Banlist Discussion!

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SabinL
Posts: 16
Joined: 30 July 2021, 23:29

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by SabinL »

I just played a game where cow prince was played with 5 cows in a simple big pasture and somehow that was worth 5 extra points. Is that correct ? Is the card correctly programmed ? If so, then I definitely think it must be banned
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fiscused
Posts: 58
Joined: 27 December 2012, 05:34

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by fiscused »

Getting 5 cows is usually hard, so I have no problem with the card. We have a much bigger set of cards, so banning should not happen unless there are really good stats that the cards are overpowered. Doing good in one game should not do it. Some combos are great, but setting them up will be rare.
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QBert
Posts: 20
Joined: 27 October 2011, 21:10

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by QBert »

Yeah, 5pts is certainly on the high end of a card's power level, but it isn't a certain 5pts and is comparable to cards like bonehead that just give you 6w (where wood is worth approximately 2/3pt in my estimation). I would still prefer wood barterer, which can give you something like 8w or 10w without too much trouble and gives it to you exactly when you need it.
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FelixTHM
Posts: 10
Joined: 18 June 2021, 16:48

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by FelixTHM »

How about chain float? It's just so vastly superior to almost every plow in the game. It's no requirements, no actions needed, 3 wood for 3 fields. That's like 5 to 6 points. Timing-wise there's opportunity cost in needing wood early, of course, but it's a really crazy return on investment which doesn't require actions to trigger.
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Ranior
Posts: 212
Joined: 30 September 2011, 19:39

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by Ranior »

I'm confident Chain Float is not a problem--that opportunity cost is pretty high. You have to gather enough wood to play it, and play it early enough, instead of doing other things to accelerate your game, and you don't get the fields until much later so you can't use them to help you with sowing crops and feeding off of those crops (which is an advantage to some of the other more instant plows. For the record I'd still rather have swing plow than chain float in most games, and many of the other plow helpers I sometimes would want over chain float).

Broadly Chain Float has to come out stage 1, and stage 1 is the most critical time to be investing your actions in to setting up your game. Chain Float is often worth the tempo hit because the payoff is great, but I think the tempo hit is enough to keep the card nicely balanced. Chain Float is a good card, but I'm not even convinced it's a strong card, and I certainly don't think it hits ban worthy status.


As for the banlist, at this point I've got a few things I'm pretty sure about:

Little Peasant is basically the big country problem all over again--they get to play a completely different game from the other players, you can't really block or interact with them, and it wins a high percentage of the time (often coming down to a 50-50 on if growth without comes out in 12 instead of 13). Even if the card isn't strictly too strong, which it may not be, it should be considered to be banned for annoyance/game warping reasons.

Trade Teacher is stupidly strong, having a card provide you with all your crop and animal needs while doing a generally good action (playing lessons) enables some crazy things. There's nothing quite like this in the game--things like Grocer and Animal Teacher are already quite strong, but Trade Teacher completely outclasses even those. Basically though if Grocer and Animal Teacher are already strong cards, and this thing is significantly better than those....it's hard not to see how this isn't just busted strong.

Passing wood injection cards (baseboards, writing boards, etc): The community chose to ban cross-cut wood, I find it hard to believe these cards don't fall in the same bucket. We could I suppose also discuss if we should just bring back cross cut wood and allow all of these, but I think they mostly create a worse competitive game by allowing them in.

Work Certificate is just a stupidly high number of resources many games for no effort. These are resources getting removed from the board, so it's not just that one player is gaining quite a few things, it is that the other players at the table are being denied those resource grabs too. On average I think the card is too strong, and there are some games where it's just completely crazy how much stuff a player can get with this thing.


I'm likely forgetting a few others that should at least be in the conversation, but these are the current standouts to me.
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Thamoo
Posts: 7
Joined: 14 December 2012, 23:02

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by Thamoo »

Agreed with Ranior's list, though I guess wood piles can stay.

