The Tao of Gaming

One of the dangers in any form of communication, especially publishing (including blogging) is becoming 'locked in' to a previously declared position. People dislike admitting they were wrong, or may be wrong. They become invested in their position. You see it all the time.

Someone asked (via email) a while ago if I'd review Maharaja, and it's a good topic. I often write to flesh out ideas that I may have semi-consciously. Often, when I write a strategy article I type something up ("Green rules!") and then go back and read it and get a nagging thought. Then a few days later I realize I had the wrong spin ("Green rules, but because it's a primary color!"). Often, the published article contains at least one reversal from a draft.

And sometimes people just say I'm wrong. That helps too. (Witness the hospice debates in Puerto Rico).

Anyway, when I dismissed Maharaja, I didn't know exactly why. I knew it had a runaway leader (or perhaps fallaway loser) problem, but I like other games that suffer from that (Ursuppe). So I figured reviewing the game might give me insight. After a few false starts, I stumbled on the reasons I gave. After editing (and modifying them), I think I've captured what was gnawing at me. I don't think I'm locked in, but when answering Chris' comments, I certainly felt the "Defend your position" urge. I think I'm onto something. No surprise there, I'm invested.

Anyway, no real point. I still think I'm right, but let the reader beware.

Sadly, I'm not writing about politics. Then I could be psychologically invested, and get a few hundred thousand dollars from the government. Fiscal investment is nice, too.

Addenda:
I noticed an offhand comment about investment in my Amun-Re review. (Another game I disliked and couldn't immediately explain why). I think it's safe to say that I dislike games that combine analysis with simultaneous decision making that involve evaluating other people's positions. Or at least I find the games disconcerting (I use the word "jarring" in my review).

Got to All Fun and Games and explained Power Grid to a group of new players. Do I want to play? No thank you, as in walked an opponent for War of the Ring. Explained the rules and set up the game. I played the Fellowship; I believe they have to track more rules, making Shadow easier to learn. [I suspect Shadow may be harder to play well, but they do have less rules].

Saruman arrived on the field while the fellowship set off from Rivendell. The second move revealed them -- I decided to go through High Pass and take the long way, avoiding Moria.

I had decided on a fast fellowship strategy, not splitting off anyone unless absolutely necessary. The first successful hunts only did minor corruption or revealed the fellowship, so I didn't sacrifice Gandalf, figuring that Lorien would soak up a point. Muster events gathered the entire Elven army (save for one regular), so spare muster dice went to put the Elves at war so they could sortie.

Saruman built up a small, but reasonable force and entered Rohan. Meanwhile, the Witch King arrived and marched for Minas Tirith. My opponent (Justin) got mildly unlucky in battles, balanced with moderate good luck on the hunt. Gandalf was still Grey, so Isengard didn't worry about Ents (I did disclose the existence of a few cards).

Disaster struck when the fellowship's move into Lorien got detected, revealing them prematurely. With only three corruption, I decided to press ahead. Isengard conquered Helm's deep with little trouble. (I never saw a Rohan Muster event, and didn't spend the actions to put them at war).

A minor orc army (with a Nazgul) landed on the fellowship, providing two hunt rerolls. Then I made a huge mistake: I decided that Lorien could defeat the orc army and threaten Dul Guldor (which was empty) even though another minor army could counter-attack. I destroyed the first army, but the counterattack eliminated the elves. (Total of about 6 orcs (1 elite) and 2 Nazgul vs 5 Elves (4 Elite) + Leader). The orcs waltzed into Lorien, although the fellowship scampered away unhindered.

The Witch King sat at the Gates of Minas Trith, which was too lightly defended to stand for long, so (using "I will go alone") I sent Strider and Legolas for support. Next action, I crowned Aragorn and prayed that Minas Tirith could last for several rounds of battle. I had a handful of cards that help Aragorn defend Rohan or Gondor. If I could cripple the Witch King's army, Dol Amroth (besieged by a small force) would never be seriously threatened.

Minas Tirith fell in the opening wave.

Suddenly desperate, I rushed the fellowship towards Mordor. Gandalf (finally) died and re-appeared in Fangorn. The Roharim formed (through massive muster cards) in Edoras to threaten either the Witch King or Isengard army, should they leave a stronghold. Then Saruman decided to attack Edoras.

