Fair Starting Variant?

[bluemutant]

I've seen quite a bit of commentary on various forums (BGG, BGA, Sevenee) about the advantage to starting first. What are people's suggestions as to how to engineer a fairer starting set up?

Some ideas:
- Can it be addressed solely with money? What extra money available to player 2 would entice you to take it above player 1? How much money would you sacrifice as player 1 to stay player one? Could an auction after the reveal of the first 4 wonders work?

- Would it be better to address it through wonder choice? Snake draft of all 8 wonders at once? 1st player chooses 1 & 4 first round and 2 & 4 second round? Other ideas?

My thought is that ideally both players should have a 50/ 50 chance of winning. You would want the set up conditions to be on the same indifference curve; ie players have no preference for going first or second. This can't be achieved in chess for instance because of the symmetry but it seems that it could be achieved in 7WD with slight asymmetry in the opening/ set up and that this would be desirable.

Thoughts/ suggestions?

[MoiMagnus]

First, it's highly unlikely that any variant which is not acknowledged by at least the designer or the editor will be allowed on BGA.
As for simple variants, what about one of the following:
(1) The first player must start Age I with a discard
(1b) Same but they get no money from it
(2) The second player gets to discard one card before the first turn in Age I
(2b) Same but they get no money from it

[KongKing123]

I do agree that the start position is sometimes completely lopsided, creating unfair games from the get-go (for example 3 extra turns vs. 1, in addition to first player advantage).

Perhaps a small change that could be made is categorising the Wonders into tiers, in order to somewhat guarantee a fair distribution.

As long as there is no official variant sanctioned by the publisher, I doubt anything will be implemented though.

[Pistol Star]

I am the current reigning arena champion and also currently 1st in the new arena season.
I also hold the record ELO score of 649. (I don't want to brag, just wanted to point out that I think I have a strong understanding of the balance of the game)

Here are my ideas.
I would go for a very simple 8 coins start for the 2nd player. This would be an elegant solution which is also for inexperienced players easy to handle.
It would definitely balances the game towards the right direction and therefore increases the 2nd player's average winning chances in all 3 possible ways (civil, science and military).
Also it would securely not unbalance the game in a greater favour for the 2nd player compared to how much advantage the 1st player currently enjoys.
I guess we wouldn't even have to playtest that compensation as the first player has such a strong advantage.
But playtesting obviously would be great and I would be happy to take part in playtesting this.
I think this would have the greatest chances to be accepted by the designer or whoever is in charge for deciding whether to add this or not.
I also would like to point out that I feel that 1 extra coin definitely is a strong boost for the 2nd player. Money is very important in this game when it comes to all 3 winning conditions.

I do overall think that the 7 coins start for the starting player is very well balanced and exactly hits the sweet spot but it definitely is unfair that the 2nd player doesn't get a little extra compensation for their initial disadvantage like it is handled very well in many other great euro games where there is a clear starting player advantage.

Another idea I have is a VP auction for starting player privileges after both players have seen the progress tokens, the wonders have been already drafted and they would have had already seen the cards pyramid in age 1.
Then the auction of VP's would start with let's say a limit of 10 VP's (or even higher) to be able to bet on starting player privileges.

Let's say Player A secretly chooses to bet 3 VP's and Player B secretly chooses to bet 2 VP's. Then Player A would simply start the game and would have to start with -3 VP's while Player B would be the 2nd player in turn order and start with the normal 0 VP's.
In case of a tie the game just starts as usual with the original starting player and both player's starting with 0 VP's.

My personal favourite would be the 8 coins start for the 2nd player.

[Pistol Star]

I've seen quite a bit of commentary on various forums (BGG, BGA, Sevenee) about the advantage to starting first. What are people's suggestions as to how to engineer a fairer starting set up?

Some ideas:
- Can it be addressed solely with money? What extra money available to player 2 would entice you to take it above player 1? How much money would you sacrifice as player 1 to stay player one? Could an auction after the reveal of the first 4 wonders work?

- Would it be better to address it through wonder choice? Snake draft of all 8 wonders at once? 1st player chooses 1 & 4 first round and 2 & 4 second round? Other ideas?

My thought is that ideally both players should have a 50/ 50 chance of winning. You would want the set up conditions to be on the same indifference curve; ie players have no preference for going first or second. This can't be achieved in chess for instance because of the symmetry but it seems that it could be achieved in 7WD with slight asymmetry in the opening/ set up and that this would be desirable.

