Power Cards in German Games

Settlers of Catan

In Settlers of Catan (SoC), there are two types of cards: resources and developement cards. I will discuss the developement cards, as the resource cards are all identical (the resource cards are not variable power cards). There are 25 available cards: fourteen Soldiers that move the robber, two each of three cards that give you bonuses (roads, resource cards from the deck, resource cards from other's hands), and 5 victory point cards.

All cards are useful to some degree at any time. A VP cards may not be that useful at the beginning of the game, but will surely be by the end of the game. A soldier may is always worth at least one resource card stolen from your opponent, even if you have no need of moving the robber, and is a step in securing two bonus victory points. The other cards are each worth their cost, except in the rare case when you have no more roads to build.

The game can be played quite well without these cards. Players can build roads, settlements and cities quite well. The game involves a random element of dice rolls which has a high luck factor; you can plan for the best spots on the board. You can work around some poor rolls with good trading. You can position yourself not to need certain resources more than others. Ultimately, a long string of bad luck, or bad luck at certain times, will kill your game.

The cards add the following elements to the game: a) additional avenue of victory, through Larget Army and the VP cards, b) opportunity to plan against the robber blocking your resources, c) opportunity to slow down the leader (with some luck), d) opportunity to win when other avenues are closed to you, such as settlement space on the board, e) resources that might be too hard to acquire otherwise.


Amun Re

In Amun-Re, power cards are one of the three things you can buy each round, along with bricks and farmers. There is no limit to the number of bricks you can buy, a space limitation on farmers, and a purchase limitation on cards. The cards give you: free farmers, free bricks, vp's if you fulfill certain requirements, slight control over the auction or slight control over the group "sacrifice" action. Any card can be discarded for 1 GP.

Many of these cards are simply more powerful than others, such as getting a free Farmer vs "bid again in the same province". Some cards are useless in certain situations, such as duplicates at the end of the game, vp cards when you can't fulfill the requirements, etc...

The game can be played well without the cards. Players can build pyramids, and buy farmers, acquire gold and auction. The random element of the game is acheived through the uncertainty of the auction and the random order in which the regions are available.

The cards add the following elements: a) additional vp's through region matching, and acquiring some types of resources, b) some power to manipulate the auctions via a surprise element, c) free resources that could be acquired anyway. In my opinion, the detracting elements of the cards outweighs the benefit in this game. a) could be achieved by having players buy what vp cards they wanted directly, or make them available through some other means, or simply by giving all bonuses met to all players. The b) cards are not powerful enough to warrant buying them; each player should simply start with one of each to be used once during the game. If the remaining cards consisted only of c) cards - free bricks, farmers or money - the game would be better off.

Practical Solution: when you buy a card, pick two, keep one.


Evo

In Evo, power cards have numerous different effects. Three are dealt to each player and others may be acquired at the expense of adaptations through the auctions. Most cards simulate a double or triple power adaptation for the round they are played in, some cards change the climante direction in a manner that benefits your planning. A few cards are useless. A few cards are heavily luck dependent.

The game can be played well without the cards. Players can auction off the adaptations, move, fight, etc... withou regards to the cards. They seem to server no function except to provide surprise. They are used to make the game less strategic and more wild, and to simulate uncertainty.

As suggested on the Geek, the cards are better off being picked by the player, instead of being dealt randomly.


Cosmic Encounter

In Cosmic Encounter, there are two types of cards in the same deck. Challenge cards are the dice rolling of the game. I will not concern myself with these. The remaing cards, Edits, Flares, Kickers, etc... are the power cards. The provide a limitless set of different experiences in the game.

While the game can be played without these cards, as the powers are already a random factor, one of the joys of Cosmic is that the cards are so over the top that they far outweigh all tactics in the game. Powerful cards will certainly determine the victor. There are so many of them however, and the interact in so many non-intuitive ways, that you can never be completely certain that the card you play is going to be the one to do it.

In a sense, it is specifically the surprise element of the cards that drives the game, as the game itself is of no strategic interest, except in regards to the formation of allies and laying out of the spotlight.