That turn saw six hunt dice (four allocated, two rolled), so I had two more dice. Saruman emptied Helm's Deep to take out Rohan's final army, and launched the attack with his last die. These mistakes proved costly as "scouts" allowed a retreat before battle and the Rohan army ran back to reclaim Helm's Deep with my last two actions.

Meanwhile the fellowship arrived in Mordor. By this point, I had played the "Phial of Galadriel" (the '-2' corruption tile) as the only special tile, so the hunt tiles were favorable. "Worn with Sorry and Toil" (which causes one random discard per fellowship death) was on the table. Sauron has six of the necessary ten points, while besieging Dol Amroth and preparing to retake Helm's Deep.

The next turn I played "Elven Rope" (another favorable hunt tile) and advanced twice (sacrificing a character and losing a card both times). Helm's Deep succumbed to the onslaught.

The final turn saw the free people muster an elite unite in Dol Amroth and play "Mithril Coat and Sting" (which allows for a hunt tile redraw) before taking the final steps to the Crack of Doom. The desperation siege of Dol Amroth failed and the fellowship dunked the ring. Without any stops or corruption tiles, only two reveals out of the first three tiles could stop me (as I could reject the first unfavourable tile).

Another tense game. All three of my games have come down to the wire. Justin played well. The first game overwhelms with details. Having to read each card, study characters, the board and asking what your opponents cards do can be taxing. There is a lot to keep track of, even beyond the rules. If Justin had know about the 'Scouts' card, he probably would have won before the Fellowship arrived in Mordor.

The game took a touch under three hours (including rules, setup and cleanup).

Despite the expense and acknowledging War of the Ring's flaws, it's a blast. The game oozes theme and time flies by. Now I just need someone to paint my set ...

Next on the table: a three player game of Lawless, a game by another Bruno from France, Mr. Cathala. Each player tries to build up their ranch by playing land, cattle (which needs land to graze) and cowboys (to keep the cattle from wandering away). Each turn you get six actions to draft face up cards (which cost 1-6, depending on slot) and play cards (cost on the card). Apart from the three basic types (Land, Cattle, Cowboys) the deck contains various thematic cards, mainly of the "Take that!" variety. You earn money by selling cattle and can spend money for extra actions. Lawless ends when either the bank or deck runs out, at which point you score based on land, cattle, cowhands and money. Our game took an hour, with two mitigating factors: the only experienced player re-read the rules while explaining them, and one of the opening cards (The Mayor) allows its owner to re-arrange the draftable cards each turn. Future plays should clock in at thirty minutes or so. An agreeable filler, but I'm happy playing someone else's copy.

If I ponder a game while commuting, that's a good sign. If I'm still thinking about it after a few plays, that's great. I like variety, so most games get played a few times then dismissed. Maharaja's cycle: intriguing, worrying, dismissed. Despite great acclaim and glowing reviews (and a nice pedigree); this boat sails without me.

The goal: Build seven palaces; but palaces take money. The Maharaja moves around the map and pays the architects based on their work displayed in the visited city. Work includes palaces, houses, or simply being there to personally bend the ear of the esteemed leader. I won't bother with the full rules (they are online). [One of the nice aspects of the last few years is that reviews can dispense with detailed discussions of the mechanics]. The flaws of this game come from an unlikely source: the action wheel.

With the action wheel, each player picks an action, for a simultaneous decision. Maharaja expands this: each player picks two actions. This simple change squares the available options from nine to eighty-one per player. [Even if each player only has five reasonable actions that number leaps to twenty five combinations]. Once all players dial in their actions, the first player reveals his choices and takes his turn.

The turn involves taking the actions (in any order), interspersed with moving around. Moving is important for two reasons: it costs money (paid to other players) and some actions (like Palace Building) occur at the current location. A player chooses the order of actions and movement during his turn, so analyze, make rough plans (the selection) then analyze again during your actual turn.For example, "Building Houses" doesn't specify where they are built: in villages (to allow the player to move between cities and earn money from other players moves) or in the current city (to impress the Maharaja). So the balance between pre-planning and moving during a turn works well (and reminds me of Game of Thrones).

Going early provides many benefits: palaces built in central locations please the Maharaja, so they score more when money gets handed out. Mechanically, going first means perfect planning. I dial in my result and know exactly what I'm going to do. There is a balancing factor: player order is determined by roles (numbered 1, 2, etc) and each role also has a special power. Going first confers no extra benefit; going later get more powerful. One of the actions a player can choose: claim another role. (If I take it from another player, they immediately take one of the unused roles).

