Board Game Arena

I haven't had a chance to play with them yet, but I'm interested in their effects on the game.

Each one does something a little different. I haven't really analyzed them all, but my observations:

Harsh Winter makes gold a lot more valuable in a "grab civilization cards" strategy. You get the 6 points without having to buy a building.
Similarly, stone becomes more valuable too. The same meeple that buys a building regularly also converts one more stone to points. When you consider that gaining points actually requires 2 actions -- one to get the resource, one to convert it to points -- this adds a lot of actions without costing any food or going to the baby hut.

Wild animals increase the luck factor significantly. The reward ranges anywhere from a free extra meeple or agriculture level down to just 3 points. The expected result of a worker on any resource is 3.5 points (the average die roll). There are actions to take to fairly easily increase the abilities of resource workers (tools, send more workers), but nothing can be done to modify the reward of the wild animal.

For me, igloos are mostly a "meh" factor. While the extra points are nice, they don't seem to balance the fact that they aren't actual buildings for end-game scoring.

The new huts can have major effects depending on when they come out, and if one person gets several of them or not. Especially the "get a resource for free at the beginning of each round" huts.

I'm still playing my first Mammoth herd game (turn-based), so I don't know how it affects the score that much. But, there are some fun tricks to use. I had 7 meeples when the herd was in the forest. Sent all 7 there, blocking out anyone else from coming. Tamed the mammoth with one worker for a cost of one food, got an agriculture level as a reward.

Again, they are all different, and change the strategy of the game. But if you are planning on playing highly strategically on a game with this many dice, there may be bigger issues.... Each makes it different, and different is normally an enjoyable experience.

I have played a real-time game that had all expansions yesterday. It was just crazy. I ended up with 9 tools at the end and I'm not even sure how. So my perception might be a little-skewed having only played one game.

I really like the increase in viability for stone/gold. Usually in base game, I try to go for wood/brick mostly, getting the occasional stone / gold for buildings sometimes. But cards are usually good enough sources for gold/stone anyway. So this just adds up more options without breaking the game.

Wild Animals modify strategy a little bit, you always want to collect resources every round, even if you'd only send one worker. that is, to make use of your tools. What wild animals does is, make it significantly worse for you to put your workers on more than 1 resource. And they could come up at the worst of times completely messing up with your strategy. The "reward" just adds more uncontrollable randomness to the game. They could spice up the gameplay a little bit in casual games. But I don't think I would be playing with wild animals that much.

I'd assume that Igloos' viability increase in 4p/3p games. As, you have less options to score in these games, and also you'd likely end up with less building tags than in 2p. If you end up with only 2-3 building tags, then they are definitely worth it. Problem is, once you get a 3x Building card (And you do want to get it, whenever possible) then the igloos immediately start losing value. They do give you additional options in the endgame. They probably still aren't that great. But I like the options they open up at least.

Interestingly, Igloos play some sort of a role with The Mammoth Herd. if you go all out on a resource because of the presence of a mammoth. You can justify that, by having a way out in the form of Igloos. To spend all that extra resource. Opponents could also go for the Igloo as a counter-play. That said, this is a less of a thing because of the extra flexibility you get for stone/gold in buildings/cards respectively.

The new huts, were incredibly overpowered in my experience, Getting one stone hut at the start of the game can give you such a massive advantage. You never know when they come out as well. They are an interesting option for casual play, but I wouldn't want to play with them that much I think. Maybe once from time to time.

I really liked the Mammoth Herd, it gives food more value, so you could even consider having your food production exceed your population, just to have extra food to spend on the Mammoth every turn. It adds up another interesting layer to the game. Minor grip with how the "majority" is calculated out, but at least you can control that to some extent, like sending 7 workers there to tame for 1 food as you've said.

Hm, I should point out that the vast majority of my games are 4-player games, and very rarely 3-player. I have never played it 2-player.

Not a big fan of expansions for reasons below:
1. Developments (from taming, driving off animal, workshop) come too easily which make development multipliers a lot more valuable. Furthermore, you can turn dump stone to insulate buildings and dump gold to get cards, making building multipliers a lot less valuable. Hence the game with expansions strongly favors development strategy while I think the base game is quite fair between development vs building.
2. Because it's easier to dump resources, the game becomes a race to most resources. Hence starvation strategy is extremely powerful in expansions. In base game, you take a major risk of getting stuck with too much resource at game end, but in expansions, you rarely run into that issue. I have the cheat code against starvation strategy but not in expansions.
3. Since points come much easily (via insulating buildings, dumping on cards, even igloos), there is not much strategic blocking involved, in fact, blocking can only hurt yourself in expansions.

Theses are what top ELO stone age players in BGA came up with after experimenting expansions. That's why we avoid expansions in live games as well as in arena.

admitted wrote: ↑05 September 2020, 22:21 Not a big fan of expansions for reasons below:
1. Developments (from taming, driving off animal, workshop) come too easily which make development multipliers a lot more valuable. Furthermore, you can turn dump stone to insulate buildings and dump gold to get cards, making building multipliers a lot less valuable. Hence the game with expansions strongly favors development strategy while I think the base game is quite fair between development vs building.
2. Because it's easier to dump resources, the game becomes a race to most resources. Hence starvation strategy is extremely powerful in expansions. In base game, you take a major risk of getting stuck with too much resource at game end, but in expansions, you rarely run into that issue. I have the cheat code against starvation strategy but not in expansions.
3. Since points come much easily (via insulating buildings, dumping on cards, even igloos), there is not much strategic blocking involved, in fact, blocking can only hurt yourself in expansions.

Theses are what top ELO stone age players in BGA came up with after experimenting expansions. That's why we avoid expansions in live games as well as in arena.

I think you're pretty spot on here. That being said... I can't help but love playing with any/all expansions! I like any option of Stone Age. All of these change the game to a degree. I think your points about starving being a better strategy are pretty accurate. I don't find it particularly fun playing against starving players, but I can still enjoy those games. I play to win every game I play, but more importantly, I play to have fun. I think the expansions offer cool different options and to me at least, more options=more potential fun. All the variables definitely make the game more random. I think it makes it slightly more possible for a good player to get a beaten in a 4 player game against 3 relative newbies. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'll keep playing games with different combinations of expansions and likely try to play with them all active more often than not as I wait and hope that the style/trading expansion becomes available!

I think this is going to come down to two camps:

1) I play primarily to win. The new expansions add a lot of variability/randomness into the game. This changes my set expectations. I don't like it.
2) I play primarily to have fun. The new expansions add a lot of variability/randomness into the game. This changes my set expectations. I like it.

Nothing wrong with either camp, just a difference of play style leading to a difference in opinion.