Board Game Arena

Hi Everyone,

I’m a new ark nova player. I love it but I’m not good and still learning the card synergies.

In a recent game I was accused of cheating by my opponent (who beat me) for picking map 0. I’ve played all the other maps in solo mode but I prefer map 0.

Next time I played I asked my opponent if they minded me playing map 0 but they didn’t answer and I wasted 1 min of card selection time waiting for a response. I then picked map 1 only to find they had picked silver shores so they got loads of money early on… by my way of thinking if map 0 is cheating then surely silver shores and Hollywood hills are too???

Anyway, my question - is there an unwritten (or written somewhere) map selection etiquette that I was unaware of?

A and 0 are beginner maps; pretty sure they're just stronger than the standard numbered maps (I don't remember offhand which is which, maybe only one's crazy strong), so many people tend to not play them. That said, if your opponent was upset about you picking one of those, they should've set the map selection to "Custom without A and 0" (this is exactly why that's an option), so that's not really on you. (Unless you made the game, in which case they should've just picked map 0 themselves or, if they felt strongly enough about it, made their own game with different settings.)

Outside of those, generally strongest maps are the lake (map 2) and rescue station (map 10, from map pack). Hollywood Hills is super random - it's really strong if you get great sponsors, and not so great otherwise.

Personally, I can see people not wanting to play beginner maps, and I think that's a fairly common preference, but that's why there's a setting for that. If you're in a game with a particular setting, I see nothing wrong with picking the strongest map available - I wouldn't consider that cheating. And for anyone really bothered about this, they can always select "Custom without A and 0", or even "Same map for all players" (picks a random map (but not A or 0) and both people play on it) to avoid this problem completely.

piperswarm wrote: ↑05 June 2024, 16:20 Hi Everyone,

I’m a new ark nova player. I love it but I’m not good and still learning the card synergies.

In a recent game I was accused of cheating by my opponent (who beat me) for picking map 0. I’ve played all the other maps in solo mode but I prefer map 0.

Next time I played I asked my opponent if they minded me playing map 0 but they didn’t answer and I wasted 1 min of card selection time waiting for a response. I then picked map 1 only to find they had picked silver shores so they got loads of money early on… by my way of thinking if map 0 is cheating then surely silver shores and Hollywood hills are too???

Anyway, my question - is there an unwritten (or written somewhere) map selection etiquette that I was unaware of?

What the other poster said.

Map A and 0 are overpowered beginner maps that (in the physical game) are there as teaching tools. The "normal game" isn't supposed to be played with those maps as they're too strong.

But like the previous poster said, there are settings to lock those maps out (which is supposed to be the common way to play).

Map 0 is basically like bringing a machine gun to a fist fight.

That being said, oppo joined the game when knowing the map pool and imo you should always play to win, so any other player should pick map 0 in your position. Sounds like he was just a sore winner.

The archaeologist can be quite good with the starter maps