The later roles provide discounts and benefits; but usually only for a specific action. For example, "The Artisan" (role #6) reduces Palace cost from 12 to 9. So the artisan usually picks the "Build a palace" action. But another player, low on money, may take that role away before the Artisan's turn. That player paid a price to (perhaps inadvertantly) hurt the artisan, so malice alone can't explain it. Nevertheless, players in later positions are at a planning disadvantage.

Turn order plays a part in many games, often following an orderly progression. Here any player can adjust their turn order (usually bumping an opponent out). This costs one (of two) actions each turn and may not last even until the next turn. Someone else may reverse your choice.

The conflict: going early allows better planning; going later allows you to lock in going early next turn. Going last lets you possibly reverse someone else. Of course, just because you start the turn going last, you may wind up going in the middle (if someone takes your role. Remember, the later roles have nice powers). This results in a great big game of King of the Hill, each player jumping around in turn order! First game: fascinating. But then frustrating.

Consider Fist of Dragonstones. Many people (myself included) dislike blind bidding games where losing bids pay. Maharaja combines Fist of Dragonstones style, albeit in a novel form, with fiddly board play that requires and rewards forward planning. Despite my initial enthusiasm, I quickly cooled on Tikal / Java / Mexica.

Take an interesting simultaneous decision (action choice) mechanic and, based on board position, each player chooses from a variety of plans. But only the first player's plan happens. Everyone else must react to the changes that occur between when they choose and when they act. The problem isn't complexity; Maharaja is no more complex than Puerto Rico. However, in Puerto Rico, you make your decision when you act. You have almost complete information about what the game state will be. Here, you must plan based on a position that can wildly change before you get to implement your plan. Adding insult to injury, if you select an action you can't (or won't) take, every other player gets bonus money (As if the lose of an action wasn't enough! Maharaja has about ten turns, actions are in short supply).

Worse yet, the money mechanism contains positive feedback. Building Palaces provide money, which can be used to buy more palaces. And building first in the Maharaja's current city helps to place highly (The first palace scores three points instead of one). More money lets the leader build palaces without needing as many "Gain two gold" actions.

So, each of my three games saw the following: the first player gets a solid setup on turn one, as do some of the other players. Perhaps one player decided to just go to the Maharaja's second city. But a later player played the "redirect the maharaja" to adjust the city order. These type of plays (if not this particular one) occur constantly. The player who built in the second city won't earn money for another few turns. He's out.

Ideally, these type of setbacks balance out. With Maharaja's positive feedback, they don't. And playing well does not guarantee you won't be knocked out early. Unless you go first (or sometimes, last) you can't guarantee what will happen. You pick your actions without full information, and players who act after you may reverse your decisions.

I'm not particularly bitter about Maharaja. I've won, I've contended, and I've lost. But in each case, one (or more) players had no hope in the last half (or more) of the game. Sometimes through miscalculation, other times by an unfortunate choice that might have worked, under different circumstances.

Overall, Maharaja tries to combine the quirky chaos of a blind bidding auction game with a detailed forward planning board game, then makes things worse with a rich-get-richer income scheme. Each of Maharaja's parts innovates; but the parts all pull in different directions for an unsatisfying result. I like simultaneous decisions, but without being sure about the state of the game when they will be implemented, planning occassionally feels like a sick joke. I'd consider playing again, but only with an auction for starting role selection (a variant suggested in the rules). Perhaps that one rule would balance the game, and it would certainly help. Even then, I suspect that the mixture of mechanisms would still leave me cold.

Author	Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling
Players	2-5
Company	Rio Grande Games (Phalanx)
Time	90-120 minutes
Cost	$35

Buy it from Funagain!

Update:
Chris Farrell made some good points in his comment, and I responded. Take a look.

Update: Given the points made by Chris, and that I'm in the minority, Mikko's posting made me pause. I consider Maharaja flawed; but it's not garbage. I rate it (on BGG) a '5'. Not good, not in the class of games I want to play again, but I won't gnaw my arm off to avoid it. [Technically, by BGG standards, I should rate it a '4' I suppose, but it's an interesting try. Just new enough to not be derivative. I like the roles combining with turn order.] I just don't think the game comes together. I may still play Maharaja again (Chris's comments make me wonder if there wasn't some groupthink coloring my views). Who knows? My views may change ...

