Can somebody please explain the end game scoring here?

[CascadeHush]

Red beat black on regions and tied on everything else, and yet black wins? Doesn't region control trump anything else anyway?

https://boardgamearena.com/6/turncoats?table=404360963

I've read the scoring explanation 3 times. If this is the way it's supposed to be scored, it doesn't seem like a very good game if it is so unintuitive.

[Erismo]

Winning color would be blue, because it ties red and is ahead on Battles, the first tiebreaker. Since no one had stones of the winning color, the winner is whoever had the LEAST stones of the losing color (the one in last place - black in this case). So the player with a red stone and no black stones should have beaten the one with a black stone. This appears to be a bug in scoring to me, but I don't play 2 player so maybe there's something I'm missing.

[_Liandri_]

The winning color was blue. No one had stones of the winning color, the winner is whoever had the LEAST stones of the losing factionS. You both had 1 stone of the losing factionS, so it's a tie once again. The last tiebreaker is the running order, so the final winner is the first player in the case of a 2 players game.

[EvilCheesypoof]

Blue won the war. Same amount of regions as red, most on the axe was the first tie breaker.

Nobody had Blue in their hand, first tie breaker was least losing stones in hand, where you were tied.

Next last resort tie breaker was next player in turn order, so your opponent won. (the justification for that is that they took on the risk of ending the game by negotiating first)

Basically do your best to avoid tie breakers getting to that unless you think you could sneak in a victory that way, and remember to try not to let your stones get that low as well.

[EvilCheesypoof]

Winning color would be blue, because it ties red and is ahead on Battles, the first tiebreaker. Since no one had stones of the winning color, the winner is whoever had the LEAST stones of the losing color (the one in last place - black in this case). So the player with a red stone and no black stones should have beaten the one with a black stone. This appears to be a bug in scoring to me, but I don't play 2 player so maybe there's something I'm missing.

You're incorrect, the scoring is working fine. It's whoever has the least stones of BOTH losing colors, and they were tied on that as well. The colors being in 2nd or 3rd place makes no difference.

They hit the final tie breaker, next player in turn order.

[CascadeHush]

Basically do your best to avoid tie breakers getting to that unless you think you could sneak in a victory that way, and remember to try not to let your stones get that low as well.

I can assure you I won't be running into any more tie breakers ever. I'm kinda glad I ran into this on the first game because it saved me wasting any more time on it. The scoring rules are basically if you don't come first, make sure you don't come second, otherwise you come third and whoever came last came first. In this three sided war, since nobody was on the wining side, the side that came second rounded up their best ally and killed them all and then sided with the person that backed the losing side the least. "Hey you, I know you sided with us but we didn't win and you are going to pay for that" followed by "Hey, you over there didn't help us out at all, but at least you didn't side with THOSE losers over there, you are our kind of people, lets bask in mediocrity together and hope the winning side doesn't just wipe us out anyway", Well I suppose there probably was some episode in history that went that way but it's a pretty bad analogy to base a board game on. Maybe the designer should have just said the game needs at least 3 people to make sense.

[EvilCheesypoof]

Basically do your best to avoid tie breakers getting to that unless you think you could sneak in a victory that way, and remember to try not to let your stones get that low as well.

I can assure you I won't be running into any more tie breakers ever. I'm kinda glad I ran into this on the first game because it saved me wasting any more time on it. The scoring rules are basically if you don't come first, make sure you don't come second, otherwise you come third and whoever came last came first. In this three sided war, since nobody was on the wining side, the side that came second rounded up their best ally and killed them all and then sided with the person that backed the losing side the least. "Hey you, I know you sided with us but we didn't win and you are going to pay for that" followed by "Hey, you over there didn't help us out at all, but at least you didn't side with THOSE losers over there, you are our kind of people, lets bask in mediocrity together and hope the winning side doesn't just wipe us out anyway", Well I suppose there probably was some episode in history that went that way but it's a pretty bad analogy to base a board game on. Maybe the designer should have just said the game needs at least 3 people to make sense.

Your interpretation of the tie breakers isn't quite right, he didn't win because he was last, he won because he started the end game phase as a final tie breaker, which shouldn't happen very often.

But it's just an abstract game of being with the winning color, and then not being with the losing colors (and you guys tied on both of those things). It's complex strategically, but it's fairly straightforward and intuitive for this type of game to suss out the tie breaking, much easier than "The King Is Dead". But it's okay if you don't like it haha. But I will say a 2 player game is VERY different from a 3-5 player game, because of how the game end works. 2 player games can end very quickly if you're confident.

Thematically it's the winning color being cool with the person who was less of a traitor haha. But because of the final tie breaker, it's just a game mechanic trying to make it as fair as possible, giving it to the person who took on the risk of ending the game. But again it's an abstract game, in Chess I don't think you have to question why a pawn can become a queen, other than rewarding the player who can safely get a pawn that far.

[Erismo]

Winning color would be blue, because it ties red and is ahead on Battles, the first tiebreaker. Since no one had stones of the winning color, the winner is whoever had the LEAST stones of the losing color (the one in last place - black in this case). So the player with a red stone and no black stones should have beaten the one with a black stone. This appears to be a bug in scoring to me, but I don't play 2 player so maybe there's something I'm missing.

You're incorrect, the scoring is working fine. It's whoever has the least stones of BOTH losing colors, and they were tied on that as well. The colors being in 2nd or 3rd place makes no difference.

They hit the final tie breaker, next player in turn order.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Thought I remembered seeing something from the designer on Discord about the losing color being the one in last place, but until she comes here to correct us all, this definitely seems a cleaner way to handle it to me and I'm glad to stick with it.

[EvilCheesypoof]

Winning color would be blue, because it ties red and is ahead on Battles, the first tiebreaker. Since no one had stones of the winning color, the winner is whoever had the LEAST stones of the losing color (the one in last place - black in this case). So the player with a red stone and no black stones should have beaten the one with a black stone. This appears to be a bug in scoring to me, but I don't play 2 player so maybe there's something I'm missing.

You're incorrect, the scoring is working fine. It's whoever has the least stones of BOTH losing colors, and they were tied on that as well. The colors being in 2nd or 3rd place makes no difference.

They hit the final tie breaker, next player in turn order.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Thought I remembered seeing something from the designer on Discord about the losing color being the one in last place, but until she comes here to correct us all, this definitely seems a cleaner way to handle it to me and I'm glad to stick with it.

She's officially clarified it, it's meant to be losing factions, plural.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/300270 ... 8#41474478