clans of caledonia strategy

[maxlongstreet]

I just cited this post in a long BGG essay on Clans of Caledonia and game balance.

https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9620 ... -caledonia

Note that while I too feel that big money/early engine building is the only way to do really well in Clans, I love the game and appreciate the designer for expressing this thoughts freely here and elsewhere, and for putting the game on BGA.

[nandblock]

Thanks for the thoughtful writeup. Interesting reading. -- I feel that it's not all that conclusive to look at the designer's own track record as a player, as there are a lot of excellent designers who aren't especially good at their own games. And the raw scores aren't all that informative; number-crunching is in order. (For instance, how often does Stewart or MacDonald win against Cunningham or Robertson?) I'm not sure how one would go about skimming off data from BGA--e.g. to get the raw (unadjusted) scores for all 4-player games and match them to clans--but that would answer questions.

It is a fair question to ask about whether "brokenness" prevents a game from being fun. I don't find Clans much fun when there's a bad mix of clan powers (I don't care whether or not the auction fixes the problem--it's still not fun at all to engage in an uphill battle for 5 rounds then have the imbalance "fixed" with a points adjustment after game end). When there's a good mix of clans it's fun.

[mark93193]

But if there are contract glory points during the first 3 rounds, how will you choose between these two strategies?

[RicardoRix]

It shows nothing towards the lack of balance in the game, simply a lack of diversity in potential strategies.

All economic games are like this, Stone Age, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, etc.
The first half is about engine building (money) then the 2nd half is about VP. It's choosing the correct balance as you progress through the game.

It's not a mix of 2 strategies, it's that certain early 'money gaining contracts' are viable as almost a freebie that doesn't hurt the engine building.

There are a few round bonus tiles that if appear at round 5 allow a different strategy by providing a lot of points NOT from contracts. The game designer post shows this, unfortunately this situation doesn't come up too often.

Consideration - If you play a 4 player game and you all go for BIG-BIG money then there might not be enough contracts for all of you in Round 5.

[Faray]

Cunningham is very strong but imo Roberston is stronger. It's just there's a big difference between the stronger clans and the weaker clans.

[ijplanje]

Interesting discussion! I came here to see what the competitive meta is like. In particular with regards to the balance of clans. Haven't gathered enough BGA points yet to join the arena, but I saw the discussion to add auctions there. However, I am personally not a big fan of auctions, for one, I agree with nandblock:

It is a fair question to ask about whether "brokenness" prevents a game from being fun. I don't find Clans much fun when there's a bad mix of clan powers (I don't care whether or not the auction fixes the problem--it's still not fun at all to engage in an uphill battle for 5 rounds then have the imbalance "fixed" with a points adjustment after game end). When there's a good mix of clans it's fun.

In addition, I think that auctions are tricky among players of equal level at best, but severely lacking its aim of balancing the game among players of different levels. Unless every player is reasonably familiar with game theory, there are just too many diplomatic nuances going on to balance the game with auctions imo.

Has there been any discussion on actually rebalancing the clans themselves a bit?

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I don't disagree, but those are all tactical decisions rather than strategic.

This indeed! Very good point!