Shabbat Games: Troyes, Kingdom of Solomon, Amyitis

A week ago shabbat I played Troyes and Kingdom of Solomon with Nadine, Eitan, and Emily. This week I played Amyitis with Abraham and Sarah.

Troyes: First plays for Eitan and Emily. Eitan won in the mid-60s, about 10 points over Emily. Nadine and I were tied with one point below Emily. Nadine's favorite level three yellow card, the Sculptor (15 cost, 6/5 points, 3 yellow = 1 point), came out yet again, but she only got to use it a few times.

I managed to grab a decent red card point generator, The Joust (5 cost, 3/2 points, 3 red = 2 points if you have the most red dice). Eitan won by fighting the most events and earning the 6 point bonus for Henry 1; Emily gained the 6 point influence bonus of Hughes de Paynes. Nadine and I didn't get much in the way of bonuses.

Kingdom of Solomon: First plays for me and Nadine.This is a new game from Philip duBarry and Minion Games.

This is a worker placement, building game. As you build buildings, you gain extra placement options from your buildings. You can also build in the temple, which gives you VP or a chip, your choice: the player with the most chips at end game gets 20 points (about 3-4 times the VP value of the usual placement).

The spaces give you goods to build the buildings. Some of the spaces give big bonuses, but you have to use all of your remaining workers to claim one, so it's a chicken game of who will spend his 2 or 3 workers to take one before someone else does. Since there are three of these spaces, it's probably not as much of a deal in a game with less than four players.

Lather rinse repeat. You can't build a building in the first round, because you don't have enough resources. You really HAVE to build a building every round after that, because not only are the buildings worth 14-18 points (nearly as much as the "most chips" bonus) but the buildings also give you minor benefits on the board. Nadine missed one building round, but she got the chips benefit of 20 points, and so won the game.

When we first started playing, everything looked like it was balanced ok except for the Thief action which allows you to steal a good from another player. That nearly brought the entire game crashing down to a halt for me. I HATE that mechanic, especially when the value of a good is critical, when multiple players can effectively gang up on one, and when anything you plan is subject to ruin on the whim of another player. I took the Thief every chance I could because I hated it; I didn't even like to play it, but better to play it than be subject to it. If the space's value had continued to be as annoying during the rest of the game as it was during the first several rounds, I would have quit mid-game.

As it happens, we began collecting a sufficient amount of goods during the game that the loss of one became relatively irrelevant, and so the game was redeemed. The redemption came from not only the amount of goods we collected but from the hidden cards with goods that we held, which made targeting a specific good that you think another player needs to be harder. Nadine and I believe that the problem caused by this mechanic can be solved by giving the victim some kind of compensation: you lose a good and possibly the chance to build a building in exchange for something (that might help you this round or the next).

The second problem was the absolute necessity of building every round (or taking one round to secure the temple bonus). That made the turn order combined with which cards get flipped up during the turn an overpowering luck factor. Turn order is fine when the board information is always available; it's a crap-shoot when you spend resources to go first only to reveal four cards of equal value, or don't spend the resources to go first only to reveal 1 powerful card (available only to the first player) and some bad cards. This can be solved by turning face up the upcoming cards in the deck.

Aside from those details, the game was ok, a medium worker control game. Even Nadine seemed to come around in the end.

Amyitis: First play for Abraham and Sarah, second (in a long time) for me. I bought this game after my first play; though I recalled that there was a card availability problem (like in Kingdom of Solomon above), I didn't recall what it was, and I remembered the game being fun.

In this game, you build the gardens on Babylon. Each round you take as many actions was you want:: either a) take one of the available 9 workers in four types, or b) spend some of your goods on the camel track.

The four types of workers let you a) take a camel, b) take a good, c) place an irrigation cube for 2 points, or d) place a cube in a temple. The camel track lets you a) bump up your income or VP or b) plant a garden space.

To move on the camel track requires camels, goods, and timing. Planting nets you VPs, bumps your income or VP, and gives a few VPs to the person who most irrigated the area. Temples pay out in some kind of resource or VP at the end of each round.

