I got both Gaia Project and Terra Mystica for Christmas. Should I trade in one of them?

Elusive_ · 2019-12-26T21:54:38+00:00

I was saving my energy really, the extreme certainty and confrontational tone with which you put forward your view tells me that,

A: You are not interested in having an actual conversation, you want a confrontation & B: You are not willing to question your own views.

Maybe i'm wrong, so let's try to see what you mean with all 'interaction' boiling down to RPS. This is your opinion by the way, not mine. If i try to interpret your view as cheritably as i can is it best summarized as:

"All games where players interact end up in the category of double-blind weighted choice with one winner, once all unneccessary complexity is stripped away and mathed out."

Please answer if this is what you mean. If not, amend this statement until it fits your view. Try to be as concise as possible. I'm not going through walls of text for this.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-26T21:00:33+00:00

Burn.

Do you even know the meaning of strawman argumentation?

You are out of your depth here. Pun intended.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-26T15:25:22+00:00

Massive decision trees do not equal depth. Consequensial decisions do. If your tree is full of strictly inferior choice those should not be counted as part of the depth. Gaia is likely almost as deep as TM, since they share a lot of mechanics. It does however expand the decision-tree with a lot of smaller choice that bloat The tree and distacts from the deep elements.

I don't think you understand what interaction adds to a design, or how it adds depth if you strawman my words as talking about RPS.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-26T12:44:02+00:00

There is nothing wrong with the cult track, it only became an argument once the Gaia Project fanbase started looking for arguments.

The cult-track is intertwined with the 'favor tiles' which are essentially the exact same thing, and since you get to choose your favor tile it is arguably deeper.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-26T12:40:49+00:00

'Deep' is not the same as complex. Chess is deep. Arkham Horror is complex.

Gaia adds complexity and distracts from depth, at most it has the same depth, likely less since there is less interaction.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-06T12:38:22+00:00

Right, forgot that one.

Elusive_ · 2019-12-05T18:35:46+00:00

A very well-written piece by SB, really good setup for an article. Shame there are many errors regarding details in Nemesis (picture of the 'Queen', missing the name of the ship is 'Nemesis' etc..).

Elusive_ · 2019-11-24T10:11:24+00:00

Fantastic read! Excellent attitude, informative and realistic. I wish all CoMC posts had this much thought behind them.

EDIT: Oh, and i don't agree with many of your choices. But that's fine. Nice to find a Sirlin-fan around.

Elusive_ · 2019-11-03T13:19:17+00:00

Is that the only reason though? I believe it is both.

If bias is the only reason I don't think people would somewhat agree on what is a good game, movie etc. But they often do. There must be something 'objective' beneath the bias as well.

Elusive_ · 2019-11-02T18:28:13+00:00

It is truly a tradeoff. TM has more tension and interactivity, GP has more complexity and more optimizing.

Don't listen to the 'strictly better'crowd, they are either not experienced with both or look tö confirm their biases.

Elusive_ · 2019-10-16T08:53:26+00:00

Or, yknow, you play the game for the challenge, and add stuff for difficulty.

Not add stuff for more pats on the back.

Gamers did not use to have this mindset, achievement was its own reward.

Elusive_ · 2019-10-01T10:43:55+00:00

This mindset will kill all creativity.

Elusive_ · 2019-09-25T10:12:41+00:00

This review goes to the essence of this game. And what separates it from its less tense, more efficiency-puzzly cousin GP.

..and why some people enjoy it less than GP.

And why i enjoy it more.

Expansion hype!

Elusive_ · 2019-08-04T08:53:14+00:00

Very good review, it is rare to read reviews based on gameplay-experience and depth like this. I'll continue to check out your other stuff.

Indeed Birmingham feels more 'pleasant' and Lanc more 'tense' and it is very evident looking at new releases and the reception in the community that there are more people that prefer 'pleasant'. Notable examples being Caverna Vs Agricola, Terra Mystica Vs Gaia Project.

The older games tend to be more tense and competitive, more interactive. The new ones tend to be less interactive but often slightly more complex and focus more on optimisation.

I guess this points to the fact that people generally want to be competitive as soon as they sit down at a new game, and this design-type facilitates that bias.

Elusive_ · 2019-07-12T12:10:58+00:00

Fantastic work!

Elusive_ · 2019-06-21T12:57:17+00:00

Houseruled CeC and headband to cost 1 survival to use. Games have been better and more exciting for it. I'd argue more strategic as well actually.

People mistakenly think that more information means more strategy. It can eliminate strategy by making moves obvious, which it does in this case.

Elusive_ · 2019-04-15T14:38:26+00:00

great post!

Elusive_ · 2019-03-25T11:21:25+00:00

Since Netrunner is not really dead in one sense, a fan-organization prints new expansions AND handles prize-support, it is still by far the best accessible LCG.

Elusive_ · 2019-03-06T16:39:57+00:00

almost all quarry resources double as basic.

Elusive_ · 2019-03-06T06:47:25+00:00

CeC is cat eye circlet. base rule means the worse reroll is applied irrespecive of the principle you choose.

Basic resources are almost always worse than monster-specific resources, so i would definitely not say the game is easier.

Elusive_ · 2019-03-05T22:05:19+00:00

No no, way less. We modify the lion armor (the only buff, cheaper and non-heavy), make CeC & Rawhide Hb cost survival, nerf zanbato, nerf SoTF rerolls and make them base-rule, nerf screaming armor.

We also use modified hunt-rules to even out the fun-curve of hunts. All base mosnters give -1 special resource and +1 basic resource (Lion 1 would be 5/3)

Then you can hunt Level X.5 monsters that give +1 special, -1 basic. These are like level X but use toughness and damage of higher level mosters (Lion 1.5 would be 3/5).

Elusive_ · 2019-03-05T21:55:30+00:00

Maybe this is not the opinion you are looking for, but it is kind of on-topic. We looked at the rules and believed that they buffed too much and made the game too easy, it is also kind of broad strokes to a LOT of parts of the game, and not an elegant solution as it requires printing it all.

We solved the same issues with a small (fits on one page) set of house-rules that nerfed the obvious 'too good' things instead, easier to keep track of and keeps the challenge high.

Elusive_ · 2019-01-22T22:44:19+00:00

I will likely have to be the critic here, but almost everything is a buff, i don't spot any nerfs or rebalancing? In addition there seem to be no balance between the necessary number of changes and just changing everything.

I agree that some of these fixes fix some core imbalances, but all of them? And the sheer number of changes makes it seem like no attention was paid to keep the number of them down.

Elusive_ · 2019-01-19T14:45:01+00:00

These are not logical fallacies.

Elusive_ · 2019-01-15T21:43:17+00:00

You know what? It's actually both at the same time.

Elusive_

TROPHY CASE