The Tao of Gaming

I noticed Tom's comment a few days ago (in the Universal Symbiont thread)...

My second reaction was to look at the top start worlds and note that they were all worlds that give players early card advantage. The led me to hypothesize that the play on Genie taken as a whole was what I would call "intermediate" level, based on comparisons with the playtest groups' experiences with start worlds. (This is not to say that some Genie players aren't extremely strong or that this won't change over time.)

Now, to give Rob credit, he did go back and take a harder look at the Alpha Centauri data and found that it fared less well in winning % among the stronger players. To me, that was expected. Card advantage is something that is fairly easy for beginning and intermediate players to exploit (as opposed to leeching or explore powers, etc.).

(The emphasis on the last sentence is mine; earlier emphasis is Tom's).

This got me thinking: How do I deal with Early card disadvantage? Well, you stop calling Develop and Settle, for one thing (barring timing constraints, like the need to ensure your military is high enough so that you can leech a settle). Assuming you have card flow a turn or two later, then you will naturally consume/produce to trade, which will tend to balance tempo.

As I've played more, I've become more willing to drop a build tempo to look for a good combination (as compared to just 'increasing card flow'). With the increased variability in two expansions, you can't expect a reasonable card to just appear if you build mediocre cards.

I'll have to think some more about this ... I think I can do it, but I can't explain it well. Or perhaps I'm still an intermediate. Who knows?

Yeah, it's a bit late... Reviews:

• Pandemic
• Rails of Europe
• Strat-o-matic
• Lost Valley
• Agricola Review and follow ups. ('09 Update. I think I was right in theory but wrong in practice. The unbalanced nature doesn't really bother me).
• Pokemon
• Dry Gulch Junction

Race for the Galaxy Articles of Note (since it had just come out):

• The Master Solvers Club thread.
• How much to value +1 explore in race?
• Differences between goods.
• Production vs Windfall worlds
• Coming from Behind.
• Diversified Economy
• Near Sixes
• The initial settle
• Number of Players
• Terraforming Robots

Non-race Article of Note:

• RIP Gary Gygax

Regarding the Essen thread: Michael wrote: "I'll believe that the L5R boardgame is coming when I see a physical copy of it somewhere. " True. I wasn't considering an L5R boardgame, just the other games they are promoting.

Larry recommended Peloponnes (and I did notice his review of it). As for his other points...

Endeavor is also quite good, for those who are fond of Euros.

For the games that haven't been released yet, I seek out the prototypes that you avoid, Brian, so I can attest that Fabrikmanager, Macao, Dungeonlords, Campaign Manager 2008, and Burger Joint are all very good. BasketBoss appeals to me, since it's an approach to sports gaming (a GM building a team where the players' abilities change with time) that I've tried a few times in the past with my own designs

First off: I only avoid prototypes while I'm at conventions. I'm perfectly willing to waste a few hours of normal gaming time on a prototype. (You may remember I tried the Leaping Lemmings prototype). So if you want to send me a copy of your great prototype, fine. (I have turned down a few review copies recently, but no prototypes).

• Endeavour (which I still think should have used the British spelling, so it shall be referred to here) has been bought by a local. So, done.
• I may buy Burger Joint. But I don't need more two player games.
• With BasketBoss, I'm in Larry's boat. (Almost exactly. I've designed a GM style teambuilding game (about soccer). Basically it was my response to Footmania, which intrigued but didn't fulfill the promise. And I played LEFL/EEFL (aka United aka Fireside Football) for years as a PBEM. So I'm interested in the theme as well... [Perhaps I should pull my soccer game out and take another look at it, but it wasn't terribly good.] Now I'm looking at the team-management games on the geek. Are any of them good? (I suspect there are more that aren't tagged as well, yet).
• Some expansions are possible (Roma, Le Havre, Agricola).
• Most of the other titles are still on a 'wait and see' basis.