The game is filled with viable options and paths, which makes it intriguing and fun (for me). VPs and money are available everywhere; money is tight, but there are mitigating mechanics. There are usually a few camels to be had here are there, and you only need one camel to move on the track. However, you need one or more resources to do anything after moving, and that's where the gridlock comes in.

When you are first player, if you have first crack at the only resource giving worker, you're in great shape. If there are three resource giving workers in a three player game, then your turn advantage has basically given you nothing. And the reverse, of course: if you're last player and there are enough workers to let you get a resource, great. If not, you're screwed. Very, very rarely will someone not take a resource giving worker as first player, and that's only if there are enough of them that it will come back to him anyway (for slightly higher cost).

Once again, I have to shake my head a this mechanic and ask: didn't they see this as a problem during playtestiung? It wasn't just this play: the same thing happened last play, and all the plays by the guy who taught me the game.

Luckily, borrowing from some other games, I can once again fix it: The workers costs range from 0 to 2. It seems simple enough to just add an infinite supply of workers available of every type that cost 3. So if you run out of one kind, you are not locked out from a resource because of a bad card draw, so long as you stock up on some reserve cash.

Have to try it.

The only other potentially unbalanced effect was the third level income card, available to only one person that gives 2 VP per round. If gained early, and that's not too difficult without much sacrifice, the card will net you upwards of 16 or more VP during the game (not to mention the extra money), which is far better than any victory point gain anywhere else. And, once again, it's availability is subject to the whims of turn order.

Abraham took it from me; he still lost the game by around 14 points, but I had to concentrate on screwing him the entire game from that point on. And he forgot about the 10 point bonus for planting six regions.

Reducing the bonus to 1 point per round still makes it a desirable card without the potential unbalancing effect; of course, if the card is gained late in the game, it won't give too many VPs.

Yehuda

Games Day in Jerusalem Oct 4

As a reminder, this blog is on slowdown, though I will still post from time to time. I post a little more frequently (like pictures from recent weddings) on Facebook.

I carry the games No Thanks and Parade with me as games to play with the children of families to which I am invited for a meal. I played a few rounds of each of them over the last few weekends. Game nights in Raanana continue as usual, even if the session reports are late.

We're planning a Games Day in Jerusalem for Thursday, Oct 4.

My book writing has slowed down as I'm reading more books and less articles.

Yehuda

Olympics Badminton: A Study in Bad Game Design

Here's a game for you:

The game lasts eight rounds. In each of the last five rounds, if you lose against your opponents you are out of the game. In other words, you have to win each round in order to win the game.

In the first three rounds, if you lose against your opponents, the only result is that you will receive easier challenges in the last five rounds; there are no penalties for losing, because the rounds are not scored. If you win these rounds, you face harder challenges in the last five rounds, making it much harder to win the whole game.

And oh yeah: The only thing that counts is winning the whole game, for which you are massively rewarded.

Any idiot could tell you that a player's best move is to LOSE the first three rounds. These rounds don't count for anything other than to make your life more difficult in the last five rounds, which are the only ones that actually provide any payoff; and the payoff is the same whether the challenges in the last rounds are more or less difficult.

Sounds like a dumb game? That's Badminton in the London 2012 Olympics, where 4 pairs of players, including the most recent gold medal winner from the last Olympics, were tossed out of the Olympics for "match fixing". Did they toss the game because of shadowy gambling connections? No, they played the game as it was designed by losing the first games in order to face easier challenges in the last games, the last ones being the only ones that counted.

But to hear the Olympics officials, the media, the fans, and the news pundits talk about it, you would think that they cheated. A scandal! A shame on the Olympics, the game, and the world! Well, technically they violated two codes of sportsmanship that require players to play their best during all games and adhere to the spirit of the games. But some of what I've heard is just nonsense.

"The players are supposed to be providing an example to the young people of the world" (BBC). Uh, no they're not. They're supposed to win the gold medal.

People who paid money to watch the game don't expect to see lackluster performance. "Who wants to sit through something like that?" said the Olympic chief. So what? The players are there to win the gold medal, not to entertain the audience. How about we ask them to perform a tap dance while they play? That would be entertaining.

"It's not in the spirit of the games." Really? Trying to win a gold medal by conserving your resources during completely irrelevant rounds is not in the spirit of the games?

