Board Game Arena

It gets soo boring, the games start and people go for building cards, the more you have the best, you wont need to think, just keep picking them and you will win.
When I realized players keep doing that, it gets boring, it is always the same, WDYT?

Agreed but in a deck building game people will invaribly look for and exploit an optimal strategy

I’m not a great Gizmos player, but I’ve learnt that simply buying build-triggered gizmos is not an ideal strategy. The first few of them is usually important (because otherwise you’ll be building only every second turn, and that is just too slow) but if you build too many build->pick and pick-> draw (the other important type for getting a fast engine up and running) gizmos, you wind up in a situation where you can’t spend enough of your pool, and many of your triggers get wasted because your pool is full.

And then you have to balance out your board with converters (so that you can spend more energy at once) and upgrades (to hold more energy). Without this, you either have to be very lucky, or you see the game out by building mostly level 1 gizmos. This often loses to somebody who doesn’t build 15 gizmos but does build one or more high-value level III.

File -> pick gizmos are not useless, but I think you have to mostly use them for researching high-value level III gizmos, or to mitigate the consequences of unlucky level I and II researches. Trying to use them to alternate filing and building of low-level gizmos is just too slow to use as a replacement for build triggers.

They said build cards. Build > pick and build >victory points. You can easily win using just those 2. It’s hard to win without those two

At home we've adjusted the rules to make for a longer game to encourage using the different affects from the cards, we go with 6 level 3 cards and increase the rounds to trigger end of game.

lamanore wrote: ↑05 June 2025, 09:15 At home we've adjusted the rules to make for a longer game to encourage using the different affects from the cards, we go with 6 level 3 cards and increase the rounds to trigger end of game.

What do you mean “increase the rounds to trigger end of game”? There isn’t a set number of rounds when the end of game will be triggered (unless 4 level III gizmos are built first). The game end triggers are 4 level III gizmos, or 16 gizmos in total (including the starting gizmo).

If you are just lengthening the game without changing anything else, you would increase the 4 level III gizmos (to 6, in your case) and increase the 16 gizmos (to some appropriate value - you probably have to playtest to find out what balances against 6).

jasonred79 wrote: ↑16 March 2024, 18:39 They said build cards. Build > pick and build >victory points. You can easily win using just those 2. It’s hard to win without those two

There’s only 4 level I build->VP gizmos, and the level II build->VP gizmos cost 3 energy to build. While I didn’t mention these in my analysis, I don’t think that’s enough to regularly make this a very superior strategy.

The level I build->VP gizmos are all different colours, so with only them you can’t get more than 1 point with each subsequent build, and you’re high.y unlikely to get that on all following builds. Obviously it’s enough to be worth having, but it still will often be beaten by someone who builds level Iii Gizmos (assuming they also build out fast enough). And for the level III build->VP gizmos to have much effect, you need to reach the point where you are regularly building 3-point gizmos.

You need to adjust your strategy to what is available, of course, and sometimes build->VP is the best of what is available, or the best to you, but I still don’t see build triggers alone as an ultimate key to victory.

(I recently taught the game to a friend, face-to-face not here, and in his second game he beat me despite me getting two picks after every build. I wasn’t aiming for that, but I found myself in a position where to trigger my picks, I had to build another build->pick gizmo. But that meant I couldn’t trigger them all with any non-rainbow build, and so I didn’t trigger enough overall, and he narrowly beat me. Build triggers alone just wasn’t enough, despite having so many.)

I should have made it more clear. We make it 6 level 3 or 21 Gizmos to trigger the end of game, that way you get to use your level 3 triggers at least a couple times rather than ending the game as soon as you get them. Can options like this be put in place?

Its true that you have to start with a builder but actually the most important gizmos at the first level are the converters because you have there 8 of them while at the second level you have just 4 and without them you cant really get to the high levels. The same with the upgrades, it will be really hard to win without at least 2 upgrades(extensions).
So with more then 600 elo I can say there is no really easy way to win and every time you need to build the engine wisely with a nice balance between all the gizmos.

Gizmos would be a better game with a completely rebalanced deck of cards.

The build-pick cards are way too strong (the cards that let you pick when you build).

The file bonus cards are way too weak. There are some interesting file bonuses in the level 3 deck, but they aren't buyable early enough to make a difference.

You can't win with just build-pick cards, but you need build-pick cards early to win. If you can build every turn, that just beats every other strategy.

Your first two builds should be a build-pick card, and a pick-bonus card, ideally the same color for both. Pick-bonus are the cards that give you a random bonus when you pick. Then you can get into a rhythm where you build every turn.

You do need some converter gizmos, because getting a natural 4+ of a kind to build level 3 cards is too hard. Converter gizmos also help you use the random marbles you get from your pick-bonus cards. You also need improve your marble limit, ideally with the 2/1/2 cards in the level 2 deck.

With two build-pick cards and two pick-bonus cards, you can play a level 2 card and draw 2-4 marbles almost every turn. That's more points than any other strategy, and with a few more bonuses you can start building level 3 cards.