use this strategy. has nayone tried this yet?
Shaq Jenkins
Posts: 156
Joined: 27 November 2013, 04:49

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Shaq Jenkins »

Technically, the starvation strategy is legal; it's a valid strategy that doesn't break any rules. I agree that it's a cheap way to win, but players who use it aren't doing anything wrong.

I feel similarly about the Temporal Boots+Amsug Longneck combo in Seasons - it's perfectly legal, but it's a cheap, lame move. But at the end of the day, a win is a win.
Shaq Jenkins
Posts: 156
Joined: 27 November 2013, 04:49

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by Shaq Jenkins »

Flemingr2002 wrote:So If people are willing to use starvation, other players should collaborate and imediately join forces to win the same city slot each time, thereby ending the game quickly and not allowing the starvation player to build enough points in time. this colluusion strategy is about playing for teh common good over self interest. in the actual stoe age, the selfish tribe member would be banished or shunned as in a collective action by the village. I propose that all of us non-starvation players should use this strategy. has nayone tried this yet?
Stone Age isn't designed as a collaborative game. The purpose is to win individually, not to "play for the common good." Players need to look out for themselves, not tank their own game in order to teach the starvation strategist a lesson.

The starvation strategy is the main reason why I don't play Stone Age often. The game designers really dropped the ball on that one and never should have allowed a strategy like that to be legal. Plus, there are much better worker placement games, such as Targi and Legendary Inventors.
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ufm
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Joined: 06 January 2017, 08:38

Re: Starvation strategy abusers

Post by ufm »

This reminds me of '9 train card is broken' thing from RRR.
Actually it's not that strong, and I consider it as a weaker choice than black worker or engineer+rouble in 2 or 3 player games.

First of all, you can't blame players for using legal strategy, especially when the game designer intended it to work that way.
If you don't like it, you're free to stop playing.

Also, a strategy can be considered 'broken' when it consistently wins the game, thus emerging as a dominant strategy.
If it is, at least some top-tier players might have adopted that strategy to win a lot of games...
So I checked a bunch of replays from top-tier players in BGA, and here they are :)

https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamesta ... finished=1
https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamesta ... finished=1
https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamesta ... finished=1

I noticed it is indeed a strong strategy, but not an overwhelming one.
You can see how these players counter the other player's starvation strategy and clinch the game.
Or... sometimes both players go for starvation ;) It was weird.

So, I don't think so-called 'starvation strategy' is broken, nor should it be banned.
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