I don't know who made the decision to add these useless and silly preliminary rounds (apparently added to prolong the games so that the organizers make more money by selling more tickets), but whomever it was wasn't a game designer, or a good one at any rate. A good game designer knows that when you want players to perform a particular task, you have to offer a reward that motivates them. If the reward for throwing the game is higher than the reward for winning it, guess what is going to happen?

You can't just toss a meaningless game or fake competition or points (I'm looking at you, poorly designed gamification) into an activity and expect someone to play for them if you simultaneously punish them for doing so.

How about providing games that matter to the players, and not just the spectators and the sponsors?

Yehuda

Why I Hate the Olympics

Once upon a time I enjoyed watching some Olympics events like gymnastics. Now I don't care.

1. The IOC has turned what was once grassroots and heartfelt into a moneymaking sponsor-driven ad fest.

They security firms were unable to find enough security personnel needed to secure the games, but they managed to find almost 300 brand enforcers to walk around taping over faucets at local establishments bearing company names that haven't sponsored the event.

Their corporate money-driven greed prevents anyone except NBC, who signed an exclusive contract for over $1 billion, from broadcasting the event so many people didn't get to see it and it wasn't live streamed on the Internet (what was, was plagued with delays and problems). Live events should not HAVE exclusivity contracts; they should be unenforceable. NBC wouldn't have covered the games otherwise?

The IOC has tried to geoblock social media reporting about the event. My ONLY choice for seeing the Olympics is via illegal download (simple, but not interested). Update: Turns out I can see the Olympics on IBA (thanks Bassie).

You can't even mention the word Olympics, the date 2012 and the word games, or any symbology associated with the games without being hit with a lawsuit. A 30 year old Greek restaurant named Olympic Gyro was forced to change its name to "protect the rights" of the corporate sponsors. An 81 year old grandmother making little teddy bears to sell for $1 was shut down.

The IOC went so far as to try to prevent anyone from linking to their site if the link was in a context that wasn't positive (to universal scorn and derision).

Ticket prices range from a mere 15 GBP for cheap seats at events that last 30 minutes to over 700 GBP for good seats in some events. Most seats are 50 GBP or up. (To be fair, there were some 20 GBP seats at the opening ceremony, with other seats ranging as high as 2000 GBP.)

So much for the games of the people.

2. The competition brings out the worst.

Winning is far more important than competing. The World Doping Agency is now an integral part of the IOC, and several athletes have already failed doping tests. Bizarrely, even the players in the mind sports games are subject to doping tests, as if someone playing Chess is ever going to take steroids to win a game!

Never heard of the World Mind Sports Games? They're part of the Olympics, but they don't televise well so no one seems to care.

As for the former humans who now complete, don't even think about it unless you have a ton of money for the computers and science that can analyze your every twitch to sculpt your body and movement into robotic perfection.

Does the competition break down stereotypes and increase world peace? Apparently not, if you consider the recent spate of athletes tossed out of the game for racist tweets. The Lebanese team refused to train near the Israelis and the Iranian team won't compete against them.

Does the competition at least bring pride to their nations? I don't know, but it sure doesn't do anything of importance for them. Did you know that Syria has an Olympic team? Has that registered yet? Who in Syria is going to benefit right now if their team wins or loses?

Does the competition even inspire anyone to exercise? Or do we just live vicariously through those who do?

Countries don't benefit internally from having their players win or lose, and countries don't make peace as a result of the competition.

3. It costs too many resources.

The UK taxpayer has spent more than $14 billion (Sky News reportedly thinks it may end up at over 24 billion GBP) to host the games, and the only one benefiting from that is the IOC and its sponsors. They spent $500,000 just on 17 sandstone toadstools. The people of England could have used that money at this particular time (when they are cutting pensions, sick pay, or simply firing public sector workers). The people lost a vast amount of public space, either destroyed or permanently turned over to corporate ownership. Other countries have spent millions to billions of dollars to send their athletes.

The UK assigned more armed forces to protect the Olympics than they deployed to Afghanistan. Don't these people have anything better to do?

4. It takes up too much media time.

7 rockets aimed at civilians have hit Israel since the start of the Olympics. These were not in response to any activity on Israel's part, just the daily fun time of Islamic militants. Did your news cover that?