Other than that:
- Family friendly home seems a bit too strong and way too swingy
- Wood slide hammer : ridiculously strong
- Lord of the mayor/cow prince : I THINK those are fine, though I admit I'm biased as I love playing a 3 room game plan.
- Trowel : Borderline, wouldn't mind seeing it banned
- Fodder Chamber : I quite like that one even though the ceiling is insane. Haven't yet seen it be too busted I'd be sad to see it go.
- Beer table : Probably too strong, though again I haven't seen it take off in a big way yet
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fiscused
Posts: 58
Joined: 27 December 2012, 05:34

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by fiscused »

I think I agree Trade Teacher is great. It doesn't look that string at first, but with a draft format you end up with a lot of Occupations you want to play anyway.

The others people have mentioned seem rather situational. Remember, cards are supposed to help you out. It's only if a card gives a HUGE advantage that it needs banned.
Pepikos
Posts: 5
Joined: 23 August 2022, 13:28

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by Pepikos »

Ranior wrote: 17 August 2022, 13:31 I'm confident Chain Float is not a problem--that opportunity cost is pretty high. You have to gather enough wood to play it, and play it early enough, instead of doing other things to accelerate your game, and you don't get the fields until much later so you can't use them to help you with sowing crops and feeding off of those crops (which is an advantage to some of the other more instant plows. For the record I'd still rather have swing plow than chain float in most games, and many of the other plow helpers I sometimes would want over chain float).

Broadly Chain Float has to come out stage 1, and stage 1 is the most critical time to be investing your actions in to setting up your game. Chain Float is often worth the tempo hit because the payoff is great, but I think the tempo hit is enough to keep the card nicely balanced. Chain Float is a good card, but I'm not even convinced it's a strong card, and I certainly don't think it hits ban worthy status.


As for the banlist, at this point I've got a few things I'm pretty sure about:

Little Peasant is basically the big country problem all over again--they get to play a completely different game from the other players, you can't really block or interact with them, and it wins a high percentage of the time (often coming down to a 50-50 on if growth without comes out in 12 instead of 13). Even if the card isn't strictly too strong, which it may not be, it should be considered to be banned for annoyance/game warping reasons.

Trade Teacher is stupidly strong, having a card provide you with all your crop and animal needs while doing a generally good action (playing lessons) enables some crazy things. There's nothing quite like this in the game--things like Grocer and Animal Teacher are already quite strong, but Trade Teacher completely outclasses even those. Basically though if Grocer and Animal Teacher are already strong cards, and this thing is significantly better than those....it's hard not to see how this isn't just busted strong.

Passing wood injection cards (baseboards, writing boards, etc): The community chose to ban cross-cut wood, I find it hard to believe these cards don't fall in the same bucket. We could I suppose also discuss if we should just bring back cross cut wood and allow all of these, but I think they mostly create a worse competitive game by allowing them in.

Work Certificate is just a stupidly high number of resources many games for no effort. These are resources getting removed from the board, so it's not just that one player is gaining quite a few things, it is that the other players at the table are being denied those resource grabs too. On average I think the card is too strong, and there are some games where it's just completely crazy how much stuff a player can get with this thing.


I'm likely forgetting a few others that should at least be in the conversation, but these are the current standouts to me.
I agree on all parts (very well written ranior). I personally have the feeling that there is less wood injection in the extra card set. So i'm in team unban cross-cut wood. People often hate to draft the passing minors early, and i think its a good thing to have some backup wood in hand. so i like to draft it early. On top of this it doesnt feel mucht stronger than the reno help minors or plow minors, so why should we ban those wood passing cards? We all like to hit crazy combo's once a while and its part of agricola.
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kelebel
Posts: 5
Joined: 11 November 2021, 00:37

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by kelebel »

Ranior wrote: 17 August 2022, 13:31 I'm confident Chain Float is not a problem--that opportunity cost is pretty high. You have to gather enough wood to play it, and play it early enough, instead of doing other things to accelerate your game, and you don't get the fields until much later so you can't use them to help you with sowing crops and feeding off of those crops (which is an advantage to some of the other more instant plows. For the record I'd still rather have swing plow than chain float in most games, and many of the other plow helpers I sometimes would want over chain float).

