Another Arena season, another boring set of factions

[Patrick of the Isles]

I wouldn't say it's that rare of an occurence. If you have two colors next to each other, sometimes if you take double dig you leave another hex vulnerable. Sometimes this matters with cult digs too. Having color neighbours you have to be very careful about leaving your hexes dug but not built on.

Let’s say on average you dig 5 hexes per game. To make it a nice round number let’s take a 20 game sample size (100 digs). How many times in a 20 game span are your opponents taking hexes that you terraformed and left open?

It would happen in the majority of games if the player did not change their dig patterns to avoid it.

[donkeykong66]

I wouldn't say it's that rare of an occurence. If you have two colors next to each other, sometimes if you take double dig you leave another hex vulnerable. Sometimes this matters with cult digs too. Having color neighbours you have to be very careful about leaving your hexes dug but not built on.

Let’s say on average you dig 5 hexes per game. To make it a nice round number let’s take a 20 game sample size (100 digs). How many times in a 20 game span are your opponents taking hexes that you terraformed and left open?

The average is actually closer to 7-8 a game, looking at game statistics. In general, it doesn't happen too often that you terraform hexes and they get changed back, but there's also significant bias there: firstly, out of those 7-8 digs, most of them you build upon immediately, the only case you really leave them open is either a double dig split on 2 hexes or a cult dig. Additionally, with regular factions, you have to always be aware of the option it might happen, and it might affect build order, or tempo decisions you make. Also, it only really matters for color neighbours really, because people are hardly gonna spend a double dig to take back a hex from you. So yeah, it doesn't affect the games on a regular basis, but it is something I feel myself thinking about in a fair number of such specific situations.

[ChiefPointThief]

I wouldn't say it's that rare of an occurence. If you have two colors next to each other, sometimes if you take double dig you leave another hex vulnerable. Sometimes this matters with cult digs too. Having color neighbours you have to be very careful about leaving your hexes dug but not built on.

Let’s say on average you dig 5 hexes per game. To make it a nice round number let’s take a 20 game sample size (100 digs). How many times in a 20 game span are your opponents taking hexes that you terraformed and left open?

The average is actually closer to 7-8 a game, looking at game statistics. In general, it doesn't happen too often that you terraform hexes and they get changed back, but there's also significant bias there: firstly, out of those 7-8 digs, most of them you build upon immediately, the only case you really leave them open is either a double dig split on 2 hexes or a cult dig. Additionally, with regular factions, you have to always be aware of the option it might happen, and it might affect build order, or tempo decisions you make. Also, it only really matters for color neighbours really, because people are hardly gonna spend a double dig to take back a hex from you. So yeah, it doesn't affect the games on a regular basis, but it is something I feel myself thinking about in a fair number of such specific situations.

Exactly. So basically what it allows is for ice to stall on building the hex immediately or reversing the order of which hex they build first because they know their hexes are not at risk of being changed back. But when you take the double spade action usually only 1 hex is at risk and the other would cost your opponent a double or triple spade.

Ice has to terraform their starting color. Let’s say hypothetically you could change ice but they were considered 2-3 digs away from everyone sort of like the giants with terraforming. Would you want to spend that many digs to terraform it back? Unless you absolutely need that hex to connect or it is the only way to build your town it is most likely not beneficial to do so. I do agree this is a ability that others don’t have but considering the fact that we have factions like witches who are magical and can build on any green hex on the board or mermaids who can build towns in the water. I don’t see why ice’s ability should have the community up in arms. It has also been established that this ability doesn’t give ice an unfair advantage because none of the ice factions are elite.

[ChiefPointThief]

Can someone confirm if this rule is accurate or not? I couldn’t find it in the rulebook. When taking the double spade action and are attempting to terraform 2 hexes one of them must terraform to your home terrain? In the rules under using spades it says you can stop anywhere on the color wheel.

The exact scenario in question is I was blue and attempted to terraform 2 grey hexes to green but it wouldn’t allow this action and stated 1 hex must be turned to blue.

[robinzig]

Can someone confirm if this rule is accurate or not? I couldn’t find it in the rulebook. When taking the double spade action and are attempting to terraform 2 hexes one of them must terraform to your home terrain? In the rules under using spades it says you can stop anywhere on the color wheel.

The exact scenario in question is I was blue and attempted to terraform 2 grey hexes to green but it wouldn’t allow this action and stated 1 hex must be turned to blue.

That's correct. You can only terraform one hex in a "terraform and build" action. The only exception is if using the double-spade power action where you only need one spade to transform a terrain to your home colour, the game doesn't force you waste the second spade but allows you to use it on a second hex.

So while yes, you can stop anywhere on the colour wheel, you can't split up the 2 spades from this action unless you stop on your home terrain with the first one.

[RicardoRix]

It does seem to be covered in the rule book:

Spades may only be applied to a single Terrain space. However,
there are two special cases:
• If the Spades gained via a Power action or Bonus card do not suffice
to transform a Terrain space into your Home terrain, you may
exchange Workers* for the missing Spades (at the current Exchange
rate of your Exchange track).
• When gaining 2 Spades, if you only need one of them to transform
a Terrain space into your Home terrain, you may apply the
second Spade on another Terrain space. However, you may not
place a Dwelling on this second space.

[ChiefPointThief]

Yup. I missed the first sentence may only be applied to a single terrain space. I didn’t know this was a rule but never wanted to use it another way. Thanks

[ChiefPointThief]

Another season without fan factions or ice/fire. I tried

[Alloran]

Another season I won't be doing arena!

[Slartibartfst]

Some day maybe lol