The only English language radio I receive here is the BBC, whose reporters appear to be in a continuous state of climax over the games and believe that all their listeners are too.

Around the world, real things are happening; other than a great monetary, privacy, and human rights loss to UK taxpayers and the imaginary importance of winning some games, nothing is happening in London.

Yehuda

P.S. And I didn't even mention the minute of silence controversy. The IOC said that the minute of silence for the Israeli victims of massacre 40 years ago at the Olympics was not appropriate for an Olympic opening ceremony, but the 4 hour ceremony managed to include a minute of silence for people killed in WW1 and WWII. Past Olympics ceremonies have included minutes of silence for those killed on 9/11 and in London on 7/7.

Read: we don't want Arab countries to boycott the Olympics. How about this: tell any country that threatens to boycott the games that they are violating the spirit of the games and then throw them out? Oh right: money.

Fast is Slow

Last year, a few days before Tisha Baav, I arrived in Raanana. On Tisha Baav I went to the Carlebach shul for the first time and, as I sat down, I volunteered to the gabbai and Rabbi that I could read a chapter of Eicha if they needed. They smiled and assured me that they had planned the reading well in advance, so thanks but no thanks.

And then one of the readers didn't show up and they frantically signaled to me from across the darkened room. I was asked to read chapter 2 with zero preparation time.

My previous Eicha reading experience had been chapters 3, 4, and 5, so chapter 2 was a new experience for me. I know the trope (and I think I sing them well) but I stumble a little over the Hebrew when reading for the first time. So I read very slowly, which is all the better for Eicha anyway.

Last night I did the same thing: I volunteered to read, was told that they have it all covered, and then again one of the readers didn't show up.

This time the missing person was the reader for chapter 1, the remaining chapter that I had not previously read. So I fumbled and sung my way through it, and hopefully didn't ruin anyone's enjoyment of the evening.

Another example of my roller coaster philosophy: I don't know what I'm doing, it looks scary, I volunteer.

My Son Joined the IDF Today

Getting on the bus

This morning Saarya hugged his mother and father, handed in his induction card and boarded the bus to begin his service in the IDF.

I've experienced both of my step-children's (Ariella and Eitan) IDF service - they joined, they worked hard, they completed their service (Eitan is on yearly active reserves) - so I'm not totally unprepared. But still.

Saarya spent the last two years in yeshiva as part of the Hesder program, which combines study and army service over a five year period. The bulk of the student body of the second year of his yeshiva entered the army today or will soon. Saarya will serve in the Golani together with around 16 of his friends.

He feels great and he's looking forward to it. I don't want to put any pressure on him, but if he performs as well as he did in yeshiva, and as he does in so many other areas of life, I expect him to not only serve successfully but to have helped his entire platoon along the way.

God willing, all of our residents and neighbors will lay down their weapons, justice, compromise, and peace will prevail, and there will be no need for him to complete his service. Barring that, may God keep him, all of our soldiers, and all of our country safe from harm.

Saarya and his parents

Yehuda

Shabbat Gaming

Fri night with aunt/uncle and cousins: I entranced them with the cards from Whatzit, a useless game with fun cards (aka Dingbats in Europe, or rebus puzzles).

Sat night with friends and their kids aged 8 and 10: Games of Crazy 8s (I won the one hand), Rat-a-Tat-Cat (I lost twice), No Thanks (I won, barely), Hearts (I was winning after two hands), and some other card game I can't remember. I also played baseball for the first time since I was about 10?

Well, it might have been baseball. There were three people on one team, and four on the other. We played in a small park area with a metal bat and a tennis ball. The pitcher pitched underhand, and we had no umpire or catcher. After our team, who played first, scored a few runs, we voluntarily ended our turn and gave the other team a turn to play and score a few runs. Then we ended the game.

In fact, barely any rules of baseball were followed, and most of the rules and the play area were created, abandoned, or changed at will during the game play. The only resemblance to baseball were: a bat, a ball, teams, taking turns to hit the ball, running around the field, trying to tag you out. Yet pretty much anyone would say that we were playing baseball.

How many of the core rules could we have broken and still have been considered to be playing baseball?