Princes of Florence

In Princes Of Florence (PoF), there are three types of cards: professions, bonuses and prestige cards. Profession cards are played for indirect points; their value depends on what areas you have invested in. You can alleviate the randomness of these cards by buying them early and planning around them. Bonus cards add between 2-4 indirect points, and you choose 1 card out of 5. The difference is usually a 1 point difference, and negligible to the game, except insofar as it does or doesn't let you play a work that you had not planned for correctly. Prestige cards give points directly, and again you choose 1 out of 5. They are typically worth between 5-8 points, and rarely you will not be able to select a worthwhile card. Again, buying them early allows you to plan around them, although this is not always easy. Buying them late introduces a large element of luck.

The game cannot be played without the profession cards, and thankfully the luck issue in them is irrelevent. The game could be played without the other cards. You couls score points by playing works.

The bonus cards add an element of strategy to catch up when you have no alternatives for playing a card, and for trying to secure best work in a round. The prestige cards introduce another means of acquiring vp's.

It is likely that the game would be slightly less luckier if the prestige cards were no longer available during the last two rounds, or if one could choose which ever cards they wanted during the last two rounds.


Goa

The power cards of Goa provide more of the resources that can otherwise be provided (but may be difficult to do so), as well as colonists which cannot be readily acquired. In general, they may be planned for. Unfortunately, many of the cards are stronger than others, especially as the game progresses. Colonist cards are useless after you have acquired all of your colonies. Progression for money is nigh impossible in a cash poor game. Due to the hand limit, which card you get when is a matter of high luck. If you have good ship production, getting more ships is less useful than getting spices, and vice versa.

The solution is to buy them before any other actions, and then plan your actions accordingly. This is not always possible, and some cards may go to waste.

The power cards are also used directly for victory points my matching symbols on the cards. If you match the symbols, you score more points, otherwise less points. Since a game of Goa is often won by 1-2 points, this introduces a high luck factor into the game.

The game could be played well without the cards and the card track, by reducing the number of auctions to six, for instance. The auctions provide a high degree of randomness with little luck (but we won't go into that).

The cards add: a) the possibility of acquiring items that are beyond your reach otherwise, and quicker, b) an additional means of vp's to win the game, c) colonists that could otherwise not be acquired.

I have written a long series of changes I would like to make in this game, elsewhere. Just addressing the above, you could remove all of the cards, change the track to acquiring colonist cards, and put symbols on the colonist cards which you could choose when you buy them.


These games have many things in common. The first four games involve allocating your pieces onto the board to control certain positions. The last two games require you to collect and play various items in order to advance your position independent of other's activities. The power cards also seem to be very similar, adding free items that are otherwise hard to acquire, or additional vp's. However, in each game, the game's balance indicates how strong a role the cards play in determining whether the cards are used to add a high degree of luck or simply randomness into the play.

Yehuda

The New Games

Fairy tales were once for adults only, full of horror, sexuality, love, morals, and all the good things that make up good art. Sometime in the last few centuries, the fairy tale changed in two ways: the tales became simplistic and less gruesome, and the audience became children.

To sell the old fairy tales to a new generation who scoff at them as children's stories is an uphill battle, both because the name itself has become stigmatized, and because the entire concept is viewed skeptically by a sour association. You can sell "thrillers" to adults, "historical fiction", and Margaret Atwood's "speculative fiction". But not "fairy tales".

"Board games" suffer from the same problem. Board and card games used to be for adults; today, mainstream board games require no more brain than the average 3-6 year old can wield. Games like Sorry. Trouble. Monopoly. Most "games" are not even games but "activities", such as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, etc... meant for breaking the ice at parties.

Mystifyingly enough, ask the same person if Chess or Bridge or Go are for children, and he will admit that they are for adults, but that he never thought to group them under the term "board game". But Bridge and Chess require so much time to learn to play well, and who has that much time?

I am happy to tell you that the fine art of producing quality board games for adults is making a comeback around the world.

The new games, these games of ours, are games for adults. You can think of them as midway between Monopoly and Chess: accessible like Monopoly, yet engaging for adults like Chess. They don't require a lifetime to master, but neither are they simply a way to pass time without thinking.

They are a lot of fun, like games should be, but they are also serious, intelligent, and often educational. They can stand against any other adult recreational activity, from television to computers to movies to newspapers to drinking beer, and can be considered at least as respectable a use of your time as any other.

Examples of these games, and good starting games, include Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride. Essential information about these games can be found at Board Game Geek. They can be bought at various online stores, such as Amazon.com or Funagain.com.

For a good list of games that can rekindle your interest in board games, check out my Holiday Gift Guide.

