(Note: Win condition is value of player's stock portfolio, tiebreaker is cash on hand)
The dividends on the stock are a kind of income for the company as opposed to the stockholders. The reason they call it "Dividends" as opposed to "Revenues" is that the each player has 4,000 shares of "Preferred stock" in their own company. At the end of each phase your position on the stock track determines how much income you receive. The minimum is $12,000 and it generally increments by 2,000 per column on the stock track.
When you sell or buy stock you buy at the current point value of the stock times $1,000. If the character performing the action has a "money bonus" then you add/subtract that value time the phase number.
You start with two "actions" and then buy 2 more actions in the auctions. Actions are used to build projects, buy/sell stock, improve technologies, or use propaganda.
It's possible to use propaganda to manipulate who gets a boost in stock price. The company with the most fame gets a boost, as well as the highest level patent holder in AC or DC technology depending on which system is in favor. However you're talking 3 point swings instead of 6 point swings from selling stock. There are also certain projects that require AC tech level 5, but give you double the base stock value and are cheap to build. Those projects can result in an 8-point swing (to a Max of 10). In my game no one developed level 5 technology, since there were enough people invested in DC to get the bonuses on DC projects. My tech allowed me to snap the level 3 projects up and I bought stock in people's companies right before they build level 4 projects. My stock wasn't as heavily traded as the others which limited how much they could drive my price down.
If someone could buy all of their stock early and be able to build projects to keep the price going up, it's possible they'd be able put so much distance between the other players that it locks the game in that last turn. I remembered from Panamax, that buying up your own stock early on limited your early game income.
One nice thing about the game was I could collude with each player individually to manipulate the stock prices in the correct direction at the correct times. "Do this thing to drive your price up." Then on my turn I sell their stock, tank their price buy stock in the next lowest guy and repeat the process. The brilliant thing is what I'm suggesting is the most optimal move for that player, but I'm in a position to profit buy in even more.
One thing about the game: You can combine luminaries for better results, at the cost of actions. This allows you to jump ahead in technologies rapidly and claim the patents at the same time, or wage a propaganda war.
One problem - Tesla was a minor player at best in the war of the currents. Realistically, he was barely a factor. It was Edison Vs Westinghouse, Tesla was just a consultant. A brilliant one, but just a consultant none-the-less. Don't believe the shitty oatmeal comic.
Alchemists continues to be awesome. I wonder if the use of an app will be a new mechanic that other games adopt. Not like the X-Com board game where the app basically controls a lot of the game for you, but as an aid. So far, this is easily my favorite new game this year.
One problem - Tesla was a minor player at best in the war of the currents. Realistically, he was barely a factor. It was Edison Vs Westinghouse, Tesla was just a consultant. A brilliant one, but just a consultant none-the-less. Don't believe the shitty oatmeal comic.
*shrug* That's what the game's called. Tesla is one of the starting player companies. Westinghouse is one of the Luminaries that can be recruited during the game.
Our game ended with Thompson company winning a system powered mostly by Direct Current.
The game plays fast and loose with history, but it's still an entertaining game.
TIME Stories has some of the hottest buzz coming out of Essen, but it's time to throw up the red flag. Chatting about it on Twitter today, and I get this:
"rules say not to read the cards out loud. Paraphrase, describe, but don't show card to those not in the same zone"
The dreaded player communication limitation rule raises its ugly head. I'm still going to try this game when I get a chance. The only hope for success is that this may actually be more of a role playing game that just happens to have a few board game components.
That's the impression I get - it's an experience game, like Tales of the Arabian Nights. The game probably doesn't break if you read the card out loud, but it's like reading the box text verbatim from a dungeon module.
It's pretty ballsy move to market, what is clearly a 2 player game, for "up to 4 players". The only way I can see this being 3 or 4 players is if parents are trying to teach their kids board games and are playing in teams.
It's pretty ballsy move to market, what is clearly a 2 player game, for "up to 4 players". The only way I can see this being 3 or 4 players is if parents are trying to teach their kids board games and are playing in teams.
I actually want this. No need to get involved with X-Wing or Armada. Just get this instead!
It's pretty ballsy move to market, what is clearly a 2 player game, for "up to 4 players". The only way I can see this being 3 or 4 players is if parents are trying to teach their kids board games and are playing in teams.
You aren't incorrect, but lots of games that are clearly 2 player games say they can play up to four players. Just off the top of my head: Battlelore, Battles of Westeros, Stronghold, and War of the Ring, which Rebellion seems to be very influenced by.