Thoughts/ suggestions?

Can it be addressed solely with money?
Yes, but I do think that we shouldn't drastically change the amount of money in the game as I do think money is very well balanced in this game.
If we lower the amount of money at the beginning of the game many cards would become nearly always unplayable and money would become an even more important factor.
A lot of cards would become unbalanced in different scenarios.
Some other cards would become way stronger to the likely point of being utterly overpowered like the tavern for instance.

What extra money available to player 2 would entice you to take it above player 1?
2 coins.

How much money would you sacrifice as player 1 to stay player one?
1 coin.

Could an auction after the reveal of the first 4 wonders work?
I don't think so at all. I also think a money auction would at times extremely unbalance the overall gameplay because the overall money being in the game would be drastically decreased. The game would become much less fun and less strategies and tactics could be implemented.
Also some cards would become often way too weak (often even unplayable) and some other cards would become even stronger (e.g. tavern).
I don't think we want to imbalance the whole game.

Would it be better to address it through wonder choice? Snake draft of all 8 wonders at once? 1st player chooses 1 & 4 first round and 2 & 4 second round?
That's an interesting idea.
I do think seeing all 8 wonders at once from the beginning of the draft would improve the game.
Also another drafting system could definitely improve the balance of the game.
Maybe drafting like 1,2,2,1,2,1,2,1? I think this would balance the wonder drafting in the most fair way.
So 1st player can pick the strongest of the 8 available wonders. 2nd player then picks the next two in a row which is very powerful.
From then on everybody gets to pick 1 wonder starting with the starting player and ending with the starting player.
I do think this way of drafting would greatly reduce variance.

My thought is that ideally both players should have a 50/ 50 chance of winning. You would want the set up conditions to be on the same indifference curve; ie players have no preference for going first or second. This can't be achieved in chess for instance because of the symmetry but it seems that it could be achieved in 7WD with slight asymmetry in the opening/ set up and that this would be desirable.
I definitely agree!

[Pistol Star]

First, it's highly unlikely that any variant which is not acknowledged by at least the designer or the editor will be allowed on BGA.
As for simple variants, what about one of the following:
(1) The first player must start Age I with a discard
(1b) Same but they get no money from it
(2) The second player gets to discard one card before the first turn in Age I
(2b) Same but they get no money from it

(1) Good idea imho. This could work. It would need a lot of playtesting though.
(1b) Bad idea imho. This essentially means the 1st player will have only 9 turns in age 1 vs 10 turns for the 2nd player.
(2) Bad idea imho. This would further drastically improve the 1st player's winning chances as it would be 10 vs 9.x turns for the 1st player and even 11 vs 8.x turns for the 1st player if the first player chooses to play an extra turn.
Furthermore the 1st player would also start the 2nd age if no extra turns and no shields would be played!
The essentially 9 coins start for the 2nd player is by far not enough to overcome all the other hefty disadvantages.
(2b) Very bad idea imho. It would be incredibly difficult for the 2nd player to stand any chance in winning vs a similar skilled opponent.
I wouldn't be shocked if we would see an overall 90%+ winrate for the 1st player with this variant.

[Le007n]

When a game is very weighted to the first player, the majority of the times this can be seen as soon as the wonders are drawn. ie. 3 Vs 1 go again wonders to player one is always an uphill battle

A suggestion I would add for your thoughts to balance the game is:

- Player one is still drawn at random
- 4 wonders are shown in the same picking format along with the tokens however, rather than player one taking the first wonder each game, player two decides if they wish to pick first from the first four wonders shown or second (which is unknown at this stage)
- if they picked first, player two would take pick 2 & 3 for the next set of four wonders and vice versa
- once wonders are drawn, player one starts as normal

This would be the same principal as allowing the player who went last on age 1 or is behind on military to choose if they go first or second in the next age

It would then allow player two some control over the start of the game and would still have an element of uncertainty as the they would have to choose if they wanted to pick first on the first or second set of wonders not knowing what the second set was

As mentioned in the thread already, it is very unlikely the primary starting format would be changed however, this would be relatively simple to implement if people thought it would work just requiring one extra variable / decision and could be a configurable variant to select on set up along with the default start

This could also be tested without any changes if both players communicated and made their choices and then selected the corresponding wonders for their two picks

[Patrick of the Isles]

7 Wonders Duel is such an incredibly well-balanced game. It can be hard to recommend changes to games like this without being certain they won't negatively affect the balance, given that it's already so close to perfect. But I agree that this issue of initial player order and wonder selection can feel slightly imbalanced in some cases.

