MoiMagnus wrote: ↑17 December 2020, 14:19
I've taken the top player of 7 wonder duel (by ELO) and look at their statistics:
Victories from points : 35%
Victories from science : 25%
Victories from conquest : 27%
Victories from politics (Agora) : 0%
Going through the top 10, this seems to be very play-style dependent, but in the end:
(1) A lot of top players reach scientific victories as often as point victories.
(2) A lot of top players almost never win from conquest.
(3) A lot of top players are really balanced in the three style of victories, usually with slightly more victories from points.
Global statistics of wins are:
Victories from points : 59%
Victories from science : 21%
Victories from conquest : 19%
Victories from politics (Agora) : 2%
Note: my personal performances at the 26 games that I did is
Victories from points : 8%
Victories from science : 38%
Victories from conquest : 0%
Victories from politics (Agora) : 33%
So these are my stats above.
Now at 36% civil, 25% science and 27% conquest (military).
I do also think that on average there is a significant advantage to the first player.
Wonders play a huge role as well obviously.
The 2nd player will still be the favourite in a number of games because of the wonders and science token distribution though.
We should also take into account that the 2nd player will go first into age 2 if nobody plays an extra turn and the 2nd player would not play any shields. That evens things a little bit out, but not enough imho.
There are also often enough good cards (not neccessarily resources only) available in age 1 so that the 2nd player can definitely compete most of the time. There is also the option for the 2nd player to use a strong extra turn wonder (mainly The Temple of Artemis and Piraeus) to turn around a very bad pyramid structure and gain the lead.
So I do think that these hopeless games for the 2nd player are quite rare in reality. They do happen, but rarely enough to not bother me much at all in such a great and fast paced game.
And also the first player must play well to not give any chances to the 2nd player.
I really love the challenge of trying to find and then pull off a way to win in a much worse position. These wins are the sweetest to me. Like a very tough puzzle
No mistakes are allowed or we are definitely doomed.
Resources are by far not everything in this game.
As we all know this game has 3 ways to win and lose. Out of these 3 winning conditions 2 of them do not need that many resources to make it work well.
So I do think that most players greatly overrate resources. When you are behind in economy you should often search another way or even multiple ways to at least threat a win. If the first player only cares about resources the 2nd player will often have a pretty easy win.
I am currently at 62 consecutive wins. So roughly half of these games were played by me being the 2nd player.
I can assure you that in the vast majority of games where you find yourself being the 2nd player there are usually many ways to find wins vs non top ranked players. Everyone makes mistakes on all levels
A handful of these wins in my last 62 games were really, really poorly played by myself. It just happened that my opponent played even more poorly and/or that I was lucky after my very poor move(s).
EDIT: My winning streak ended after 75 victories. I was the 2nd player in that loss