Broadly Chain Float has to come out stage 1, and stage 1 is the most critical time to be investing your actions in to setting up your game. Chain Float is often worth the tempo hit because the payoff is great, but I think the tempo hit is enough to keep the card nicely balanced. Chain Float is a good card, but I'm not even convinced it's a strong card, and I certainly don't think it hits ban worthy status.


As for the banlist, at this point I've got a few things I'm pretty sure about:

Little Peasant is basically the big country problem all over again--they get to play a completely different game from the other players, you can't really block or interact with them, and it wins a high percentage of the time (often coming down to a 50-50 on if growth without comes out in 12 instead of 13). Even if the card isn't strictly too strong, which it may not be, it should be considered to be banned for annoyance/game warping reasons.

Trade Teacher is stupidly strong, having a card provide you with all your crop and animal needs while doing a generally good action (playing lessons) enables some crazy things. There's nothing quite like this in the game--things like Grocer and Animal Teacher are already quite strong, but Trade Teacher completely outclasses even those. Basically though if Grocer and Animal Teacher are already strong cards, and this thing is significantly better than those....it's hard not to see how this isn't just busted strong.

Passing wood injection cards (baseboards, writing boards, etc): The community chose to ban cross-cut wood, I find it hard to believe these cards don't fall in the same bucket. We could I suppose also discuss if we should just bring back cross cut wood and allow all of these, but I think they mostly create a worse competitive game by allowing them in.

Work Certificate is just a stupidly high number of resources many games for no effort. These are resources getting removed from the board, so it's not just that one player is gaining quite a few things, it is that the other players at the table are being denied those resource grabs too. On average I think the card is too strong, and there are some games where it's just completely crazy how much stuff a player can get with this thing.


I'm likely forgetting a few others that should at least be in the conversation, but these are the current standouts to me.
Agree on most of that. Little Peasant is the most game warping and clearly bannable of the lot

Like others I’m on the (wooden?) fence about the passing wood cards. There doesn’t seem to be as much wood in most games with the new cards. To me at least, neither baseboards or writing boards seem as game changing as cross cut wood did. Maybe I’ve just seen them in use less because there are so many cards in the deck now
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EconSean
Posts: 14
Joined: 12 November 2018, 05:29

Re: Banlist Discussion!

Post by EconSean »

I have had a bit more time to play with cards and think through things, and I'm certain the following cards should be banned:

Little Peasant-I mentioned this earlier, but it's worth echoing that this card has the exact same problems that Big Country had, but it's far worse because instead of taking actions that nobody else is taking in the early game, the Little Peasant player can get in the way of everyone else's actions while doing whatever they want, while still having the upside that big country had where you get to focus on farming while others are growing, and you get to grow for free later. It also gives a massive advantage with Lover/any grow without room card which exist now. Developers, please add this card to the banlist ASAP. Even if it isn't too powerful, it improves the play experience so drastically to remove it from the card pool.

Work Certificate-This card, if it comes out early enough in the game, warps the game in such a negative way, regardless of how powerful it is. It messes up all of the resource piles and gets the person playing it way too much at a direct cost to other players. There is very little counterplay to this card. Even if it's not too powerful, this should absolutely be removed to improve the play experience for everyone.

Trade Teacher-This really does too much for an occupation benefit card, and is simply too flexible. The fact that it triggers off of itself, which basically no other occ with a similar effect does, is ridiculous. Being able to utilize this as a food engine, an animal engine, and/or a crop engine is simply too powerful. My experience says that this should be banned for power level reasons.

As for other cards, I'm not convinced that wood injection cards that are currently unbanned are too strong/game warping. One problem with cross cut wood is that it typically gave one person a large benefit that would be difficult for other players to get. There is the occasional game where this can happen with the newer cards (many occs, big room strategies), but it's far more rare, and basically any person who these cards are passed to can get some kind of benefit out of them (much like mini pasture), which is untrue of cross-cut wood. I don't have a great grasp on how much resource injection there is, but some games I feel like there are infinitely many resources/food, and other games I feel that there is a clamp on everything, and I'm very unsure where a good balanced lies on that. I don't really mind at all when they get played, and don't see a huge problem with them, but I'm open to my mind being changed.
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