Wanna discuss whether 3P or 4P is better for Arena again?

[ElThoesen]

This discussion comes up every time we switch off player count for Arena. Personally I enjoy it because I love chaos. But I know many elite players feel 3P is more "pure". 5P was a bit too much to wait for games. 4P gives a little more variety and introduces some interesting dynamics with being unable to access the player across from you.

[doublecheck]

I really don't like 4p cause you rely to much on the player you'll be facing, he can really be your ally (red synch) or your foe (resources monopoly)

[Tens0r]

I'm by no means a pro at 7W or anything (hovering in the low-mid 300 ELO atm), but I am of the opinion that 3P and 4P are both viable (with 3P generally being a more competitive mode).

4P does imply that there is a player directly across from you who you cannot trade with, fight militarily, or score guilds from, which can lead to volatility in a number of different ways. That being said, I do think that you need to interact with this player by proxy over the course of the entire game. For instance,

1) If the opposite player is playing military, you are now better off also playing military, since there will be less military cards available for your opponents AND you'll be able to get easy military wins against your neighbors, who are less incentivized to try to build military when surrounded by two military builds.

2) Resource management becomes important, since you may not have access to sufficiently many resources if the opposite player is playing a resource heavy game. If I see the opposite player collecting large number of standard/luxury goods, I may be more aware of my own resource access and play accordingly.

There are also other benefits to 4P, such as an increased diversity of cards. Also, the science path is nerfed in higher ELO games, since if someone is building hard science there are now 3 players available to bury cards. This is offset by the existence of duplicate sciences, which lowers the volatility of science games AND doesn't lock out a possible 2nd science player, which is common in 3P.

One can make the argument that this does not outweigh the benefits of 3P (shorter queue times, lower volatility in general, greater player interaction, no duplicates to track, etc.) but I do think that 4P is still a reasonably competitive format. I think it's faults would be exponentially magnified moving to 5+ players (and hence would not recommend that as an arena format) but 4P still feels good to me.

[Dezo]

Seasons last for months. I like that the seasons feature different player counts because it changes up the game. I'd even like 6 & 7 player seasons.

[frogstar_A]

Both are fun. I like the way it alternates.

6 and 7 player would be bad though as it would be hard to get a game and it's too random for serious play. I play 7 player in simple games.

[doctorchris]

I miss 5P. Without it we never get to play Ludus, which can transform the game for Olympia amongst others.

[ppsantos]

If memory serves, 4p was used as the setup for the first Arena season because 4p was voted in boardgamegeek as the best player count for 7W. Now for the 7W 2nd ed, 5p is voted as the 'best player count to play the game in boardgamegeek. Shouldn't Arena then default to 5p for Arena? 3p and 4p players would object, but that's to be expected, because of inertia.

[doctorchris]

I understood the sequence in Arena was supposed to go 4P, 3P, 4P, 5P. But we seemed to have missed out the 5P.