@ Wonderful Plays
Thank you for your thoughts and pardon me for the late reply. I was writing a reply a long time ago but then got busy with something else and then my whole post was lost and I was away for vacation
Man, was I tilted
1. Wow. So if let's say 3 players (1800, 1700 and 1600) are playing against eachother and let's say the 1800 gets the 1st place, 1700 gets 2nd place and 1600 gets 3rd place. Then isn't it that 1700 will score 0 Arena Points and 1800 wins arena points just like he/she won against both 1700 and 1600 imaginary 2 player games? Let's say it gives the 1800 player 15 Arena Points vs the 1700 and 10 Arena Points vs the 1600 player. Isn't 1800 then scoring 25 Arena points and the 1600 is losing 25 Arena Points? I would call that fair. I hope it works like that.
2. I don't understand that point. Let's say there would be a total of 4 players in both player pools.
Then in order to have everybody play 1 game in total it would be even. If everyone wanted to play more games in total it would also work out evenly.
Let's say everybody wanted to play 100 times. Then the 7 wonders players would each have 100 games. Total of 400 played games.
In 7WD it would be the same case. 4x100=400
3. Why should a 2nd place count as a draw? It should count as a win and a loss imho. The 2nd lost vs the 1st and won against the 3rd. If the 3rd was the highest ranked player the 2nd ranked player usually earns ELO. If not s(he) should imho obviously usually lose ELO. It depends of course on the rating of the winning player. I don't see what's unfair with that.
If let's say 3 2000 ranked players play against eachother and there is a winner, a 2nd place and a 3rd place. Then it should be a draw for the 2nd ranked player imo and I would be surprised if it wouldn't count as a 0 ELO change for that particular player.
Why should it be frustrating after game 100 to have sudden victory conditions?
I find it much more thrilling to play 7 Wonders Duel because of that. Every game is different and ends (very) differently to the previous game.
Thrills everywhere. But 7 Wonders is always the same. It ends always in a civilian end game. Every decision we make is a pure civilian decision.
In 7WD we have to evaluate at so many points in game where we stand in all 3 winning conditions and we have to often reevaluate and can turn green into red attacks or green into blue attacks. red and green double attacks. red and blue double attacks.. at some point we will usually see which of the double attack will become the final attack. that will usually happen during age 3. I find that really awesome. Of course we can also launch very powerful and mostly secure winning single attacks if our opponent let's us. It might also often look like a single attack and it is in reality a hidden double attack. Most top players are most often at least double attacking in reality.
Yes, it can be sometimes frustrating when we have these rare games where we can't do much vs another very highly skilled player, but that is the case in 7 Wonders as well. Some Wonders are just so much stronger than other wonders. Seating position plays a role as well and the luck of the cards we get to choose from. But I love these challenges and love to find ways how to win in very difficult positions. At the end of the game I want to be able to say I have played in a way to maximize my slim winning chances. It feels like a win already when I got like 50 or 60%ers and didn't make it. The other player made mistakes to give me these chances. So I feel like I outplayed my opponent and I am happy.
Most board games just play to the final round and then scores will be tallied. I find that quite boring compared to the fresh way of how 7 Wonders Duel works. But don't get me wrong, I love euro games and I also like 7 Wonders
I usually find civil games in 7WD much less fun than instant win conditions. Even after game 1750 or so now.
Ok. Let me tell you what goes through my head in each 7 Wonders Duel game.
First the game begins with the player order. That is important in our overall strategy.
Then with the evalution of our opponent. We can look at his stats and see that players ELO and more importantly their win percentages on blue red and green. This information is huge as well.
Then the progress tokens. Evaluation of the progress tokens.
Only then Evaluation of the Wonder picks keeping in mind all the previous factors. I can assure you that imho nearly everybody on every level picks wonders often wrong.
Then the 2nd round of Wonder picks is where it especially gets interesting as we have all the information of all the wonders being in the game together with all the other information we have gathered thus far.
Picks can drastically change in the 2nd round compared to the first round and we can have very decisive picks here which can increase/decrease our winning chances by a ton. Wonder Picks are not set in stone. Especially in the 2nd round.
One very, very important factor is to think about the rule of only 7 wonders being played. So we have to evaluate which 3 wonders are likely the best combo in this particular game for us and for the opponent. Also which other combos exist of any 3 wonders we might have with our and their picks when the game turns out to be played out in a different way than expected with the information available thus far.
Does our and their setup of wonders means we should mainly focus on 3 wonders (most often that's the case) or push under certain circumstances for 4 wonders? etc.
Then we evaluate the pyramid considering all the previous factors once again. Which cards are visible and therefore in the game?
We see 12 out of 23 total cards which are already in the game (that's a lot of immediate information) and who would get which card if nobody used an extra turn. Also huge amount of information.
Your seemingly first thought at the early stages of 7WD is flawed imo. We usually don't know until the end of age 2 who has a resource advantage (money should also be considered as an extremely important resource) and that is by far not the only factor considering if we can play on blue or not. The big points will be scored in age 3 in blue, green and red. Green and red can potentially score infinite amount of points. It is rarely correct to focus only on blue before at least the end stages of age 2.
From that point on we have to constantly reevaluate our position in the game. Further understanding the opponents game plan, tactics and their overall playing style/thought processes. That way we can often also manipulate the game in a way to provoke mistakes in our opponents game because we have a good understanding of how the opponent thinks about the game and where they show their biggest weaknesses in understanding. Then we attack these weaknesses.
I find that very interesting
You can also often create complex positions (mostly during age 2) where the opponent is likely to commit a big or even game losing mistake. The more complex the position the more likely it is that the opponent makes a mistake.
Another thing we have to think about at many stages during the game is the rule of only 7 Wonders. This is imo another very interesting aspect of the game which is thrilling at times and needs a lot of early preparation as I stated above.
The 3 unknown cards which are not in the game also add more thrill to the game imo and I don't think this rule is any bad. Yes, sometimes it can be frustrating, but imagine you would know the overpowered card is in one of the last 2 hidden places. That would be absolutely awful. This game is very much a probability game and that makes it very interesting for me. I don't take many chances though. I think people worry too much about 40% chances of a particular card to be in one of the last 2 hidden cards in age 2 for example. We still miss 60% of the times and lose a whole extra turn for the trial. I even find it often not correct to play the extra turn for the overpowered card even if we knew the card was there.
The cost to reward gap is way too large except it is our only chance to win.
Thanks so much for your youtube video where you guessed my moves. Very appreciated. I loved the video
I hope everything I wrote was understandable as well
