Board Game Arena

Hi everyone, I was curious what is your opinion on the game imbalance with regards to 2nd player. I keep noticing that if you start as 2nd player, it is a 50/50 [from 93 games, 45 won (as 1st player) 48 lost (as 2nd player)] or you are pretty much set to lose. It oddly feels the 2nd player starts with nothing but luck. Is it just me? Other games seem to balance the player order in one way or another.

I wonder if a thread titled "Player 1 imbalance, statistics and explanation" would be related in any way...

Grumpauzaurus wrote: ↑10 January 2026, 17:39 Hi everyone, I was curious what is your opinion on the game imbalance with regards to 2nd player. I keep noticing that if you start as 2nd player, it is a 50/50 [from 93 games, 45 won (as 1st player) 48 lost (as 2nd player)] or you are pretty much set to lose. It oddly feels the 2nd player starts with nothing but luck. Is it just me? Other games seem to balance the player order in one way or another.

2nd player is at a terrible disadvantage, and now much to my puzzlement, the second arena season still is not going to include kings, which makes things hopeless for player 2.

The Kings can at least occasionally give player 2 a fighting chance.

I am highly disappointed that the next arena season will be what is essentially a beginner version of the game. Playing without Kings makes me think of playing Terraforming Mars using Beginner corporations.

Fun game but yeah, I don't know how they released it with clearly broken mechanics like this. I get 2nd player every time in Arena. might as well not even play lol. edit: I'm still learning though, so it might be just me having to ignore the goals as I normally would approach them. and agreed with guy who replied. Kings would help.

Runny452 wrote: ↑25 January 2026, 21:27 Fun game but yeah, I don't know how they released it with clearly broken mechanics like this. I get 2nd player every time in Arena. might as well not even play lol

Especially without Kings, which was a terrible choice for Arena. "No Kings" is meant as a beginner option to learn the rules and game mechanics.

Has anyone found a fair home rule that balances the game. I thought that 2nd player can start with a random 2-4 (or 5) pts location, 3rd player starts with a random extra mantas (or vice versa for 2nd & 3rd player), while for 4th player no clue. And even if these may balance things a bit, sad they can't incorporated in the online game or actual rules.

1) Equalizing the number of turns is crucial. We do this when playing the physical game.
2) We also put out 5 kings, allow player 2 to select 1, and then allow player 2 to remove 2 of the remaining 3 kings. (Because, with the standard King draft, there is no guarantee player 2 will get a better king. There might be 3 equally good kings, or there might be two very strong ones).

This still leaves problems.
Generally speaking, the only situation in which I feel doubt as player 1 is when the opponent Gets Mara, because that's just a broken card that makes the game not much fun when the opponent has that king, since so many of the blue cards are also broken.

(If not for Mara, my record as player 1 would be something like 50-0 instead of 48-2.)

Other ideas:
1) If a player claims a goal in the same round as someone else, the players tie for that goal rather than one player gaining the extra points. Whoever goes first is already more likely to attain any of the goals, and then gets the extra points for doing it "first" even though both players accomplished the goal in the same number of turns.

2) Bidding. Simulate to scythe, allow players to bid a negative number of points to be player 1. Whoever is willing to take the highest number of points subtracted gets to be player 1. This could work for any player count.

3) More drastic of a change, and not necessarily a good one because I've never tested it, but: Use a "snake" system of turn-taking similar to a "snake" draft in fantasy sports. Player 1 takes a turn. Then each player alternates taking 2 consecutive turns. In that sense, there isn't really a "player 1" and "player 2", because each time either player "moves", that player will have had 1 more turn than the opponent, with the advantage flipping back and forth each time. As it stands now, every time player 1 makes a move, that player has completed one more turn than the opponent, with snowballing advantages and benefits. [This would not make a lot of sense in a 3+ player game, but I could see it possibly working in a 2-player game.]

4) Add some sort of mechanism for choosing/drafting the colors of the trained mantas. It can be especially brutal when one player goes first AND has the manta color advantage with regard to desired locations on the board and/or the goals.

5) Give player 2 additional resources or mantas.

I don't have many ideas for 3+ player games. The game is already a struggle for balance with 2 players.

This is a superb game in so many ways, but unfortunately it failed to adequately address the most important aspect of a game - balance with regard to advantages and disadvantages resulting from player turn order.