Hello everyone,
Here are my thoughts on the game Knarr.
I have now played 1000 games of Knarr.
99% of the games were with two players. 90% in the same mode as played in the Arena.
I also looked at the last 10 players who reached 1000 games.
Their average Elo rating is 350 (lowest 145 Elo, highest 540 Elo).
What is striking here is that there isn’t a single Master-level player among them. This is not surprising though, since there simply isn’t a single player at that level in Knarr. If you try to find reasons for this, you quickly come across two points:
There are simply too few players in Knarr, meaning strong players face each other more often, and the Elo system ruthlessly punishes every single loss.
The luck factor in the game is simply too high, so strong players often lose to average players — again triggering the Elo system.
I would like to focus more on the point of the luck factor. First of all, after 1000 games, I can say that I don’t see a problem with a dominant strategy. The often-mentioned Prestige strategy is only rarely dominant. It often comes into play in the simple “boats variant.” Depending on the artifact variant, games end after 11 or 12 rounds. Many of my games also ended after 10 rounds, and I can only recall two games where everything ended after 9 rounds. So Knarr is clearly a race game — similar to Splendor. The Prestige strategy often needs 12 or 13 rounds to finish. Yes, I also had matches where I successfully used Prestige in 11 rounds, but that’s rare.
In my view, the biggest problem in Knarr is balance. Especially the starting situation is the major “problem.”
I analyzed my last 200 games. I lost 15% of them.
The reasons were:
10%: poor play on my part
10%: very unlucky in the endgame
80%: opponent had a clear starting advantage
Whether it’s access to all colors, coverage of all colors, or direct access to duplicate colors right from the start — there are often huge differences between two players. This explains, in my view, why an Elo 180 player often beats an Elo 500 player. That would never happen in a game like chess, Blokus, or Abalone. And I’d argue not in games like Ark Nova or Brass either.
And that’s perfectly fine, depending on what you expect from a game. From a game like Can’t Stop, my expectation is that anyone can beat anyone. That makes it a wonderful family game where any child can win — and often does.
I started playing Knarr three months ago with the intention of reaching a level where I could win almost all games against lower-Elo players. That’s clearly not the case here, and I have to admit it’s sometimes frustrating. Similar to Azul — but less so than in Knarr.
What have other games done to counteract this starting imbalance problem? Terraforming Mars, Blood Rage, or Ark Nova with expansions — they all introduced a draft mechanism, either right from the start or with the first expansion, to achieve better balance. Of course, you can’t compare Knarr to Terraforming Mars. But the problems in a card-driven game are the same. On BGG, I’ve already seen a variant that directly addresses this very issue.
Of course, some will say: “I don’t mind that anyone can beat anyone.” In that case, my points about the game are irrelevant for you. But there will also be players who may see it the same way I do. I hope this point will eventually be addressed and that the game will achieve better balance. In that case, I strongly suspect that an Elo 200 player would stand almost no chance against an Elo 700 player existing at that time.
Some will say: “I don’t want that.”
At least for me, I would welcome it.
Here are my thoughts on the game Knarr.
I have now played 1000 games of Knarr.
99% of the games were with two players. 90% in the same mode as played in the Arena.
I also looked at the last 10 players who reached 1000 games.
Their average Elo rating is 350 (lowest 145 Elo, highest 540 Elo).
What is striking here is that there isn’t a single Master-level player among them. This is not surprising though, since there simply isn’t a single player at that level in Knarr. If you try to find reasons for this, you quickly come across two points:
There are simply too few players in Knarr, meaning strong players face each other more often, and the Elo system ruthlessly punishes every single loss.
The luck factor in the game is simply too high, so strong players often lose to average players — again triggering the Elo system.
I would like to focus more on the point of the luck factor. First of all, after 1000 games, I can say that I don’t see a problem with a dominant strategy. The often-mentioned Prestige strategy is only rarely dominant. It often comes into play in the simple “boats variant.” Depending on the artifact variant, games end after 11 or 12 rounds. Many of my games also ended after 10 rounds, and I can only recall two games where everything ended after 9 rounds. So Knarr is clearly a race game — similar to Splendor. The Prestige strategy often needs 12 or 13 rounds to finish. Yes, I also had matches where I successfully used Prestige in 11 rounds, but that’s rare.
In my view, the biggest problem in Knarr is balance. Especially the starting situation is the major “problem.”
I analyzed my last 200 games. I lost 15% of them.
The reasons were:
10%: poor play on my part
10%: very unlucky in the endgame
80%: opponent had a clear starting advantage
Whether it’s access to all colors, coverage of all colors, or direct access to duplicate colors right from the start — there are often huge differences between two players. This explains, in my view, why an Elo 180 player often beats an Elo 500 player. That would never happen in a game like chess, Blokus, or Abalone. And I’d argue not in games like Ark Nova or Brass either.
And that’s perfectly fine, depending on what you expect from a game. From a game like Can’t Stop, my expectation is that anyone can beat anyone. That makes it a wonderful family game where any child can win — and often does.
I started playing Knarr three months ago with the intention of reaching a level where I could win almost all games against lower-Elo players. That’s clearly not the case here, and I have to admit it’s sometimes frustrating. Similar to Azul — but less so than in Knarr.
What have other games done to counteract this starting imbalance problem? Terraforming Mars, Blood Rage, or Ark Nova with expansions — they all introduced a draft mechanism, either right from the start or with the first expansion, to achieve better balance. Of course, you can’t compare Knarr to Terraforming Mars. But the problems in a card-driven game are the same. On BGG, I’ve already seen a variant that directly addresses this very issue.
Of course, some will say: “I don’t mind that anyone can beat anyone.” In that case, my points about the game are irrelevant for you. But there will also be players who may see it the same way I do. I hope this point will eventually be addressed and that the game will achieve better balance. In that case, I strongly suspect that an Elo 200 player would stand almost no chance against an Elo 700 player existing at that time.
Some will say: “I don’t want that.”
At least for me, I would welcome it.