Just as it isn't Christmas season until after Thanksgiving, you shouldn't speculate about Essen until October. So while I haven't been able to avoid it completely, I haven't really been looking at it. Hell, I haven't violated all the games I made in my last two orders (although I've managed to play most of them ... only Shadow Hunters and Say Anything untouched, and Arabian Nights only once).

But that doesn't stop lots of people from putting up their Essen decorations early, and while my general strategy of not being an early adopter has served me well, that's no reason not to window shop.

I'm glad to see AEG trying to break into board games, even though I have no reason to think I'll like their catalog (since, you know, I haven't investigated it until just now). There's a soft spot in my heart of L5R (although I haven't played much this decade).

JKLM's Ascendancy? Well, a space empire and whatnot in a few hours would be nice. But I went through the Civ in two hours grail search. Lots of dead knights, there. Some good treasures, but no grail.

So, this is the open question thread? Any games at Essen making you squee like a child? Fabrikmanager? That unknown game with 25 copies only? What?

My thoughts on candidate moves were inspired by reading Kotov, a Grandmaster from mid-century who discussed selection of candidate moves (and many other aspects of interest to chess players). His "Think like a grandmaster" book is, of course, mainly of interest to the chess player but has quite a bit on organizing analytic thought. Anyway, in my prior post I started to get into the idea of "Overlooked candidate moves" (but edited it out). Still, that brought up the memory of Kotov's most famous game versus Averbakh (from the Zurich Candidates Tournament of 1953).

David Bronstein (who later failed to win a world championship when he started daydreaming in a clearly won final game of the match and then made a horrific blunder) wrote:

It is usually thought that the prerequisites of chess creativity are logic, accurate calculation of variation, and technique... There is a fourth component, however, perhaps the most attractive, although it is often forgotten. I have in mind intuition, or, if you like, imagination.

Sometimes positions occur that cannot be evaluated on the basis of general principles...Similarly, a calculation of the variations cannot always be attempted. Suppose that white has six or seven different continuations and that black has five or six replies to any of them.... It is then that intuition, imagination is called into play, which brings to the art of chess its most beautiful combinations and which permits chess players to experience the genuine joy of creation.

Averbakh-Kotov, Candidates Tournament, Zurich, 1953.

30 ... QxP check! (Qxh3 in algebraic notation).

Bronstein again:

It is not true that imaginative games were played only in the time of Morphy, Anderssen, and Tchigorin, and that today everything is based on positional principles and calculations. I am convinced that the games that received beauty prizes in this very tournament were not calculated to the end of all variations. Imagination was and remains one of the foundations of chess creativity...

Full game here.

Wikipedia page on Kotov, and page on candidate moves. (The latter says that chess programs have basically abandoned looking for candidate moves, spending their time on more brute force approaches).

Computer Chess involves two algorithms.

1. Evaluate a position
2. Identify "Good" moves

The latter are called "Candidate moves." Once you write a program to do both, you are (basically) done. On your turn, identify candidate moves, then for each candidate adjust the position, apply opponents candidates moves, and min-max. Obviously this brushes a lot under the rug ... evaluating a position is not easy, either.

Most games will only have one best move in a position, but there could be a large number of good moves that are slightly inferior to the best move (and it may be beyond a players ability to determine what is best). And not all games will have a single best move at each point. (Games involving bluffing, simultaneous decisions, auctions, and other elements can confuse the mix).

Poor games widen the gap between first and second. A consistently inferior move is annoying, especially if its an 'inorganic' move. For example, a Puerto Rico Building that is grossly overpriced and never useful. A game chock full of those is one to avoid.

This is a roundabout way of continuing the ongoing discussion about a single way to win. Consider Puerto Rico (which I have iconoclastic thoughts on, remember). Even though I consider it an optimization game, almost every decision present several reasonable candidate moves. Almost every building shows up (not every game, but you don't see a chess player capturing a lagging pawn with his queen for a long term sacrifice ... but it shows up in World Championship play once in a while. (I don't remember the exact players, but the game was from the '53 candidates tournament, written up by Bronstein).

