Board Game Arena

The scoring in this game is confusing me, despite having read the rules multiple times.

I'm playing solo games against Penny Dreadful who appears to score impossibly well. For example in the game below she scores 6pts on the very first turn. I don't see how this is possible, when you only have 5 cards (and most of them are for coins not victory points. However the game doesn't show you any words made by the AI opponent.

https://boardgamearena.com/7/hardback?table=177320460

Despite making nearly the longest word every time, I can't get anywhere near the scores being achieved here. It doesn't help that there is no in-game explanation of why certain words score certain points.

What am I missing here, folks?

Penny scores very differently the player. On her turn she claims the tail end card of the offer row, and scores the price of that card. She's not really an AI opponent in solo but more a part of the solo mechanic.

example: Offer row:
On penny her turn she will score 5 points by claiming the C mystery card that is priced at 5cents.

In solo, Penny always scores 2~9 per turn (all cards range from 2c to 9c), unless Romantic Penny grabs a Romance card.
At a glance it appears impossible to beat Penny, but players can build the deck and catch up eventually.
Solid decks score more than 10 points per turn, and well-constructed decks can possibly earn 20+, or even 30+ per turn.

Tokoloshe79 wrote: ↑02 June 2021, 18:53 Despite making nearly the longest word every time, I can't get anywhere near the scores being achieved here.

Word length is not that important in this game, since deckbuilding mechanic is the centerpiece.
Usually <7-letter words with right cards earn much more money and points than >10-letter words composed of cards without any synergy.

This is helpful - thanks both!

I also had this question. It seemed impossible to beat penny dreadful. After reading the answers here it gave me hope. I haven't beat her yet but I got up to 51! So close.

While you're playing the game, the "strategy tips" tab at the bottom offers a few general suggestions. Mainly, try not to buy the cheap cards so Penny will be forced to take a low-scoring turn.

How do I play a solo game?

Honestly, I never use the automatic lobby so I'm not sure how to make a solo game happen there. If you switch to manual mode, then this is how you do it:
Create a new table of Hardback
Set the game options (left side) as
- Game mode = Training mode
- Cooperative Anthology = Cooperative
See the number of players (center of the page) to "between 1 and 1 players"
Click "open table to other players" button and the game should start with just you.