Board Game Arena

Does anyone else feel like there are way more battles than there used to be? Lately people have been scoring 18, 20, 24 or more battle points. It never used to be that way. What changed? More shields in the game? It seems like it's impossible to beat.

There are probably more battles because more people are realizing what a dominant strategy it is. The other dominant strategy is drawing a good mix of green cards, but I often will choose a permanent army card rather than a green card. Keep in mind though that sometimes there are fewer battles than average. This can happen if someone. can close out the game faster than the war cards all coming out. Also, there are a fixed number of war cards in the central deck, 2 double and 4 single. Keeping track of those is good, with the realization that the more people use the side decks, the more likely that other war cards will come out. And the mix of civilizations that are playing also matters. Rhodes, Halicarnassus, and Olympia each have 5 war cards in their side deck, while the others have four. Lastly, if my opponents have strong armies and I don’t, I might draw more from the side decks in hopes of moving up faster or getting blue victory points, rather than draw from the central deck and drawing a war card that would help my opponents.

And the mix of civilizations that are playing also matters. Rhodes, Halicarnassus, and Olympia each have 5 war cards in their side deck, while the others have four.

Is there any list of cards in the side decks for each wonder?

As with everything else in the game, this can be explained with three words: luck, luck, luck. Sometimes you have no shields and there are a huge number of battles, sometimes it's the opposite.

On the Boardgamegeek page for this game, there’s a file called card distribution that lays out the card distribution for the center deck and for the side decks. It’s very useful to know in terms of what’s more likely for each civilization.