In a comment to a prior post, Iain asked for a basic Game Theory book. Larry Levy mentioned:

I still think the best book for what you're looking for is J.D. Williams' The Compleat Strategist. This explains the basics of game theory (mostly two-person zero sum, which covers a lot of interesting cases and is certainly the best introduction to this discipline) and does so in an entertaining and sometimes hilarious fashion. I'm pretty sure the book doesn't use anything more complex than simple arithmetic.

In fact, that's the book I pulled off the shelf when I wanted to brush up. Along with "How to Lie with Statistics," one of the better math for non-math type reads out there.

But I want something more mathy. Not too mathy, I like English more than formula after formula, but something that assumes a basic technical background. I can do Linear Algebra, program, etc. [At one time, I could do hoary math. But I've gotten my degree so I don't do that anymore]. The problem with Williams book is that it takes 5 pages to tell me what to do a simple formula, and while it gives an alorithm for how to solve these things, it doesn't mention 'why' it works. To me, that's annoying.

So, does anyone have any mid-range books on Game Theory or Developing automated computer opponents ("AI") worth reading? [Most of the AI books I've glanced at focus on pathfinding, shooters, etc. Not strategy games, although the O'Rielly book is interesting, as always.]

Really good websites also appreciated. Please drop them in the comments for everyone.

Found via Pejman:

An interesting article on Computer Go. Go appears the least solvable of all of the traditional games. World-class computer opponents exist for Chess, Checkers, and Backgammon. The idea of training Neural Networks using a database of professional games and evaluating the position probabalistically seems genius. Who knows, this project may produce the first master level computer go opponent.

Neural nets worked for backgammon, after all. Last year I tried the free version of Jellyfish with staggering losses. Of course, I'm not a master player, but the fact that master Backgammon players consult with their (snarky) computers after a match says volumes.

I don't play Go much, despite it's depth and elegance. strong players often can't explain what makes a good move to weaker players. Learning involves study and bashing your head against the wall, and while I like studying games as much as anyone, I found the progress depressingly slow.

Update:

I tried to post the following as a comment on Pej's site, but failed.

[Continuing laocoon's comment], I would imagine that the Neural Net would be used to generate candidate moves for strategic positions (particularly openings and for 'quiet' moves in general), the 'probability' function would be used to evaluate positions (using the NN to determine moves, likely counters, etc) and a tactical engine would handle localized fighting. [Even my old Sargon chess program in the early 80s always searched through the end of a capture sequence]. Endgames can also be solved handled analytically once the parts of the board cease to interact.

I played my first game at BrettSpielWelt Labor Day Weekend. Now I've logged a touch over 300 games. The social aspect of online games game suffer, no doubt. Comments can be easy to misconstrue, as each player hears the tone they expect, and it's just more difficult to type than chat. Still, the problem solving aspect gets a full, fast workout online.

I also play Bridge online at OKBridge (Username: Renauld). This is more social, since I'm playing with college friends.

I didn't leap at BSW, since I'm lucky enough to have frequent gaming sessions. But I enjoy the chance to explore titles in detail. I'm pretty much done with St. Petersburg, playing San Juan sometimes, and I think I've finally figured out Power Grid.

If you see me, say hi!

The last post is interesting to few gamers; but I'm one of them. But it comes down to: why play games?

Social enjoyment counts for something, but system analysis interests me (and, I suspect, anyone still reading). The game presents a puzzle, with actual opponents as the engine of opposition. Solving a jigsaw puzzle (or solitaire, or those iron rings puzzles) may be interseting once, but a well done game provides repeat plays.

Ideally, a game's mechanisms should appear obvious (and easy to explain), while the underlying system remains hidden, full of unexpected avenues with plenty of places to explore. Given a game worth exploring, It's no surprise that I go exploring.

The original rules of golf (back many hundreds of years) included the gentleman's agreement that forbid practicing. Right now many gamers want to discover a game's strategies on their own (and I can't argue with that emotion); personally, after a few games I'm ready to go to the driving range to work some issues out.

P.S. My golf game sucks. So I don't play.

How to solve a math problem, the engineering way:

1. Dimly recall that you studied it somewhere.


2. Dig up the likeliest book.


3. Confirm that it describes the solution.


4. Balk at the math involved.


5. Download a tool that solves the problem in a second.

To recap: while playing Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, we have a battle we are winning 3 to 2 (before cards) and both players have the cards 1-5.