Board games used to be for kids; board games of the twentieth century were for kids. These games are not for kids.

Good riddance to the last century's board game world, and welcome to the new one.

Yehuda

The Five Qualities of a Good Gamer

The Five qualities of a Good Gamer are:

1. Good Manners

Good manners is a top quality of any human being. My definition of good manners is similar to that of Miss Manners' - the quality of taking care not to cause other people undue offense. This includes many things:

* Listening as much as talking, because other people have egos as big as yours
* Taking care to observe local customs
* Acting in a manner that increases everyone's enjoyment each session
* Keeping yourself and your surroundings clean and well-kept
* Good sportsmanship as both winner and loser

and many other items too numerous to mention.

2. Intelligence

You really can't be a Good Gamer without some modicum of "gaming intelligence" (I will qualify intelligence here as "gaming intelligence", because some otherwise very smart people in other areas just aren't going to shine when it comes to games). Time spent with them may still be very enjoyable, the friendship may still be valuable, and no judgement would ever be cast on their worthiness; but it's not really gaming. Maybe it's socializing.

Most people have difficulty grasping some rules and some games; this doesn't mean that they are not intelligent or "gaming intelligent". After a few attempts, they can pick it up. If they can't, then after a point you realize that you are never going to be challenged playing a game (or this game) with them.

3. Patience

This could be a sub-quality of good manners, but even a well mannered person may gracefully give up too quickly. To learn some games (and actually hear and understand the rules as they are explained), to become good at them, and to be respectful when others take time to make a difficult move, requires patience.

4. Curiosity

Curiosity is what is going to get you playing to begin with, keep you playing, get you to try out new moves, break out of group think, and get you to try new games.

5. Creativity

Similarly, you need creativity to try out new moves (curiosity to want to find new moves, creativity to actually come up with them) and to make the leap into a game's "system of thought". Creativity also allows gives you license to look at games and game systems and dream up something better - tweaks, variants, new ways to harness the fun beyond what comes in the box.

Yehuda

Culture Clash

We just ran into two situations of culture clash in our group.

In the first incident, gamers with a wargame background played against gamers with a Eurogame background. A deal was made during the game between player A (Eurogamer) and player B (wargamer), and unilaterally broken on the last round of the game by player B, after all of player A's actions were over. This was our first playing of anything resembling a wargame (Wallenstein).

The treachery was a complete surprise to the Eurogamer. He had left his postion completely open to player B, because he had assumed that a deal made is as binding as any rules of the game in print, unless given advanced notice of intent. Player B assumed that deals were to be made and broken when to the advantage of the one who wants to break it. Who was right?

The answer is that neither one was right or wrong. Both styles of play can be acceptable, as long as prior understanding is given before cracking the game open. It is the gaming group that must determine if deals in any game not specifying must be kept or only held under a balance of power. At the very least it is the group who play the game that must agree to it, before the game is started.

I like to think of it as players and characters. The players are the people that come to play, the characters are the personas they take up when they play. The players must decide what rules the characters must abide. Once done, it is up to the characters to decide what to do within the game rules.

Only note: the answer that "the lesson was learned for future games" is not acceptable to me, because it implies that player B "knew" a rule of the game that player A did not, and exploited this, which is patently unfair.

The second clash involved the classic question of what to do on your last turn when you can't win. Player C, a wargamer, decided to inflict a loss on player D who had attacked him (in a normal game play) earlier in the game. This one is much harder to answer, because it depends on why he did it. (We were playing Taj Mahal)

If he did it because it was really the best move for him to maximize his position, it seems "right". If it was done because he wanted to "remain in character", it could also be "right". On the other hand, if he did it in order to dissuade player D from attacking him in future games, it seems "wrong". I think some combination of the second and third was closest to the truth, but most unconsiously; it is just what wargamers do. They attack people who attacked them. This was another surprise to the Eurogamers.

My hesitation is that among wargamers, I believe that there are some who play with a kind of quasi-roleplaying which extends toward any game. They think that it is normal and correct to "get back" at an offending player during the game, even if it does not maximize their points, and would maintain that it has nothing to do with metagaming issues.

I don't want to be in a position of telling a player that they need to choose or to not choose a certain decision in a game. I hope that they will not choose actions that offend people outside the game board if they are playing with non-wargamers. I also hope that other players do not take offense when another player makes a reasonable move against them. That is why the first attribute of a gamer must be good manners.

Yehuda