Board Game Arena

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=688269755

Hola todos. Sorry for my English, but I am so disappointed in this game after this match. I think this game based on a luck a lot. And when it is happening in tournament game which decides will you pass to next round or not, it is double awful.

I am playing this game 1.5months. And here my opponent is (as far as i know one of the steam top players of 2018 year). But, that is OK, It is even fine if I loose to him, but not in a way that this games passed.

First of all look at this starting hand, which is pure luck, no player chooses that: point luna (best corp in the game with preludes), with two top tier preludes. Earth catapult and anti gravity in one persons hand? yeah, why not giv him also research outpost? Large convoy, Ice asteroid, iventors guild ad shuttles (I dont know why he didnt kept shuttles tho)

Gen 3: (he already has arctic algae): plays accuired company -> imported GhG (POINT LUNA card, additional card draw)

Gen 4: i see arctic algae, i see space station and I made a guess, that he is going to start ocean walking, and look how cool I am closing him form both sides. I am proud of that move.
He plays card draw and immediately get bribed committee to rise his engine (POINT LUNA CARD, it will give him another card). look what junk I am getting mean time with TWO my card draws. Then imported GHG to Space hotels (WHICH IS ANOTHER POINT LUNA CARD). really? is this fair game?

Gen 5: he is taking protected habitats against deimos down. this is an interesting move, never seen this before. I guess he did this because he has no plant generation cards besides arctic algae, so he want to protect plants he will get form oceans. This one is smart move, I am giving respect for this one. Passing deimos, wow. Same time I dont know why he keps insects, because it is quite opposite, if you dont have plant tags, that will not play very good. (but he got lucky there too, insects give him I iirc 4 plant prod)

He use inventors guild. and you know what? On the map, when he has blocked position, and all his greeneries from arctic algae will not benefit from oceans, HE IS GETTING MINING RIGHTS. cool, huh? what a luck. there are 180 cards in this game, and he get one which allow him to put a tile and escape blockage. How not lucky is that? how tactical is that.... brrr, i am so angry even watching replay of this game to write this text.

Gen6: hes starting draft is optimal aerobraking. yeah, game, beat me to the death. Energy tapping from technology demonstration. Playes grennery near mining point on map. remember yeah, it was luck that he got that, now that forest gives him a plant, so he can use in electro catapult to get 7 MC. cool, yeah? very tactical play, right? skills? what about just luck?!
He is playing asteroid at the end of gen6 and kills my 1 plant, which I will need on next gen. I dont know if this is because of skill, is he thought that I will have grass and it will became a greenery and milestone, or not. But if so, then cool, respect for that play. But I dont think so, in my opinion he just wanted to get terraforming fast up to get just the milestone. In that case, another luck, that he kills my plant. clap clap.
p.s. look what junk I am receiving with my card draw (I am not checking my replay now, maybe 1-2 cards are good, but not game breaking as for his draws)

Gen7: lava flows even not funny anymore. this will give him free ocean later. also here he get search for life. in gen 7!!!! and in 3 gens it founds a microbe. I have few games when this card has played on gen1, and it lasts 12+ gens, and it was scoring 0. This person got a microbe in 3 gens. tactics? skill? no, that is just luck!
Inventors guild, media archives. another point LUNA draw card + nice end game card, which will give 25 MC him later (compare with junk I am getting from MU, business network and restricted area).
Martian surver -> moss, another card for insects, yeah.
Then he plays mining expedition to do what? If this smart play I am not so skilled to understand, then respect him, because it cut my grass and greenery to milestone. But if he plaid that just to rise TR to get milestone, then he get lucky again, cutting my grass.
I am playing lunar beam to use that two energy afterwards. in same generation, just need 3 action to do that. And you are guessing what happening right? YEAH! energy tapping. WOW, he has all counter cards for my plays... tactics? no , he just get that card from a random draw. also clud seeding, which he also got from random draw, no one usually buy that card -_-.

Gen7: draft: he took industrial center, nice jump to near oceans if I will place city on top spot. He also bought physics complex, but not energy. this move is not clear for me. maybe he is waiting for quantum card. HOW THAT HAPPENED THAT HE DOES NOT HAVE IT YET? Game, do something, not fair, give him energy, keep up -_-.
Inventors guild -> bushes, when he had 0 plant tags, now he has 4 ))) yeah, luck is not involved in TM
Large convoy to VIRUS and Cupola city )))))))))))))))) when he has 8 plant prod (will be 11 later). He even get security fleet, which is usually F tier card, but with my titanium prod I could benefit from it xD. No, game will give even that to him

Gen 8: advanced ecosystems )) also he got mangrove from me (I can't cut everything)
Big asteroid from Inventors guild..... you know what, enough, there few actions left, dont want even to comment.

The point of this post is not about that this players plays bad, not at all. That will be stupid to say that to person, who was top player of steam in 2018. Not at all.