In running the calculation, I had to assign a payout matrix.

	1	2	3	4	5
1	10,-10	-2,2	-9,9	-7,7	-5,5
2	8,-8	10,-10	-2,2	-9,9	-7,7
3	6,-6	8,-8	10,-10	-2,2	-9,9
4	4,-4	6,-6	8,-8	10,-10	-2,2
5	2,-2	4,-4	6,-6	8,-8	10,-10

How to read that: Left side are our cards choices, top side is our opponents choice. If we both play the same number, then the result is (10,-10). That's the best possible result for us, since we win the battle and don't lose any ground. As a frame of reference, I valued winning a piece at 10 points. Then I called each pip two points. If we tie (my opponent plays a card one higher) then both pieces die. I'm going to call that a marginal victory for my opponent (reasonable if playing Sauron), but mitigated because he used a better card. Similarly, if my opponent wins by playing a 3 to my 1, I did't call that the full ten points, but the loss is more than six points (which I should do if using 10 points for winning and 2 point per pip difference).

Optimal play according to Gambit:

• Play the 5 and guarantee the win 62.4% of the time.


• Play the 1 (and try to win cheaply) 14.3% of the time.


• Play the 3 (and prevent the countershot) 11.0% of the time.


• Play the 4 (risking the draw, crushing a middle card) 7.2% of the time.


• Play the 2 (why not?) 5.1% of the time.

I'm glad that I put the first three choices in the correct order, but I expected a more even distribution. Discounting the 4 & 2 (as I did), I took the five 54% of the time (rounded to half). But even with two more choices, theory says take the win nearly 2/3rds of the time. This is much sharper than a power distribution.

You can quibble with the assumptions. Is one card pip really worth 2 points (given that a piece is worth 10)? I tried it with 1 point and playing '5' shot up to 80% (with my opponent conceding with a '1' 80% of the time). Intuitively that makes sense: as pieces become more valuable you take the win more often. Conversely, if I increase the value of the cards in relation to the pieces, playing the '5' becomes a weaker choice.

One ignored effect is that by playing 5:1, I may lose the ability to force a win in the next battle. Let's model that by changing the (5,1) cell to a payout of (1,-1), while leaving the rest of the model untouched. The result leaves the 5 at 60%. Amazingly, the second choice shoots from 14.3% to 18.6%, absorbing a few points from the worst result (the '2', which falls to 2%). But the rank ordering doesn't change.

Don't read too much into the 'optimal' result. [Optimal doesn't mean best, which is to know the card my opponent will play and react accordingly. Optimal means you can't improve on this against a perfect opponent. Opponents are rarely perfect.] In addition, this payout matrix is artificial. The value of a piece changes according to the game situation.

The dizzying insight: don't overthink simple situations. Even rating cards highly, pick the obvious play more than half the time, closer to 2/3rds. But remember the important caveat: this assumes a sure win. Real games rarely cooperate...

I'm getting old, but that hardly qualifies as the grimmest day of the year.

Playing Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, simultaneous decision problems loom in my mind. Consider a simple case: I have a '3' character, my opponent has a '2.' Each of us must play a card 1-5. High total wins. I can guarantee the win by playing my five. My opponent, knowing that, can play the '1'. Since you lose the cards until you've played them all, I win but now have a much worse hand for the next battle. Knowing this, I could play a '1' to win the battle but keep card parity. So my opponent could play a '3'.

Game theory provides an answer (assuming we can decide on a payout matrix); but geeky gamers know game theory. Unfortunately I can't do it in my head except for simple cases, and 5x5 matrices are "non-trivial". So it comes down to psychology, reading the opponent, and evaluating the board position ["Can I afford to lose this battle if I guess wrong?", "Card value isn't important now" and other questions outside of the scope of our little thought experiment...]. In short, I guess.

Against novice gamers, my instincts usually guide me true. (In fact, I taught LotR: the Confrontation to a new gamer and my win embarrassed me). Against experienced gamers, I constantly second-guess myself and go one level too deep or one level too shallow in my thinking, and invariably wind up with a fatal dose of Iocane powder.

