We had an excellent game day today, before the snow started falling in downtown Seattle. We opened with quick games of Dominion, switched to 5-player Race, and then we hit Puerto Rico with 5. (We wrapped up with 4-player Settlers and a final game of Race.)
They were all games played with good gamers (who are also good friends). There's always a bit about what feels random...it was on my mind after reading the "Statistically Speaking" article on Gamasutra (link in the sidebar). The topic crept into tonight's game, as we started Puerto Rico. How do you determine who goes first? My standard way is take 5 barrels, 4 corn, 1 indigo...whoever gets the indigo starts. Fast, quick, doesn't need dice or prolonged discussions of how to best use rock-paper-scissors in a group environment. (I'm also of the belief that RPS is not random, and would not be useful in determining a necessarily random behavior!)
My friend said the magic words of "Wait - let me do it!" He has a new way. Take 3 indigo tiles, 2 corn tiles, and let players take tiles clockwise until the system is revealed. For example, Player A takes a tile, reveals indigo. Player B takes a tile, reveals corn. This would mean that Player A is third player with the last indigo, Player B is fourth player with the first corn! (In Puerto Rico, the first three players in the order start with indigo, the last 2 players get corn.)
That certainly seems magical, right? Something seemed fishy, but the bottle of wine that we had been sharing in celebration of the snow seemed to lighten our spirits...so we continued as it was decided. (He showed the system for Indigo/Indigo/Corn or Indigo/Indigo/Indigo - you only needed to go as far as three players.)
Of course, being gamers we yearn to have complete knowledge. We argue over what the best Settlers placement was, whether it's better or worse for random distribution of numbers, ways to eliminate/reduce/create 'luck' in favorite games...and we will now circle back to the magical method.
It makes for a great scam.
We'll start at a table where I'm playing with Alice, Bob, Charlie, myself, and my buddy Jack. I'm the person getting everyone to sit down, and I will use the magical method as described above. I'll choose Alice to start, going clockwise around to Bob and then Charlie as needed. 5 face-down tiles, 3 indigo, 2 corn - just like the game.
Yes, it's true that any player has a 60% of starting the game with an indigo, or a 40% chance to start with a corn plantation. But the next step is where it breaks - we're not dealing with replacement...they're related events.
Let's start with that 60% indigo tile draw for Alice. Alice is happy - she is now one of three indigo players, and therefore has a 1 in 3 chance of going first! Not quite. Bob has 4 tiles left - 2 indigo, 2 corn. If Bob gets a corn tile, he is first corn and therefore Alice is third indigo. Bob draws corn half the time - half of that 60% we had, Alice goes third (30%). If Bob gets indigo, Charlie has 1 indigo, 2 corn left. If Charlie gets a corn (a 2 in 3 chance), he becomes first corn, and Alice's indigo draw earlier puts her as 2nd player. (20% chance, as it's 2/3 of 30%.) The remaining 10% chance is Alice's chance to go first.
Alice could have drawn corn, 40% of the time. Alice would be happy again, assuming she hasn't learned her lesson from indigo discussions. There's a 50/50 chance that she is first corn player! Sadly, the magical method will fail her here as well. Bob would be left with 1 corn, and 3 indigo to draw from - 3 times out of 4, he'll draw an indigo, making her last player.
Alice's breakdown:
1st player: 10%
2nd player: 20%
3rd player: 30%
4th player: 10%
5th player: 30%
Now, if I were a devilishly clever person of low morals, and wanting to be first indigo or first corn (first player & fourth player, respectively), I would look to the person to my right and say "Hey, choose a tile and reveal it for yourself. Now do the same for me, as I finish setting up the game!" 60% of the time, I'd start as first corn or first indigo.
And that ends the story of the horribly magical method, that you should never ever use in polite company...or mine.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Battlestar Galactica and why you can't trust me.
Last night some friends and I played the Battlestar Galactica board game from Fantasy Flight Games. One of the guys had played it before, so we received a quick overview of the game. Quick means 5 minutes or less, with most of it explained as we go.
It's a cooperative game, in the vein of Shadows over Camelot, where the game is difficult to win, and there's a possibility that someone is betraying their friends. Except in this case, up to 2 players can be Cylons hidden in the midst of the players...but the players might not even become Cylons until halfway through the game (there is a mandatory trigger).
The mechanics were quick to understand after a complete set of turns for each person. It may be difficult for some players to correctly guess "how much population can we afford to lose" in the first time playing the game. It will probably be difficult for the Cylon player the first time - when do you reveal yourself as a Cylon? Early? Late? Never? It does mean that you should play the second game, just to get your own idea for tempo.