Ostensibly, these are all 2 player games, but each side can be team-played and that's how you get the 4 player count.
Those team games have the Pandemic problem in almost all cases.
Pandemic has its issues, but at least there's an attempt to give each player their own particular spin on the game. There are also generally more roles than players, which adds a certain replayability to the... Cooperative Puzzle that is Pandemic. However, Rebellion doesn't even seem to do that much. Everything in that press release suggested that it was a 2-player game that can happen to accommodate another two players.
Semi-related question: When you guys play a game is your focus always to achieve the win condition specific to that game? Have you ever made it a point at the beginning of a game to achieve some arbitrary objective in that game?
Those team games have the Pandemic problem in almost all cases.
Pandemic has its issues, but at least there's an attempt to give each player their own particular spin on the game. There are also generally more roles than players, which adds a certain replayability to the... Cooperative Puzzle that is Pandemic. However, Rebellion doesn't even seem to do that much. Everything in that press release suggested that it was a 2-player game that can happen to accommodate another two players.
Semi-related question: When you guys play a game is your focus always to achieve the win condition specific to that game? Have you ever made it a point at the beginning of a game to achieve some arbitrary objective in that game?
I generally agree with you, but there's still not a lot of information about Rebellion. If each player was assigned a different hero, and each hero had specific abilities and goals, then I could see the game being closer to Pandemic in terms of cooperative play as opposed to Battlelore or Battle of Westeros where the two players are really just dividing up armies.
Playing any orthogame with any goal other than winning the game is griefing.
What if your goal is to win with style? Like, not just beating everyone else, but also attempting to beat your previous high score? A parallel goal that can be accomplished alongside victory?
I sometimes do this with the Neuroshima Hex! app. Sometimes I'll win a game, and think, "Hm, I wonder if I could do that better?" Then I'll use the restart option to replay the same game and try for a cleaner victory.
Note that it's not wrong. In fact, I condone it. But it is technically a seeking of utility outside of the orthogame itself.
Hmmmmmm, I'm not sure I buy that. The utility of a "high score" is only relevant to that particular game, so it by definition cannot be utility outside of that orthogame.
An orthogame is a test of skill, so isn't attempting a "high score" or "flawless victory" scenario essentially the most stringent test of skill possible for that game? That's all utility within the game itself. It's not about seeking an alternate utility so much as seeking to optimize the primary utility.
I agree with your assessment of the nature of griefing, but not about this particular application.
Note that I'm fine being a griefer. Griefing is great fun. This is about definitions now.
Orthogames require that players be ranked based on their realized utility, with the implied sole goal of maximizing the rank-driving utility in order to achieve the highest possible rank.
Coming in late this week, with no new games. Last Saturday was an all-day extra life event at my game store, which gave me some interesting plays (mostly the anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride and a tournament of Baseball Highlights 2045).
Splendor - This is an efficiency game, but I still can't manage to be consistently efficient against reasonable opponents.
Outpost - I did pretty well despite having a disharmonious combination of low production and near-limitless capacity. I DID buy a moon ore as soon as it was available, but that wasn't enough to win the game.
Puerto Rico - Halfway into this game - turn 7 I think - I looked down at my board and declared it "the most boring Puerto Rico board ever". A perfectly arranged production of every single resource, a manned factory, and nothing else. BORING. I won (how could you not with a board like that on turn 7?), but at least I did it by emptying my buildings and ending the game via colonists, which is somewhat interesting.
Glen More - This really IS similar to Minerva in many ways.
Factory Fun - I managed my highest score to date on Saturday, AND used the expansion piece in a truly perverse way ("I bet they have to replace the valve on that pipe twice a day").
Ticket to Ride - On the 10th anniversary board, which is really unneccessary but quite nice. I could have won... if I had ended the game at any point while my opponents kept taking tickets.
Among the Stars - I do like this game, even if it's frustrating to set up, a trait it shares with Suburbia.
Baseball Highlights 2045 - If I could play this in a tournament format more often, I would. We actually played this during game 4 of the World Series.
Abyss Seriously why would you write the instructions in such a poor manner, we played this at PAX Aus, it has great artwork and a fairly significant strategy component. Essentially a deck builder or generator as you eventually have to or are forced to push your cards out of hands into a dormant state. Acquiring these cards requires bidding on 5 suits of influence point cards. However as 3 of us were fighting to read the rules we just ended up playing it and messed up the point that you have to remove the card from the board immediately (bidding finishes when the board fills or the person playing their turn accepts a card or fights a monster card).
