The Tao of Gaming

I played Acquire again recently.

A five word review, 'I played Acquire again recently,' sums it up nicely. The game's forty years old, still in print. Still being played. How many games do I play from ten years ago? Earlier today I was looking through old Sumos. These cover '89 to '95. I just glanced through the first half ... I started gaming in '92. Sumo mentioned at least twenty games I've bought, only to sell later. Maybe ten I still own (possibly altered). Around fifty titles that register dimly, or mean nothing to me.

If Acquire doesn't mark the start of Euros, I'm not sure what does. Constrained choices — you don't roll and move. You pick your play from one of six choices. After that, you can buy up to three shares — an action point (or time) constraint. Acquire lasts an hour and change. And it's constructive — you build up instead of tearing down. It's very hard to end up worse than you started, even if you come in dead last. An American game that presaged the revolution in those games of ours by a quarter century.

Acquire, of course, has it's famous controversy — "Open or closed holdings." It doesn't really matter. The game plays fine.

What if Acquire were released today? Has the revolution overtaken it? Perhaps, although the flaws have been magnified by time. A bad draw can find yourself shut out of mergers until all hope is gone. With closed holdings, a simple miscount can cost you the game.

But even after all these years, I wonder when to start a cheap company instead of an expensive one. Or when to take that one extra share, to discourage a fight. When to give up on first place because cash is running low. There's something here. It's solid. We recognize it. Would Acquire be famous if it came out today? No, of course not. It would be a sleeper, sneaking up on people. It's not flashy. Perhaps it was a sleeper, I don't know.

I played Acquire again. For many games I've owned or written about (some quite recently), I'll never play again and won't miss. Does Acquire deserve it's status as a classic? Absolutely.

Larry mentions that he's written about classics. Of course, only fools and small children challenge the Emperor. But let's talk Acquire. Larry thinks it has "a little too much luck and not enough control." That seems fair, normally one player doesn't get tiles and sits. But any game that has luck is going to have that. Settlers often has the same thing (which, to be fair, Larry points out). That's one of those "flaws magnified by time" I mentioned.

My particular way of dealing with this is to let people start with seven tiles and then pick the tile they want to seed the board with (simultaneously, natch). This gives players a chance to split their pairs on the first turn, which lowers the chances that they can't open a company. A player without a pair can aim for their lowest tile to go first, to get an extra turn. And, if worst comes to worst, each player may still get a playable hand once the board is seeded.

But even that (or Sackson's "Power Variant") reduces luck. I think Acquire's (and Settlers problem) is that when you get unlucky, you have to sit. Consider three games where luck causes a player to lose X% of the time, which is better:

1. The loser is eliminated and leaves?
2. The loser keeps playing, but has nothing to do?
3. The loser keeps playing (perhaps unaware of impending doom)?

Euros prefer the final answer, but this answer leads to kingmaking. Elimination is clean, in that the player is free to start up a new game, and doesn't influence the outcome, but this is "rude."

But I think elimination's bad rep is tied to other aspects of "American" or Avalon Hill style games ... long, highly variable game length. Consider Titan.

If you are eliminated, it could be another hour. Or eight. If the order of the boot hit at the 30 minute mark, what do you do? Now Imagine a game of Settlers (etc) with elimination. You buy the farm at the 20 minute mark. In this case, you know that you have a free hour.

Am I secretly longing for player elimination to make a comeback? Not really, but games that keep players involved past the point of no return often can't disguise the issue...

In any case, Larry's article is good, with plenty of oxen gored. But he goes too far —

What does the U.S. presidential campaign, root canal surgery, and the World Cup have in common with the Spiele des Jahres? In each case, the process takes too damn long!

I'm no fan of soccer, but you are complaining about a month-long championship involving 32 nations that occurs every four years? You could finish two world cups during the NBA playoffs! And the World Cup only takes the top 1/6th of nations. [Perhaps Larry is talking about the qualification process....]

As for the games, I don't get spittin mad at any of his comments, and agree with a few. [Better luck next time ...]

Update: I noticed that Lewis Pulsipher blogged about this a few days ago.