The game is supposed to take 2 hours. I think we took 3-3.5 hours to finish - first time players, distractions from other games going on, and ...it's not going to be 2 hours. I would say that most of the 'fun' is guessing who the Cylon is. In the six-player game, if both Cylons were revealed, we would have played a lot faster. As it was, the second Cylon didn't appear until nearly the end of the first half. (Gaius was dealt both.)
This didn't stop us from accusing other players of being a Cylon, even through there was only one at the table. As I said, this was the fun bit. Can you tell who the bad person is, by what cards they play, or don't play? Even if you don't actually get to see their cards going into the pot? These discussions were the best part of the game, but also took up most of the time. You want to spend less time discussing? I don't think it's going to be much fun then.
In the end, we scraped by with a win. The president turned out to be the second Cylon, but she didn't switch sides early enough to take advantage of her special Cylon card. Early enough being 2 turns around the board. from the end of the game. We even spent 4 "good-guy" turns, knowing she was the Cylon, but none of us having enough cards to put her in the Brig. A last-minute, once-a-game ability stopped Gaius from choosing to fail a card...otherwise we would have run out of Morale and lost the game. (Population, Fuel, and Food were all dangerously low as well, but those were probably managed correctly.)
The mechanics for passing/failing challenges as a group was solid. The theme was excellent. The duration of the game was long - discussions of traitors was the primary 'fun' of the game, but it took a correspondingly more large chunk of time for it. There were rules that weren't well executed in the rulebook/cards, which is sad to see from a professional view. (Nukes, Executive Orders.)
My last comment is for the late Cylon addition in the second half. It sucks if you have no time as the Cylon, and that you have to switch gears in mid-game to play the bad guy. All of the 'trust' issues that the players spend so much time on, in the first half, has to be discarded and begun again...which is painful for everyone.
Is it the perfect cooperative-traitor game? No.
Is it a good one? Certainly.
It's a cooperative game, in the vein of Shadows over Camelot, where the game is difficult to win, and there's a possibility that someone is betraying their friends. Except in this case, up to 2 players can be Cylons hidden in the midst of the players...but the players might not even become Cylons until halfway through the game (there is a mandatory trigger).
The mechanics were quick to understand after a complete set of turns for each person. It may be difficult for some players to correctly guess "how much population can we afford to lose" in the first time playing the game. It will probably be difficult for the Cylon player the first time - when do you reveal yourself as a Cylon? Early? Late? Never? It does mean that you should play the second game, just to get your own idea for tempo.
The game is supposed to take 2 hours. I think we took 3-3.5 hours to finish - first time players, distractions from other games going on, and ...it's not going to be 2 hours. I would say that most of the 'fun' is guessing who the Cylon is. In the six-player game, if both Cylons were revealed, we would have played a lot faster. As it was, the second Cylon didn't appear until nearly the end of the first half. (Gaius was dealt both.)
This didn't stop us from accusing other players of being a Cylon, even through there was only one at the table. As I said, this was the fun bit. Can you tell who the bad person is, by what cards they play, or don't play? Even if you don't actually get to see their cards going into the pot? These discussions were the best part of the game, but also took up most of the time. You want to spend less time discussing? I don't think it's going to be much fun then.
In the end, we scraped by with a win. The president turned out to be the second Cylon, but she didn't switch sides early enough to take advantage of her special Cylon card. Early enough being 2 turns around the board. from the end of the game. We even spent 4 "good-guy" turns, knowing she was the Cylon, but none of us having enough cards to put her in the Brig. A last-minute, once-a-game ability stopped Gaius from choosing to fail a card...otherwise we would have run out of Morale and lost the game. (Population, Fuel, and Food were all dangerously low as well, but those were probably managed correctly.)
The mechanics for passing/failing challenges as a group was solid. The theme was excellent. The duration of the game was long - discussions of traitors was the primary 'fun' of the game, but it took a correspondingly more large chunk of time for it. There were rules that weren't well executed in the rulebook/cards, which is sad to see from a professional view. (Nukes, Executive Orders.)
My last comment is for the late Cylon addition in the second half. It sucks if you have no time as the Cylon, and that you have to switch gears in mid-game to play the bad guy. All of the 'trust' issues that the players spend so much time on, in the first half, has to be discarded and begun again...which is painful for everyone.
Is it the perfect cooperative-traitor game? No.
Is it a good one? Certainly.
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