Political Supremacy at the very first turn

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Pistolero
Posts: 60
Joined: 12 February 2017, 01:39

Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Pistolero »

It occurred to me that the following can happen (in Agora mode, and in exceptional circumstances):

Setup: choosing the wonders:
---------------------------------------
First player chooses the wonder Knossos and places an influence token in the Agora to "Play the next turn if you play a Conspirator"
(The rest of the setup doesn't matter)

First turn:
------------
Now suppose a card structure in Age 1 where 3 Conspirators and 1 Politician are immediately available.
First player recruits successively the 3 Conspirators and places 3 influence tokens in the Agora. One of the Decree won must be the blue one "When determining the number of Senate actions you have, add 2 to the total number of Blue cards you have".
At this point, 4 Chambers are controlled.
Then, First Player recruits the Politician and, if it's white influence section is the right one, First Player can places 2 influence tokens in the 2 remaining Chambers.
Political Supremacy achieved ^^
(the total recruitment cost is 0+1+2+3 which fits the 7 gold at the start).


Even if this precise scenario won't happen easily, as a game designer myself, I can't imagine that the creators didn't realize this, and wouldn't fix this by tweaking the Wonders or the Decrees. To me, this is a very simple illustration that Agora is broken (in the "competitive" sense). I even come to think the "+2 Blue Decree" (and maybe also the black one) should be removed from the game.
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Le007n
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Joined: 30 March 2020, 22:47

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Le007n »

The hardcore Agora players get very tetchy when you show them that the political wins are broken ;)
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Pistolero
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Joined: 12 February 2017, 01:39

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Pistolero »

Not all wins are broken, of course :)

"A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire" ^^
silentProtest
Posts: 170
Joined: 26 March 2022, 20:12

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by silentProtest »

It is super unlikely (more likely, you'll get a big advantage as first player, getting knosos) - but yes, there is a chance of insta win a game ;)
That is also why knosos is one of the strongest wonders in game.

PS: maybe someone could calculate how likely that is ? :D
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Le007n
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Joined: 30 March 2020, 22:47

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Le007n »

Lower than 0.09%...

This is very simplified math and presumes:

- 25% chance at the wonder with both expansion and opponent taking the wonder if they get the choice
- 37.5% chance having the decree token needed (6 in 16 chance)
- 41.3% chance having three or more conspiracies in the pick of 5 from 13 for age I
- 2.35% chance of having 4 of the 5 required cards in a pick of 8 cards (since taking 3 cards will likely reveal another)

This doesn't take into account the sectors needed and if you presume an extra card is not revealed from taking the 3 cards, this drops to 1.23%

This in turn drop the overall chance to < 0.048% which is likely more accurate but in reality it's probably lower still :)

I haven't touched agora for a long time so hopefully I remember the number of cards etc right!
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frankenStain
Posts: 79
Joined: 02 December 2020, 01:18

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by frankenStain »

... let me try to napkin math it too :) [Edit it was more like sheet of paper math, but it was fun^^]
for it to be a first move win you need open "blackReplay" and open "+2blue", 3 black in age 1, all of them in row 1 and a white which doesnt touch the open +2blue or blackReplay; also, obv. you need to be first and get knossos.
Note: some exception to this is, trying a hidden token and getting blackReplay and then trying another hidden token and getting +2blue. (because if you get knossos and got a white on first row, you wont try to search for black replay, since it is 1/13); And last plausible scenario is that you get open blackReplay and got lucky with one of the 2 hidden tokens, getting +2blue.

getting knossos is 25% (4/16) - but you might lose artemis, julia and/or divine theater for it.

getting four diplomats in first row:
(5/25*4/24*3/23*2/22)*"times the possible combinations of 4 diplomats and 3 non diplomats"(which is 17) = 17/2530 [neglected here the probability of having all 5 dipl. in row 1]

for sakes of simplification, lets say youd need 1 centre white and 3 black, out of the 4 visible:
[(3*6*5*4)/(13*12*11*10)]*4=3/143*4=12/143

getting blackReplay open [3/16] * getting +2blue open or one of the 2 hidden [4/15]

and all in all it would aprox. (with the simplifications) be 4/16*17/2530*12/143*3/16*4/15=[7.048*10^(-4)]% = 0.0007048% -> less than 1 to 100k to win with first move.
It is however way more likely to get a great boost with knossos as first player, which would be far more likely than 1/100000.
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Pistolero
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Joined: 12 February 2017, 01:39

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Pistolero »

Yeah, I'm getting sick of broken games with the black and blue decrees, plus the Steal wonder god and Steal Wonder Conspiracy.

All those cards lead to automatic play, where luck play a huge factor. The more I play this game, the less "well-design and balanced' I think it is. I see the same moves repeated over and over, it becomes quickly very boring... :(
silentProtest
Posts: 170
Joined: 26 March 2022, 20:12

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by silentProtest »

Pistolero wrote: 19 August 2022, 12:56 Yeah, I'm getting sick of broken games with the black and blue decrees, plus the Steal wonder god and Steal Wonder Conspiracy.

All those cards lead to automatic play, where luck play a huge factor. The more I play this game, the less "well-design and balanced' I think it is. I see the same moves repeated over and over, it becomes quickly very boring... :(
xDD sounds salty. maybe try to play good in vanilla, then good in agora, then good with both ? Think that would probably be the path to go, to play a little better and see ways to get an out of situations and even make pressure in other ways ;)
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CSAZUL
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Joined: 08 November 2020, 03:54

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by CSAZUL »

Já aconteceu de um jogador ganhou e o outro nao jogou nenhuma partida. Tem até uma imagem mostrando e por isso há uma sugestão de mudança na regra. Está numa expansão de fãs no site da ludopedia. Uma expansão muito boa para print and play.
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Pistolero
Posts: 60
Joined: 12 February 2017, 01:39

Re: Political Supremacy at the very first turn

Post by Pistolero »

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=315621689

just a real example that illustrates how a game is destroyed by those decrees.
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