So, I'm wondering if there is a rule of thumb that may help. Perhaps my decision should follow a Power Law. So, If I have "N" levels if "If he knows that I know" that means:

1. Pick the obvious move some percantage X, in our example, play the 5 and win.


2. Pick the move that responds to the expected counter percantage X/2 ("Play the 1 and win cheaply, as your opponent will play the 1")


3. Pick the move that responds to the expected counter-counter X/3 percent ("Play the 3 to counter the 3"


4. Keep going throught the choices...

So if I had three levels of thinking, I have x+x/2+x/3=100%, so 11x=600%, so x=54%. The final answer: take the obvious move 1/2 of the time, the counter 1/4 of the time, and the counter-counter 1/6, (and the 4th level 1/12, etc). Perhaps I'll work this case out analytically later to see what it says. I'm sure the results will surprise me. (Say, does anyone know of a good site that will do this calculation for me?)

This psychological/analytic choice appears in many guises. I suppose the most common form is a blind ("In the fist") auction, or a "Once-around" where you bid before all/most of the other players. Adel Verpflichtect took this idea (and scant else) and turned it into a classic. Interestingly, I don't consider Poker to fall into this category. The cards will win or lose on their own, and I'm merely trying to maximize my wins and minimize my losses (by bluffing, folding losing hands, betting for value, etc).

Mikko Saari's latest session report contains the following:

[My brother is] a huge fan of White Wolf Vampire games (except the RPG)

What game is he referring to? I couldn't think of any WW except the RPG. Then I realized he may mean the Collectable Card Game. Does he mean the Live Action Role Playing Game?

I like Vampire, having played the RPG, CCG and LARP, although each has it's share of problems. Am I missing out a category of games?

I don't have one. However, I think it's safe to consider emails asking game-related questions as fair grounds for publication. Certainly if you have a game-question and don't want the answer published, let me know. Of course, I may wind up just answering via the blog (without indicating that I got a letter about it).

My associate program. I've updated my sidebar to have my link to Funagain. I've been an associate for a while; I didn't expect to get rich and my expectations have been easily met. This isn't a tipjar, but if you plan to buy from Funagain I'd certainly appreciate it.

In a strict sense, this blog is due to Powerblogs reasonable ($15/yr) introductory rate and to Eugene Volokh for pointing it out.

I played Stratego as a kid. Despite being a mass-market game, Stratego forces you to make real choices. When I look back on my childhood games, Scrabble is the only one I've played as an adult (not counting games with children). But I've played improvements of Stratego. Hera and Zeus, one of the few games I've played 50+ times face-to-face, clearly derives from Stratego (and was originally marketed as a Stratego Card Game, before getting it's mythological makeover).

Lord of the Rings — The Confrontation trims Stratego down from it's original size. Each player only has 9 pieces, all different. The board shrinks to fit, having seventeen spaces arranged as a diamond: Shire at the top, Mordor at the Bottom. Each space can hold two friendly pieces (the Shire and Mordor can hold four), and pieces can only move forward (usually to a choice of two spaces, but having more restricted choices as they advance or hit the edge of the board). Unlike Stratego (or Hera and Zeus), combat doesn't just compare two numbers. Each player has a hand of nine cards, and when a fight occurs, both pieces are revealed, then each player chooses a card. If both players picked a number, highest total wins (with both pieces eliminated on a tie). Of course, you don't get played cards back you've used each one. Both players also own several special cards, like "Retreat", "Noble Sacrifice" and "The Eye of Sauron". In addition, each playing piece has it's own, unique power.

Light and dark play to their strengths. The Shadow Player's cards range from 1-6, while the Free People's only go 1-5. However, light has more special cards, so it's a case of Strong Trolls, Tricksy Hobbits. [Gollum, sadly, went AWOL for this game]. The Shadow wins by capturing the flag [Frodo], but here the Flag moves, sidesteps and races towards his own goal [Mordor]. Scourging the Shire also gives Sauron the victory if he can get three pieces there. Some of his pieces move more than a space a turn, so it's a fair race. In fact, Light's best (but not only) strategy is to trade pieces one-for-one until only a few remain, and then have Frodo sidestep his way to Mordor. Since Frodo can automatically sidestep when attacked (barring a few conditions that the Dark player will try to exploit) and pieces move inexorably forward (again, with a few exceptions), the end of the game may match the books: an overwhelmed light army on the brink of destruction when Frodo reaches the Crack of Doom.

So, this interesting asymmetric game captures the core of the genre. Knizia discards Stratego's large swatch of relatively unimportant and undifferentiated pieces for a core set and adds in the psychological and tactical "Which card do I play now?". The overall result: a tense, quick two-player game. Highly recommended.