Not every move has to be tough, but not every move should be formulaic. A reasonable chess game has 40 moves (say) and if you know openings to ~8 moves, and you have a few forced exchanges and routine moves, then say you have 25 moves. (And the openings still have choices, but more stylistic). In Puerto Rico you have perhaps 12 role selections, plus building and shipping (and fields). Granted, some percentage of them will be obvious (most shipping, most fields, some buildings and roles) but you still get a good number of moves.

Le Havre? 42 moves (in a three player game) plus some building decisions and loan pay backs. But the number of moves where I feel there are multiple reasonable decisions feels much lower. Typically I stop with about 3 rounds at the end and plot my final 7-8 moves as one clump (allowing for some disruption for timing as a contingency). The opening is often "Take the best stack" or "Build a building" or "Occupy the marketplace." Since often 1-2 of these are not valid moves, its simple.

St. Pete also seems to have a large number of automatic moves. (Again, without the expansion). One point is that If I have the wrong evaluation function ("Moving Knights never works") then I may discount valid candidate moves. Tom explicitly mentions that possibility in his comment regarding groups with a single strong player. See Point C in this comment). I suppose, with Le Havre, that could be the case, but I rarely have to tank in Le Havre.

There's another interesting option ... a game may have one clearly best situational move based on position, but evaluating positions (not moves) may be difficult to discern without enough experience. (Or may simply be impossible in a reasonable amount of time). War of the Ring strikes me as the 'best' example of this, although it isn't perfect. But even in a game like this, you have the delight of evaluation, then once you are done you simply pick the best move based on your condition. Consider St. Pete, if you mainly decide when to shift from economy to VPs, as an example.

Back to computers -- they do candidate moves by a set of rules. A chess computer should consider all moves that capture, all checks, and any move that sets up a threat (I believe a common algorithm looks at the first move and assumes that your opponent passes ... would your second move be brutal? If so, it's a candidate).

I'm told that an advance in Go AIs is the idea of just selecting moves and then doing a monte-carlo simulation of the position (randomly playing pieces) and that that works reasonable well for 'strategic' placements (not for tactical fighting, of course).

In a new game, I'll cycle through all the options and then pick. But as I get better, typically I'll just focus on a few candidates and explore them deeply. This is (apparently) typical. If I play well, I'll 'automatically' (ie, intuitively) pick the reasonable candidates. Of course, I can miscalculate or have a blind spot.

The "One way to win" games may be interesting or not. In Puerto Rico, evaluating the position and the 'look ahead' features are difficult. For Le Havre? Not so much. Automobile? I'm playing less intuitively, so its an open question, but my gut is that the space isn't too deep. St. Pete took lots of games, but I don't pause to weigh multiple candidate moves often...

Anyway, just another way of stating and viewing the issue...

It would be more revealing to say that Puerto Rico's way to win (as compared to Le Havre's) is front-loaded. What you have to do is defined in the early game, after which you are relatively free to do what you want. Whereas Le Havre's is endgame based. You are relatively free in LH, for example, to muck around with a variety of early strategies (with some constraints) as long as you load up on the coal once that starts.

I see no reason to consider Le Havre a "multiple paths to victory" game. So (contra Larry) I see no reason why moving this critical path to the front (and the corresponding freedom to the end) magically relieves Puerto Rico of the same charge. My gut is that Through the Ages is similarly front loaded.

If you want to say that PR isn't 'one way to win' because my description is too vague, that's a different charge. ("Focus on getting early income, usually via a high value trading good" isn't nearly as specific as "stockpile cole, convert ship"). Also, PR and TtA give you a greater percentage of "non-scripted" actions ... its not a binary decision.

I feel that LH gives you relatively few unscripted actions, in comparison. Certainly the fact that after 10 games of PR I was in no way tired of it speaks that it is more free-form.

And all those games are still interesting if everyone knows the secret.

As for the other comments, I've no idea if Automobile really falls into this category, or is just a pure tactical optimization game.

Update: The lesson, as always, is to "smoke the crack" to get comments flowing.