I am normally a bit skeptical of fixing these sorts of imbalances with increased money for the players later in turn order because the amount of the imbalance can vary depending on the starting setup, so money alone could be too little or too much to balance the game depending on that setup. However, given your significant experience with the game, I would be interested in testing the money variant you suggest.

Changes to the initial draft would be the improvement most of interest to me. Drafting from all eight wonders, perhaps in 1-2-2-2-1 order, would feel better than the current structure.

I am the current reigning arena champion and also currently 1st in the new arena season.
I also hold the record ELO score of 649. (I don't want to brag, just wanted to point out that I think I have a strong understanding of the balance of the game)

Here are my ideas.
I would go for a very simple 8 coins start for the 2nd player. This would be an elegant solution which is also for inexperienced players easy to handle.
It would definitely balances the game towards the right direction and therefore increases the 2nd player's average winning chances in all 3 possible ways (civil, science and military).
Also it would securely not unbalance the game in a greater favour for the 2nd player compared to how much advantage the 1st player currently enjoys.
I guess we wouldn't even have to playtest that compensation as the first player has such a strong advantage.
But playtesting obviously would be great and I would be happy to take part in playtesting this.
I think this would have the greatest chances to be accepted by the designer or whoever is in charge for deciding whether to add this or not.
I also would like to point out that I feel that 1 extra coin definitely is a strong boost for the 2nd player. Money is very important in this game when it comes to all 3 winning conditions.

I do overall think that the 7 coins start for the starting player is very well balanced and exactly hits the sweet spot but it definitely is unfair that the 2nd player doesn't get a little extra compensation for their initial disadvantage like it is handled very well in many other great euro games where there is a clear starting player advantage.

Another idea I have is a VP auction for starting player privileges after both players have seen the progress tokens, the wonders have been already drafted and they would have had already seen the cards pyramid in age 1.
Then the auction of VP's would start with let's say a limit of 10 VP's (or even higher) to be able to bet on starting player privileges.

Let's say Player A secretly chooses to bet 3 VP's and Player B secretly chooses to bet 2 VP's. Then Player A would simply start the game and would have to start with -3 VP's while Player B would be the 2nd player in turn order and start with the normal 0 VP's.
In case of a tie the game just starts as usual with the original starting player and both player's starting with 0 VP's.

My personal favourite would be the 8 coins start for the 2nd player.

[dencho]

Hi everyone,

Being relatively novice to the game I have no deep thoughts to share, other than being first presents a clear psycological advantage to be 'in control', at least to me.

I'd like to ask though what the BGA overall statistics show regarding this bias, i.e. what percentage of the 7WD games are won by the first player?

I suppose this is relatively straightforward to pull out as an info, and I think that it will help seeing the magnitude of the problem, if any.

Best.

[funkdoc]

Hello, just got to #1 on Arena as of this post and have some thoughts on this...

From my last 20 losses, for example, exactly 75% of those came when i was 2nd player. It's to the point where i would argue a 1700 Elo player would be the odds-on favorite over an 1800 Elo player if they got the 1st player seat, unless the 1800 Elo player got 3 extra-turn wonders.

The main issue i have is how extra turns work in Age I, which significantly favors the 1st player in a couple ways. First off, if Player 1 uses an extra turn, they will end up playing 11 cards in the age compared to Player 2's 9; if Player 2 uses an extra turn, on the other hand, it will remain at 10 cards played by each player! Furthermore, Player 1 using an extra turn will also give them the option to go first in Age II (assuming no red cards were bought, which should be the case in 99% of games), and there is no way for Player 2 to stop this if Player 1 waits until their last turn of the age to build the wonder. Going first in Age II sets up the same situation regarding # of cards played if they use an extra turn then (advantage 1st player), and having the option is especially valuable if science will be a key factor in the game.

All this to say that just giving Player 2 $1 more at the start feels too conservative to me, as much as i respect Pistol Star's opinions. The extra-turn situation is what really irks me since it becomes a "2 extra turns" move for Player 1 - i consider that kinda broken, to be honest, and it's a play you (usually) want to make unless you only have 1 extra turn total.

i used to be opposed to VP bidding for sides, but i've learned from the French players and adopted a more VP-heavy style recently; that path strongly favors Player 1 as is, so i could actually see that as a viable solution. Maybe do both - bid VP for sides, and Player 2 gets $1 more?