Author	Reiner Knizia
Players	2
Company	Rio Grande Games
Time	~20 minutes
Cost	$20

Buy it from Funagain!

My old website (with around one hundred game reviews) won't go away soon, but it may disappear late this year/early next (another reason I finally started a blog). Right now I'm updating both but Humanity is ambition tempered by laziness, so I doubt that will last forever.

Speaking of Colossal Arena, a discussion on SpielFrieks brought up Shannon Appelcline's article on Game Design and the "Rule of 7."

Seven, or more correctly five to seven, is a good number to always keep in mind. It's generally what our human brains can hold together at one time. According to numerous studies the brain can intuitively grasp — without counting — between five and seven different possibilities.

Do you find some web sites easy to navigate and others a chore? It's probably because the good ones divide up each level of hierarchy into 7 or less possibilities. Are you able to easily memorize phone numbers but not social security numbers? That's because phone numbers are 7 digits and social security numbers are 9.

Personally, I tend to think of this rule the most often when I'm doing user interface work. But, it's also important when you're facing a player with choices in a game design. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't face them with more than 7 choices at a single time — unless you want to invoke very intense cognition.

Brian Leet pointed out that in many games players "chunk" many of the options into groups -- lumping many decisions into a few basic types, picking the type to do, then choosing one of the specific instances of that type.

Brian and Sharon are definitely onto something. Pattern recognitions certainly ranks high among the skills of a consistently winning player. I remember reading a book on the Psychology of Chess where a study was performed. A chess board was set up and players of various levels viewed it for some amount of time, then had to recreate it from memory. Stronger players were (unsurprisingly) more accurate.

But when the board position didn't come from a game, but was generated randomly, then the difference between strong and weak players disappeared. Strong chess players, it turns out, don't have the ability to remember a randomly setup board. What they have is the ability to quickly assign a game position to a library of known patterns. Weak players have a smaller library, so have to remember more individual components. Of course, stronger players calculate better than weaker players as well, but pattern recognition is another factor.

Too much chrome can detract from a game. I personally dislike Galaxy: The Dark Ages, but adore Colossal Arena. Even deliberately complicated games may suffer in another area: the rules. Wargames with pages and pages of rules can often be easily explained to another wargamer, because they have a vocabulary to quickly summarize. The full rulebook provides completeness and details, but doesn't actually have to explain that much. Games that introduce new concepts may stump even experienced players. I wonder if this reason is why War of the Rings miniatures kept confusing me; I used more mental energy holding all of the novel rules in my head.

Many good (even great) games take a simple mechanism and just introduce one twist (usually while changing the theme). Maybe we're wired to like a little change, but not too much. ..

French designer Bruno Faidutti talks about the disparities between his games:

I'm now receiving my royalties checks for the second half of 2004 and, like last year, it seems I will get as much for Citadels as for all my other games. Don't ask me how many copies exactly have been sold, I have no idea, but it's now a few hundred thousands and the overall sales of Citadels are more than those of Knightmare Chess, who still sells very regularly in the US.
Of course, I'm glad that one of my designs is a hit, and may well become a classic, but I find it a bit unfair. When it was first published, Castle was as well received as Citadels and, in France, it even sold more in the first years. Now, everybody seems to have forgotten Castle.

In fact, BrettSpielWelt (an online server where you can play games) just added Citadels a few weeks ago. The typical Euro probably has a print run of a few thousand, and most end at that. "A few hundred thousand" copies sold ranks Citadels just below the games that become phenomenon in their own right.

But, Bruno is right. Castle stands up with Citadels. I've played them roughly equal number of times. Now, I play them with a rules tweak, but I tweak them both. I don't like all of Bruno's games — he designs games with a higher level of chaos than I like. But these two have about the same leve. Citadels actually has more Chaos, but it's very psychological in nature. Player's guess who picked which character, but if they guess wrong you can get hurt through no fault of your own. That's a strong negative aspect to the game, yet consumers seem to like it. Perhaps the problem is that Castle, as shorter game, occupies a different niche.
In any case, Castle has been forgotten. But I still have my copy, and I should drag it out again ... [And Citadels, too]. What I said in my earlier review still stands:

When I first got Castle I played it a few times, and had some sessions where I played it 5+ times in a row. Two years later, I'm still pulling it out. If that's not the sign of a good game, what is?

Of course, now I haven't pulled it out in a year or two, but with all of the new games coming out, that isn't surprising.