Despite what I said earlier, Keldon's AI crushes me quite frequently.

In response to my comments regarding Le Havre, Larry wrote:

I can't believe a game can reach the Top 10 on the Geek (right behind Dominion, and with a higher average rating) if there's only one path to victory.

As others pointed out, games with a single way to win can have a large following. You could argue (with some conviction and merit) that classics like Chess and Go have only one way to win. ("Mobilize your pieces better" and "Make efficient moves.") But in those cases, the devil is in the details, and these aren't particularly helpful discussions (which is why I don't think these games apply ...)

For definition, my single path to victory is a simple hueristic that will defeat someone who shuns (or is unaware of) that path.

If everyone groks the strategy and plays accordingly. then tactics and second level efficiencies dominate. I'm sure Le Havre contains levels I haven't explored (for efficiency), but I can feel like I could summarize the first level strategies ... (and ignoring them will cost you the game against competent opponents). [The fact that Alex Rockwell explicitly stated said strategy cemented my conviction. If he's recanted I'd certainly have to re-evaluate.]

In the BGG Top 100, games that have a single path that I feel confident I could (or have) stated are:

• Puerto Rico
• Le Havre
• Caylus
• St. Pete (without expansion)

Games where I suspect a strategy exists, but I'm not confident I can state it:

• Through the Ages (I've followed the strategy articles, and I think they are right, but the variance in that provides a lot of tactical exceptions)
• Brass (I don't like Brass enough to find out, and I may have had a rule wrong) ...
• Age of Steam (several maps, anyway)
• War of the Ring (base game)
• Automobile
• Ingenious seems like a candidate

I bet most of the (non-fluffy) tournament games at WBC probably have a guideline you can't violate ... that doesn't mean they have a single way to win; that depends on the guideline.

And yes, you get lots of Coal, make a huge coke conversion and ship it. To be fair, there are details you need to consider (avoiding loans isn't one of them). "Be efficient" and "Coal is most efficient" are your watchwords.

So Le Havre won the IGA.

Am I done with Le Havre? It certainly seems like it (haven't played it in four months). While I agree that it's a better design than Agricola, the relative sameness of the buildings (from game to game) means that its easy to exhaust the novelty ... and since I think there is one true path to victory in Le Havre, well, there you go.

Should Automobile have won? All my concerns for Le Havre count double against Automobile, but I've only played twice, so I could be wrong. (Note -- that was rhetorical humility only. I'm not wrong. After a few more plays the strategic interest will be sucked dry).

Should Dominion have won? It's tough to argue against a game that I've played several hundred times (online). Clever design (and novel), lots of fans. Theoretically a worse design than either of the other two games, but enough variety to overcome it, and probably the only game of the three likely to hit 25+ hours of enjoyment.

Of course, BSG surpassed that before Pegasus came out, so that tells you who I would have voted for.

Speaking of BSG (and I am, now) -- I've been thinking about Variants. I think I'd like to play with random destinations ... you randomly roll between using the Kobol card and New Caprica card during the sleeper phase. And I'd like to see Pegasus ship enter and leave the game; this mirrors the show, to be sure, but as it stands Galactica isn't rarely threatened with destruction. Off the top of my head, I think

• Pegasus should show up the first time a "Ship" card is drawn. (This also helps balance a hard game versus an easy one ...
• You Pegasus damage chits equal to "Distance - 1" every time you jump (So, jump 3, Pegasus takes two damage). Anyone on Pegasus when it is destroyed winds up in Sickbay.

I'm happy with the "Occupation authority destroys prepped ships" variant we tried, and I'd add two minor New Caprica fixes.

1. Destroyed ships are only revealed to the cylons (so humanity doesn't gain info when things are destroyed).
2. A "Basestars bombard" result adds a basestar in front of Galactica if there are none around (usually via a double nuke). Just to keep things tense.

Overall these change will make things harder for humanity, but given that our balance is at 50/50 that doesn't bother me (unless testing shows I've misjudged things).