Board Game Arena

I've played this game a lot on async games with friends and we have a "house rule", always doing 2 actions at a time, which basically reduces the game duration in half

Playing face to face it doesn't matter of course, and might also delay it compared to just letting people pass after the first (maybe more obvious) action

My suggestion is to allow this as an option for async tournaments

Thanks

(and yes, selling a single card is still an action and we sometimes do it when it is critical (and we think we have more spare cards than the opp. we are trying to go after :p

ps: I know this has been talked about before, I wanted to chime in because:
1) unlike the suggestions I've seen I only think this is relevant for async play, and I suggest it especially for tournaments, where people usually should care more about the options being used because they will stand for a few games

2) I guess unlike most people that comment on this (talking about the skill issue that is removed by not having this (very obvious..) option during gameplay, I actually have 100+ games played with this option with my friends (logged) and perhaps 100 more playing face-to-face / BGA where this options doesn't make sense / doesn't exist


so I guess it is being able to tell people, from experience, that you likely won't miss anything by not being able to play one card at a time so you can then get that ocean bonus. Guess what, everyone is thinking the same :p this game can be very complex and have really great decisions, but picking between 1 or 2 actions is not one of them


pps: I only have a few games in here because online I play this exclusively async, and after playing with 2 actions at a time I find it dreadful to play 1 or 2 :p so I just play in community tournaments, and I always do 2 no matter what because the time limit is tight xD

This will never be implemented because it makes certain plays impossible
Sometimes you simply have to take a single action in order to make the correct move.
For example if you're 1st player and have 3 actions to do : convert 8 plants into a greenery, play a power card, play a city with said power. You have to place your greenery first because you want to avoid plant hate. But then with your suggestion you have to play your power and pass your turn to the opponent who might have energy tapping or power supply consortium and you're screwed. The correct play is to place your greenery, skip second action, and then take 2 actions with the power and the city.

I know and agree that players constantly skipping their 1nd action is annoying and useless (most of the time), but forcing players to take 2 actions is just not possible.

Abtsein that is probably the perfect example, and why doing 2 actions can sometimes make it a better game, besides making it faster to play

With original rules the best play is super obvious in 99% of the games, I guess anyone with 2 games of this can understand it.. so, no fun, right? (:

But with 2 actions, what do you do? Do you do power + city, guarantee the best city placamentand risk the plants?

Do you do the plants + energy and risk getting energy tapped?


That's when the skill comes in, and some decisions,
how many asteroids are gone?
Did you pass some in the draft?
Did you pass any energy tap card?
Do you have more energy cards in hand or will getting that 1 prod stolen cripple you?
And if you do, can you still play them + the city this turn or will the city have to wait?
Will the city spot be taken next round or is everyone broke and next gen you are first?

Now those are some interesting decicions

Besides, most of the time there is always an alternative option, one that you can't do all the time, and sometimes brings extra hard decisions..

Should you place the greenery and for your 2nd action.. discard 1 card (as a kind of "skip"?)

Of course maybe you only have cards you want to play in hand.. or maybe you have a crapy one, but you also have mars U., or you just want to save cards in hand for another time when "skipping" is even more important, maybe on the last gen when everyone is calculating awards

If my opponent has a mandatory first action and I'm going first, I'm definitely not doing 2 actions 99% of the time as my first move.

Having to always do 2 actions definitely changes the game a lot, but it seems like a reasonable *request* to me (who's to say whether it will get implemented or not). I personally wouldn't want to play with it but to each their own!

One argument is that it's too big of a change to the game, although the no draft option (or the amazonis planitia map) is also a pretty big change, and playing with that uses the same elo system as standard arena games already :shrug:

As a rule of thumb: the developer has to agree to import house rules/variants.

This is not going to be implemented.

Never? :/ I'm so sorry everyone

Never, a house rule will never be allowed on BGA unless the game designer or publisher agrees to make it an official rule

cheval_raye wrote: ↑30 January 2026, 11:30 Never, a house rule will never be allowed on BGA unless the game designer or publisher agrees to make it an official rule

Correct. That is why I said it would not be implemented. It fundamentally changes the game in a way that was not intended by the game designer. I know the game designer would not sign off on this, and I know that such unofficial rules not supported by the game designer will not get implemented.
There is a long enough list of legitimate suggestions to deal with anyway.