The point is, that THIS exact game he won because of unbelievable luck of drawing cards. Maybe I did mistakes I dont understand, because I am not so experienced player or stupid (I know one I miss played, when I missed to put greenery, but did on next action, so it doesnt affect much).
From my point of view, I played really good. Each move I was googling answers, watching mars expert video about card explanation, looking at his spreadsheet. In my opinion, if you swap me with another player, who has 700 ELO, he will still lose this game. OK, maybe there will be less VP difference, but still he will lose.

AND that is the problem with this game, right?:
1.This was tournament game, which will decide will I pass to next round or not.
2. This was game agains 700 ELO player, when you do everything so cool and control with deep thinking (like closing him on river) and you still lose, that is very pity and disappointing.

If this was just regular game, or even arena game, maybe it will not be so depressing. But when you play tournament and this game decide will you pass or not, and you lose because of card draw insane luck on every generation, you dont want to play this game anymore. for what?

How to get fun from this game? I am on the edge to retire from it. Which is pity, because I bought hard copy of game with all expansions from second hand last week )))

Sorry for emotions, this game just killed me.
Thanks for reading, I just needed to share this, otherwise i will blow.

You shouldn’t be so invested in the outcome of a single game. Yes it’s a tourney game, and it sucks to go out like this. But it’s also just one game. There will be more tournaments for you to play in, you’ll eventually have the draw your opponent had in this game (which will be loads of fun for you), and over a large sample size the variance will tend to even out over time.

It’s like you played pocket Kings into pocket Aces here, the flop came up Ace Ace King, and you got coolered. That will happen in games of chance, but don’t let it diminish your love of the game and just understand that you’re going to get both lucky and unlucky if you play a lot so really appreciate those silly lucky draws and enjoy them when you have em.

As Jay said, TFM is a game of playing odds and probabilities. If you want a zero luck experience where the better player always wins, there are plenty of games for that (Chess, Go, Hive, ...). There are also lower variance games with smaller luck factors than TFM, but still some luck (Azul, Patchwork).

According to the elo disparity, this player had an 86% chance to beat going into this match. There are various ways that could go down: they get a worse hand but outplay you; they could get an even hand and outplay you; or they could get the giga-nutz and don't throw it. In any one of those cases the result is the same though so you shouldn't feel bad about losing.

One thing I'd caution against though is leaning too hard on the luck factor to soften the blow to your ego. I've watched many top player replays and often seen hands hands where I felt like it was "unwinnable", but nevertheless watched them pilot it to victory by finding a narrow line. This game goes very deep and it's quite often that if you were better, you could've won. Not always, of course -- just often!

brh2113 wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 20:06 As Jay said, TFM is a game of playing odds and probabilities. If you want a zero luck experience where the better player always wins, there are plenty of games for that (Chess, Go, Hive, ...). There are also lower variance games with smaller luck factors than TFM, but still some luck (Azul, Patchwork).

According to the elo disparity, this player had an 86% chance to beat going into this match. There are various ways that could go down: they get a worse hand but outplay you; they could get an even hand and outplay you; or they could get the giga-nutz and don't throw it. In any one of those cases the result is the same though so you shouldn't feel bad about losing.

One thing I'd caution against though is leaning too hard on the luck factor to soften the blow to your ego. I've watched many top player replays and often seen hands hands where I felt like it was "unwinnable", but nevertheless watched them pilot it to victory by finding a narrow line. This game goes very deep and it's quite often that if you were better, you could've won. Not always, of course -- just often!

Point in case, I just got out of a game on Steam where my opponent was Mining Guild on Elysium and spent the first 5 gens developing Earth Cat, Research Outpost, Mars U, Olympus, Restricted Area, Strip Mine, Mass Converter, Anti Gravity Technology… those draws happen.

I mean I still won by 3… but that’s what I mean. You’ll always have to play against the various nut draws at some point in time and it’s mostly how you perform in these games that ultimately determines a player’s rating. Be able to recognize what kind of nut draw the opponent is on, properly evaluate the game state, understand that usually you’ll have to take some risks and hope they pay off (I actually spent 2 minutes considering dropping Greenhouses just for the tags and to have the tempo to claim 2 milestones when I moved into first position as my last play that gen to set up the double milestone into NRA line, ultimately decided not to to preserve my plants, and then wound up losing my second milestone by 1 Tempe… I shoulda just risked the plants and not a 10 point swing, that was overly greedy), and know and play to your outs (in this game I’m talking about my outs were to play to NRA, gen 10 end, find Ecozone and Insects, and dominate the rebate locations to make up for my lacking economy compared to opponent’s -5).

If my opponent had played perfectly in this game I would lose by a landslide, but most of the time, in most games, players aren’t going to play perfect which can allow a highly skilled player to express that skill with precision decision making and sequencing. Do this enough and you’ll beat some of those nut draws when the opponent makes a minor mistake or two.

jaymc1130 wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 22:56

brh2113 wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 20:06 As Jay said, TFM is a game of playing odds and probabilities. If you want a zero luck experience where the better player always wins, there are plenty of games for that (Chess, Go, Hive, ...). There are also lower variance games with smaller luck factors than TFM, but still some luck (Azul, Patchwork).

