Board Game Arena

How is it decided which player starts each round? It seems that it is always my opponent.

The one who takes the "1st player" tile.

MinnieEh wrote: ↑09 March 2025, 14:24 How is it decided which player starts each round? It seems that it is always my opponent.

Round 1 is random. The remaining rounds are determined exactly as Jellby said.

This is not in accordance with the board game rules. The beginning player should change every round.

I just played my first game of Azul and in my final statistics I saw that I played 29 turns and the opponent did 34. This can make a real difference.

blackviktor wrote: ↑17 March 2025, 16:42 This is not in accordance with the board game rules. The beginning player should change every round.

I just played my first game of Azul and in my final statistics I saw that I played 29 turns and the opponent did 34. This can make a real difference.

You need to read the rules again. First player each round is the player who has that white tile with the "1" on it.

blackviktor wrote: ↑17 March 2025, 16:42 This is not in accordance with the board game rules. The beginning player should change every round.

Which rules? Did you ask ChatGPT or something like that?

https://overrules.mobi/en/azul/rules/ : "Keep the 1 tile. This player begins the next round"

blackviktor wrote: ↑17 March 2025, 16:42 This is not in accordance with the board game rules. The beginning player should change every round.

I just played my first game of Azul and in my final statistics I saw that I played 29 turns and the opponent did 34. This can make a real difference.

Just out curiosity - what is your interpretation of the white and blue "1" tile that gets placed on someone's penalty floor each round?

Also, if what you were saying is true, then whoever gets randomly chosen to go first in round 1 (A decent advantage) would also go first in round 5 (a huge advantage). The "1" tile makes it player's choice. If your opponent goes first, you always have the option to ensure that you go first next round by taking that tile from the center (indirectly, by taking one or more of the 5 primary-colored tiles from the center.

This is all stated clearly in the rule book, and probably in the rules summary here on the BGA website.

It's no big deal. I very foolishly got a rule wrong recently in the Wingspan forum and was about to report it as a bug until my mistake was politely pointed out.

It happens.

FrankJones wrote: ↑17 March 2025, 17:47 This is all stated clearly in the rule book

To be honest, not so clearly, as far as I could see.

It says that the first player takes the "starting player" tile and fills the factories with tiles from the bag.
Then in the first turn the starting player places the "starting player" tile in the center.
Then it says that whoever has the "starting player" tile at the end of the round takes new tiles from the bag and refills the factories.
And a new round starts.

It doesn't say explicitly that whoever has the "starting player" tile is the starting player and takes the first turn every round. Actually, if you would read it literally, you can interpret that the starting player the first round is the starting player every round (even if someone else has the "starting player" tile)

Reasonable point. For whatever reason, at the time of my initial reading, it seemed clear But I can see how the wording could be improved.

I have only access to the german rule book.

In phase A ("pattern phase") the "starting player" ("Startspieler") places the "starting player marker" ("Startspielermarker") in the middle and makes the first move. This sentence is not restricted to the first round but is valid for all rounds.

In phase C ("preparation of next round") the player possessing the "starting player marker" does the replenishing and a new round starts (with phase A).

What could (and should) be improved is the wording of the fact that owning the "starting player marker" makes you the "starting player". At least with the german word ("Startspielermarker") it is quite clear that this is meant but it should, nevertheless, be clearly stated and not only implied.

The fact that the concept of changing starting players is common to many board games (e.g. Puerto Rico) and there is usually some kind of "token" to mark the current starting player makes it clear to board game veterans and they will most probably interpret the (german) rules correctly. For board game newbies it is less obvious - thus the wording should be improved.