msaari 📚2d ago

This has been a good week of games. We started with afternoon games on Monday. One player dropped out, so the original plan of a four-player game of Imperial turned into a three-player game of Indonesia. I had not played Indonesia with three before, so I was curious to find out how it works.

Turns out it's good. The three-player game is different, and my favourite is either four or five – don't know yet – but I would definitely not say no to a three-player game. The game runs longer, which changes the dynamics of it. It's also very interesting to see how differently things can develop. This time, no spice companies were started on the first round, leading to quick initial city growth. The Halmahera shipping company was never started, which changed the shipping layout.

I was happily ahead in the early game. A friend complained they had lost the game, badly, and guess who won? They didn't realize they were running away with the game until I told them.

I've been wondering how useful the 100× turn order bid multiplier is. Now, I would've needed that. I was badly hurt by the turn order on what turned out to be the last turn. I bid 10,000 for the turn order on the last turn – and I only had the 25× multiplier! – and the second player bid 10,025 and ran away with the Siap Saji market. With the 100× multiplier I could've bid 40,000 and that would've secured me a much better position.

I think it's a brilliant idea that the money spent on bidding for turn order counts for your final score.

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Tuesday was the casual group, and we continued with Bomb Busters. It's a lovely co-op game, and the challenge is delightful now that we have the correct rules and it's not too easy. We still managed to pass all seven missions. Next week, we'll get into new territory and hopefully somewhat harder missions.

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Wednesday was the main game group day, and we played 18Korea with five players, including one total 18xx newbie. We gave him a very quick rules explanation (ten minutes or so), and off we went. What's better than throwing new players right at the deep end? I was sure he could swim, and swim he did.

Everybody knows it's possible to buy trains from all companies, and not just your own. But have you ever seen that happen? I've played 18xx games a lot and have never seen that, but in this game it did! I managed to sell one of my 5E trains to a company looking for a permanent train. The buyer was the new guy so I suppose the ethical side of it is slightly dubious, but I'm ready to defend my actions – I thought it was a real win-win scenario, I was already winning by a lot, and we were cross-invested. Mostly I was just happy to see a train purchase across players.

We had Rason among the initial Northern Korea companies. We have a meta where Rason is considered the best early company. The player who started it would've been a bit poor without help and we could've just not invest in it, but I've been in a situation where Rason makes a ton of money – 300–400 on OR 1.2 – and I don't have any shares, so I didn't want to repeat that. So, we funded Rason. The shares were split 4-3-2-1 or so, and I got three, so I was happy. In the end, Rason wasn't a great company. After the initial burst, it defected to South and got good tokens, but it had to withdraw a lot. I sold my shares at the right time and even thought it ran for 1170 at the end, it was a very low value share.

I started Sinuju on the first SR and even though it had a slow start, it had the Long Distance Specialist asset (pays 20 won extra per tile for the longest run on each OR), and that made me a ton of money during the game, making funding trains easier.

We've played seven games of 18Korea so far. The first one was a bit of a bust and ended before the war, so it doesn't really count. Of the other six, I've won five. For some reason, I'm better in 18Korea than in most other 18xx games (or the other players make more mistakes in 18Korea). This game was mostly close – I won clearly with 8,188 won, but the other four players were all within 572 won (6,280 to 6,852 won). The difference between the fourth and the fifth place was just 4 won, which is practically a tie.

#boardgames @18xx #18xx

Show threadFearteiler2d ago
@msaari @18xx maybe you are better in 18Korea than in other 18xx-games, because 18Korea is a more party game than the other, that you played?
Show threadmsaari 📚2d ago

@Fearteiler @18xx What does that mean? I don’t think it’s a party game. Sure, the assets are strong, but when everyone has a strong asset, it doesn’t matter that much. Also, I was the last person to pick an asset in this game.

One player made a mistake of buying one 3-train too much. That’s a somewhat typical mistake in any 18xx game, but of course it usually doesn’t lead to your company being obliterated in a war 😁

I think the problems you tackle in 18Korea are not unusual, but it has some interesting new ways in which you can make mistakes.

Show threadFearteiler1d ago
@msaari @18xx partygame means, that the game isnt construct for competitive gaming. I told my point of view here
https://nrw.social/@Fearteiler/115657560013920382
Fearteiler (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image #18Korea ist - trotz mehrfacher Nennung in der Regel - kein Einsteiger-Spiel. Es hat mehrere Regeldetails, die schon ungewöhnlich sind: - Spezialfähigkeiten mit Snakedraft - Versteigerungen der Firmen, um sie dann zu floaten mit 20% Direktorenshare (parprice-Bandbreite abhängig von der Phase) - nach einer gewissen Zeit (abhängig vom Kauf der ersten 4er-Lok) wird auf dem Spielfeld Tabularasa gemacht. Das heißt, dass Nordkorea alle Plättchen und Firmen verliert - außer die nordkoreanischen... 2/6

NRW.social
Show threadmsaari 📚19h ago

@Fearteiler @18xx I see the game gets under your skin somehow. But I agree with Frankie: there are no random elements in the game. I won the game despite choosing my first asset card second to last, so either there were strong asset cards for everyone or people chose their asset cards poorly.

(There are a couple of asset cards that are maybe too strong. I'm happy Gold Mine hasn't shown up recently. I think the game may be better without that one.)

For example, we had the Defector that lets you move your stations South during the war that really annoyed you, and it was fine. The company that owned it was the best moneymaker before the war, and one of the worst companies after thanks to poorly played trains, and I played well and dumped those shares at the right time.

Did Defector do interesting things here? Yes, it did: it meant that company could 100% focus on printing money in the North before the war. That changed my investing plans, and without it, I'd have done different things. So did that card improve the experience? Yes, it changed the decision space in an interesting way.

I think the "18xx party game" reputation is ill-placed, there's no reason why you can't play 18Korea just as seriously as any other 18xx game. You're still allowed to be frustrated and annoyed by it – I know the feeling, I have nothing good to say about 18Ireland for example. I found that one very frustrating.

Show threadFearteiler
@msaari @18xx the pick of the abilities isnt Balance and not player-balanceable. That's the reason, why I said so.
1:10pmWeb
Show threadmsaari 📚8h ago

@Fearteiler @18xx You could implement bidding for initial turn order. However, in any of the games I've played so far, I probably would've bid zero, because there are always at least n good assets where n is the number of players.

Like this time: I picked fourth in a five-player game and still got one great asset, one helpful asset and one useless asset.

Players aren't completely without tools to fight back, either. When I see someone with the Defector asset start Rason, I'm buying as many shares as I can. Letting them run with it alone is poor play. When the shares went 4-3-2-1, I was the biggest winner there with my three shares, not the guy who got the good asset combined with the best company.

If someone gets Gold Mine, which is likely the most OP asset there is, they definitely can't get 60% of that company.

But yes, you have to accept the assets aren't all equally good. Having an auction for the assets would help balance them, but given how many assets there are, it would make the game much longer. There's value in having a game that has potential to play in under three hours, and I'd rather have that than a well-balanced auction.

Auctions are boring; the game is more fun this way. But that's definitely something where you can disagree. But calling it a party game is a bit much =D