I would want to play this game with the correct rules as I think it would be way more enjoyable and not mess up your entire game by playing with a low economy due to poorly written rules.
Other games played - 7 Wonders, Sushi Go, Wizard and a number of other games I've forgotten the name of.
Between Two Cities - A partnership-heavy, tile placement drafting game where everybody builds two cities: one with the player to their left, one with the player to their right. It's important to make both cities good; each city scores at the end, with the lesser city each player worked on being their final score. It's quick and fun, no more than 30 minutes per game, really!
Viticulture - Still great both solo and with multiple people. I introduced it to my friends tonight and one of them had a difficult time grasping the mechanics of it. She hasn't ever played a worker placement game before, so even a light one like this seemed to throw her for a loop.
Tokaido - Another simple, quick game, though this is one that a friend brought for once! I thought it was decent, but didn't necessarily feel like I had much freedom to make a lot of interesting decisions. It did make for a pleasant palette cleanser after...
Pandemic Legacy - We played four games of this today! It was filled equal amounts of players digging their faces into their palms and high-fiving each other.
I would put some April spoilers here, but spoiler-taggin' ain't easy!
Between Two Cities - A partnership-heavy, tile placement drafting game where everybody builds two cities: one with the player to their left, one with the player to their right. It's important to make both cities good; each city scores at the end, with the lesser city each player worked on being their final score. It's quick and fun, no more than 30 minutes per game, really!
I played Between Two Cities at PAX, it kind of sucks because of the vote who wins game, either the person to your left or right. The time that I played it the obvious card to not put into the last square was the one that they put into the last square both making them lose and forcing me to lose. It doesn't matter how good you are, it matters how bad your neighbours are. Lack of agency sucks.
Tokaido - Another simple, quick game, though this is one that a friend brought for once! I thought it was decent, but didn't necessarily feel like I had much freedom to make a lot of interesting decisions. It did make for a pleasant palette cleanser after...
Tokaido Is all about denying other players strategies. It's a very easy to learn game and is still fun when playing with people who have played it a few times.
Comments
The dividends on the stock are a kind of income for the company as opposed to the stockholders. The reason they call it "Dividends" as opposed to "Revenues" is that the each player has 4,000 shares of "Preferred stock" in their own company. At the end of each phase your position on the stock track determines how much income you receive. The minimum is $12,000 and it generally increments by 2,000 per column on the stock track.
When you sell or buy stock you buy at the current point value of the stock times $1,000. If the character performing the action has a "money bonus" then you add/subtract that value time the phase number.
You start with two "actions" and then buy 2 more actions in the auctions. Actions are used to build projects, buy/sell stock, improve technologies, or use propaganda.
It's possible to use propaganda to manipulate who gets a boost in stock price. The company with the most fame gets a boost, as well as the highest level patent holder in AC or DC technology depending on which system is in favor. However you're talking 3 point swings instead of 6 point swings from selling stock. There are also certain projects that require AC tech level 5, but give you double the base stock value and are cheap to build. Those projects can result in an 8-point swing (to a Max of 10). In my game no one developed level 5 technology, since there were enough people invested in DC to get the bonuses on DC projects. My tech allowed me to snap the level 3 projects up and I bought stock in people's companies right before they build level 4 projects. My stock wasn't as heavily traded as the others which limited how much they could drive my price down.
If someone could buy all of their stock early and be able to build projects to keep the price going up, it's possible they'd be able put so much distance between the other players that it locks the game in that last turn. I remembered from Panamax, that buying up your own stock early on limited your early game income.
One nice thing about the game was I could collude with each player individually to manipulate the stock prices in the correct direction at the correct times. "Do this thing to drive your price up." Then on my turn I sell their stock, tank their price buy stock in the next lowest guy and repeat the process. The brilliant thing is what I'm suggesting is the most optimal move for that player, but I'm in a position to profit buy in even more.
One thing about the game: You can combine luminaries for better results, at the cost of actions. This allows you to jump ahead in technologies rapidly and claim the patents at the same time, or wage a propaganda war.
Our game ended with Thompson company winning a system powered mostly by Direct Current.
The game plays fast and loose with history, but it's still an entertaining game.
