Board Game Arena

The voyages of Marco Polo is my favorite game and I really love it.

During the COVID era, I played it almost every night in real life with my family, and I got very excited when I discovered it exists online on BGA as well.

After thousands of games here on BGA, I have come to some conclusions. unfortunately, not good ones.

I saw a post from another player talking about manipulation in favor of high ELO players.
That guy is 100% right.

When I play against specific players with ELO over 500, strange things happen EVERY SINGLE TIME
rerolls that give no meaningful result, favorable starting contracts (especially the one with the three peppers movement), dice rolls in general, available contracts when they play first, and so on.

Everything seems to go in their favor.
You know, once you learn this game well, it is decided by small details, especially when two players of similar skill level face each other.
But if these small details (and sometimes even bigger advantages) are consistently and extraordinarily given to the same high ELO players, then this is no longer a game of skill. It becomes a setup. And the game is ruined.

The player who wrote that post started with “To developers” because he wanted the team to pay attention.
Almost two years have passed since then, and the same “strange” things keep happening again and again. It seems no one is listening.
The game feels ruined for me.
I will keep playing, but I will just laugh every time I face these situations.

Seems impossible to me. This would imply that the programmer(s) deliberately designed this implementation in a way that it can differentiate between the starting contracts and does "know" which one is better and then on top of that decides which contract to give to higher elo player. Instead of simply distributing them randomly.

I mean, if this was the case, it would be possible to see those functions in the source code, or not?

I am one of those whom the player above suspects that programmers are helping me. Of course, this is not the case. I'm just playing better, taking every advantage. That's why I have 5 arena championships, and not just in this game. And there were games with this player when he was very lucky at the start, but he lost all the advantage. The chance of starting a contract with three peppers is 1/6. The player can count how many times this contract comes to me at the start (I think even less than 1/6). And there is a trophy - "the expert killer". He happens quite often, as you can see. https://boardgamearena.com/award?game=1200&award=144 And we are talking only about those who win against 500+ ELO players for the first time. In general, all this is nonsense and there is no problem, only probability theory, which works on both sides, but the strongest knows how to turn it to his advantage.

If we check our game history, we’ll see that the so called “three peppers” contract has come to you about five times more often than to me.
But let’s not kid ourselves, you’re a strong enough player to understand exactly what I’m talking about.

And it’s not just that one thing.
It’s a combination of many small details that end up deciding a match.
Things like which contracts appear when you play first versus when I do, what dice rolls you get each round, who gets to choose characters first, which target cities you are offered at the start, and several other factors that I don’t even need to list one by one.

I never questioned that you are an excellent player, and I didn’t even mention you by name in my original post although, to be honest, you and one other player were on my mind. But considering that I also finished 5th in the last Arena, I believe I have a little understanding of how the game works, and I can’t ignore patterns that I’ve observed repeatedly.

Also, it’s quite interesting how you rushed to respond, almost as if you felt targeted, in an attempt to defend the titles you brought up yourself.
At the same time, I fully understand that as a five time champion, you want to defend the value of your titles and rule out any possibility of bias.

To be clear, you don’t need any kind of advantage to win, you are an excellent player. However, the issue is that these advantages seem to consistently be on side of high ELO players like you, and that, ultimately, is what makes the game feel meaningless.

There are no advantages in this game or any other on this site for strong players, except that they are stronger and therefore have a better chance of winning. Indeed, there is a small percentage of luck in this game, but, according to probability theory, it works both ways. Everything else is paranoia. The site's algorithms simply cannot play along with someone, otherwise many would have noticed it long ago. And I answered here quickly because you wrote to me about this text in private messages.

You’re trying to reduce everything I’m saying to “paranoia”, but that’s just an easy way to avoid actually addressing the point.

I’m not claiming some obvious or programmed favoritism. I’m talking about repeated patterns over a large number of high-level games — patterns that are too consistent to just be brushed off with “probability works both ways”

Yes, in theory it does. In practice, when the same types of advantages keep appearing on one side, it’s perfectly reasonable to question it, especially when both players know the game well and small details decide everything.

Also, let’s be honest, saying “many would have noticed it” doesn’t really prove anything.
Most players don’t track patterns over hundreds of games at a high level and on top of that, another player has already opened a separate thread raising similar concerns about potential bias toward high ELO players, so this clearly isn’t just a one off thought.

And about the private message
I brought up the topic, not you personally. You chose to jump in publicly and make it about yourself, which says more than you probably intended.

I’ve already said it. you’re a top player and you don’t need any help to win. That’s exactly why dismissing everything outright instead of even considering the possibility just doesn’t sit right.

Interestingly, when you scored 500 points ELO, did you notice that the site was helping you?

I assume you have also informed the developer of this game to notify them about this thread where you accuse them of spending hours of development-time on top of their game-implementation to add a game-status-analyzer and randomizer-cheating-machanism.

Given in how many games on BGA accusations against the developers show up: do you all assume there's a BGA-wide guideline for developers (volunteer or paid) that they have to implement cheat-mechanisms to their games?

Sorry but the idea of this happening is just rediculous. The thing is: in any random data set you WILL find some patterns if you want to. If you want to show that the pattern is created systematically and not randomly then you need to formulate a testable hypothesis and then collect data. But once again we have a gut-feeling-thread without presenting any data.

ABY1977 wrote: ↑19 May 2026, 19:24 Interestingly, when you scored 500 points ELO, did you notice that the site was helping you?

That’s not really addressing what I said.
I’m not talking about individual wins or losses, but repeated patterns across many high level players. Funny though, I give so much importance to titles and ELO, that I’m only learning from you now that I apparently have over 500

And as I checked now I haven’t

Silene wrote: ↑19 May 2026, 19:31 I assume you have also informed the developer of this game to notify them about this thread where you accuse them of spending hours of development-time on top of their game-implementation to add a game-status-analyzer and randomizer-cheating-machanism.

Given in how many games on BGA accusations against the developers show up: do you all assume there's a BGA-wide guideline for developers (volunteer or paid) that they have to implement cheat-mechanisms to their games?

Sorry but the idea of this happening is just rediculous. The thing is: in any random data set you WILL find some patterns if you want to. If you want to show that the pattern is created systematically and not randomly then you need to formulate a testable hypothesis and then collect data. But once again we have a gut-feeling-thread without presenting any data.

I understand your point about randomness and data.

But you’re speaking in theory about a game you don’t play, while I’m referring to repeated patterns observed across many high-level matches.

I’m not claiming cheating, just something that’s worth examining. Another player has also raised similar concerns in a separate thread, so this isn’t just a one off impression.

Dismissing it outright as “ridiculous” without the actual game context doesn’t really help the discussion.