According to the elo disparity, this player had an 86% chance to beat going into this match. There are various ways that could go down: they get a worse hand but outplay you; they could get an even hand and outplay you; or they could get the giga-nutz and don't throw it. In any one of those cases the result is the same though so you shouldn't feel bad about losing.

One thing I'd caution against though is leaning too hard on the luck factor to soften the blow to your ego. I've watched many top player replays and often seen hands hands where I felt like it was "unwinnable", but nevertheless watched them pilot it to victory by finding a narrow line. This game goes very deep and it's quite often that if you were better, you could've won. Not always, of course -- just often!

Point in case, I just got out of a game on Steam where my opponent was Mining Guild on Elysium and spent the first 5 gens developing Earth Cat, Research Outpost, Mars U, Olympus, Restricted Area, Strip Mine, Mass Converter, Anti Gravity Technology… those draws happen.

I mean I still won by 3… but that’s what I mean. You’ll always have to play against the various nut draws at some point in time and it’s mostly how you perform in these games that ultimately determines a player’s rating. Be able to recognize what kind of nut draw the opponent is on, properly evaluate the game state, understand that usually you’ll have to take some risks and hope they pay off (I actually spent 2 minutes considering dropping Greenhouses just for the tags and to have the tempo to claim 2 milestones when I moved into first position as my last play that gen to set up the double milestone into NRA line, ultimately decided not to to preserve my plants, and then wound up losing my second milestone by 1 Tempe… I shoulda just risked the plants and not a 10 point swing, that was overly greedy), and know and play to your outs (in this game I’m talking about my outs were to play to NRA, gen 10 end, find Ecozone and Insects, and dominate the rebate locations to make up for my lacking economy compared to opponent’s -5).

If my opponent had played perfectly in this game I would lose by a landslide, but most of the time, in most games, players aren’t going to play perfect which can allow a highly skilled player to express that skill with precision decision making and sequencing. Do this enough and you’ll beat some of those nut draws when the opponent makes a minor mistake or two.

What keeps you playing on Steam still after bga giving us most of the expansions for tfm? I actually got it for steam out of curiousity after I played bga a bit, and idk how anybody can go from bga to steam. The steam Interface is very counter intuitive and feels… bad man.

So you are saying, if you get used to A and after quite some time you try a different design and pattern, this different thing seems uncomfortable to you?

Keep on going Sherlock!!!

HappyMeaI wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 23:49
What keeps you playing on Steam still after bga giving us most of the expansions for tfm? I actually got it for steam out of curiousity after I played bga a bit, and idk how anybody can go from bga to steam. The steam Interface is very counter intuitive and feels… bad man.

Habit, mostly. Been playing since day of release, and the look of the game is very aesthetically pleasing. The UI on BGA I find clunky and cumbersome, same as web app, which is mostly why I didn’t play much on it. At some point in time I’m going to take the plunge, buy premium on BGA, and spam games, but that time hasn’t quite yet come. Also, do we really need another leaderboard hog hogging all the leaderboard spots on multiple platforms? I’d like to leave some room for others to have their 15 minutes in the spotlight, lord knows my trophy case is full enough and I’ve spent more than my fair share of time reaping the glory (also, battling Aspirin and Anthracite and ilk for supremacy for half a decade can be a disheartening battle for, uh, reasons…).

OP: sounds like variance to the extreme, which is to be expected when you shuffle up a deck of cards or roll dice.

It's just one game though, so I'd let it go and move on.

jaymc1130 wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 23:58

HappyMeaI wrote: ↑19 June 2025, 23:49
What keeps you playing on Steam still after bga giving us most of the expansions for tfm? I actually got it for steam out of curiousity after I played bga a bit, and idk how anybody can go from bga to steam. The steam Interface is very counter intuitive and feels… bad man.

Habit, mostly. Been playing since day of release, and the look of the game is very aesthetically pleasing. The UI on BGA I find clunky and cumbersome, same as web app, which is mostly why I didn’t play much on it. At some point in time I’m going to take the plunge, buy premium on BGA, and spam games, but that time hasn’t quite yet come. Also, do we really need another leaderboard hog hogging all the leaderboard spots on multiple platforms? I’d like to leave some room for others to have their 15 minutes in the spotlight, lord knows my trophy case is full enough and I’ve spent more than my fair share of time reaping the glory (also, battling Aspirin and Anthracite and ilk for supremacy for half a decade can be a disheartening battle for, uh, reasons…).

Cmon man, we need someone to sit Rook down.

HappyMeaI wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 00:20
Cmon man, we need someone to sit Rook down.

If my telling him to behave doesn’t do the trick I don’t know what else you want me to try tbh. I’ve known Rook a while and usually that works to a minor extent, but the only real solutions to any problems Rook potentially poses will be solutions Rook executes himself in his own time. All I can do is lead the horse to water, and if the horse ain’t thirsty it won’t drink.