"rules say not to read the cards out loud. Paraphrase, describe, but don't show card to those not in the same zone"
The dreaded player communication limitation rule raises its ugly head. I'm still going to try this game when I get a chance. The only hope for success is that this may actually be more of a role playing game that just happens to have a few board game components.
Not really going out of my way to play it...
It's pretty ballsy move to market, what is clearly a 2 player game, for "up to 4 players". The only way I can see this being 3 or 4 players is if parents are trying to teach their kids board games and are playing in teams.
Ostensibly, these are all 2 player games, but each side can be team-played and that's how you get the 4 player count.
Semi-related question: When you guys play a game is your focus always to achieve the win condition specific to that game? Have you ever made it a point at the beginning of a game to achieve some arbitrary objective in that game?
It's called griefing.
I have, on occasion, been a griefer.
OTHER than griefing.
I sometimes do this with the Neuroshima Hex! app. Sometimes I'll win a game, and think, "Hm, I wonder if I could do that better?" Then I'll use the restart option to replay the same game and try for a cleaner victory.
Note that it's not wrong. In fact, I condone it. But it is technically a seeking of utility outside of the orthogame itself.
An orthogame is a test of skill, so isn't attempting a "high score" or "flawless victory" scenario essentially the most stringent test of skill possible for that game? That's all utility within the game itself. It's not about seeking an alternate utility so much as seeking to optimize the primary utility.
I agree with your assessment of the nature of griefing, but not about this particular application.
Note that I'm fine being a griefer. Griefing is great fun. This is about definitions now.
Everything else is noise. Delicious noise.
Splendor - This is an efficiency game, but I still can't manage to be consistently efficient against reasonable opponents.
Outpost - I did pretty well despite having a disharmonious combination of low production and near-limitless capacity. I DID buy a moon ore as soon as it was available, but that wasn't enough to win the game.
Puerto Rico - Halfway into this game - turn 7 I think - I looked down at my board and declared it "the most boring Puerto Rico board ever". A perfectly arranged production of every single resource, a manned factory, and nothing else. BORING. I won (how could you not with a board like that on turn 7?), but at least I did it by emptying my buildings and ending the game via colonists, which is somewhat interesting.
Glen More - This really IS similar to Minerva in many ways.
Factory Fun - I managed my highest score to date on Saturday, AND used the expansion piece in a truly perverse way ("I bet they have to replace the valve on that pipe twice a day").
Ticket to Ride - On the 10th anniversary board, which is really unneccessary but quite nice. I could have won... if I had ended the game at any point while my opponents kept taking tickets.
Among the Stars - I do like this game, even if it's frustrating to set up, a trait it shares with Suburbia.
Baseball Highlights 2045 - If I could play this in a tournament format more often, I would. We actually played this during game 4 of the World Series.
I'd really like to try Baseball Highlights 2045.
Seriously why would you write the instructions in such a poor manner, we played this at PAX Aus, it has great artwork and a fairly significant strategy component. Essentially a deck builder or generator as you eventually have to or are forced to push your cards out of hands into a dormant state.
Acquiring these cards requires bidding on 5 suits of influence point cards.
However as 3 of us were fighting to read the rules we just ended up playing it and messed up the point that you have to remove the card from the board immediately (bidding finishes when the board fills or the person playing their turn accepts a card or fights a monster card).
I would want to play this game with the correct rules as I think it would be way more enjoyable and not mess up your entire game by playing with a low economy due to poorly written rules.
Other games played -
7 Wonders, Sushi Go, Wizard and a number of other games I've forgotten the name of.
Viticulture - Still great both solo and with multiple people. I introduced it to my friends tonight and one of them had a difficult time grasping the mechanics of it. She hasn't ever played a worker placement game before, so even a light one like this seemed to throw her for a loop.
Tokaido - Another simple, quick game, though this is one that a friend brought for once! I thought it was decent, but didn't necessarily feel like I had much freedom to make a lot of interesting decisions. It did make for a pleasant palette cleanser after...
Pandemic Legacy - We played four games of this today! It was filled equal amounts of players digging their faces into their palms and high-fiving each other.
I would put some April spoilers here, but spoiler-taggin' ain't easy!
The time that I played it the obvious card to not put into the last square was the one that they put into the last square both making them lose and forcing me to lose.
It doesn't matter how good you are, it matters how bad your neighbours are. Lack of agency sucks. Tokaido Is all about denying other players strategies. It's a very easy to learn game and is still fun when playing with people who have played it a few times.