4 ms·

They're fine if they're short. I'd prefer elimination to longer games where a couple clear leaders after lucky first couple rounds are the only ones who can pla

They're fine if they're short. I'd prefer elimination to longer games where a couple clear leaders after lucky first couple rounds are the only ones who can plausibly win, which I've also seen in a few enlightened modern games. Best case for those games is you spend the remaining 80-90% of the game playing spoiler or kingmaker, which is kinda shitty, or in the worst case the game's designed such that you can't do much about it, so you're going through the motions to see if you can manage 3rd place out of 5 (or whatever) for the rest of the game. Monopoly's pretty short if you play by the rules and everyone knows how to play and isn't screwing around. I don't really like it, but I don't think elimination is the main problem. It's not like world-conquest risk where it typically drags on forever, well after the first player elimination. [EDIT] economy-building games with low interaction between players and a significant randomness component seem especially prone to "well that player happened to go first and got the only good thing available to buy this round so has its benefit the rest of the game, and will proceed to stomp everyone else, obviously". There's a particular cards-based game with an age-of-sail trading vessel theme I've played several times that's my (least) favorite example of this: I've won, I've lost, both are fucking boring because you spend most of the game knowing where you're going to place and you can't even rage-harm other players out of boredom. Drawing a blank on the name. Anyway, I'd much rather be eliminated in a game like that.

dragontamer 7y ago
"Dead man walking" is one of the worst feelings ever. Settlers of Catan has a few "dead man walking" situations, but they're somewhat rare.... Especially because the optimal strategy in Catan is to trade with players weaker than you. So all "dead men walking" get boosted by the stronger players. The 1st place player never wants to trade with the 2nd place player, or vice versa. "Ticket to Ride" has more dead-man walking situations, where you know you've messed up but nothing can be done until the game is over. And because the game is elimination free, you feel like a jerk to leave before the game is over. --------------- The goal is to find a game that strikes the balance. Keep everyone playing, but make everyone feel like their contributions (even if they're behind) are noteworthy. Carcassonne is probably the best.
- Spellman 7y ago
  Nitpick on Catan. The optimal strategy is to trade with players weaker than you who have something worth trading. I've had many games where the "dead man walking" comes into effect because a player generates too few resources or not in demand resources (usually by bad initial placement) and therefore is only useful to squeeze for the occasional resource. They can't engage in constant trades because they literally have nothing, potentially not even as a space blocker. So optimal strategy becomes mostly ignore them except for kingmaker.
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    I'm assuming decent initial placement (EVERYONE gets a pick at one of the 4-best spots in the game, and the player who get's 4th pick gets 4th AND 5th pick). Everyone has at least one good pick in my experience. The situation where you have a clear "dead man walking", even when you did everything correctly, is when opposing players block you in with roads, preventing your expansion. Once one of your initial 2 villages are blocked, the 2nd village becomes a target for blockage, because everyone knows that blocking your 2nd village will effectively eliminate you from the game. Not "really eliminate", you're still a player and are kinda forced to play. But you can't make a 3rd village, and basically have no pathway to victory. A few unlucky rolls, or an opponent's lucky "Road Building" card, can bring up the road-block strategy extremely quickly.
  - TimPC 7y ago
    Catan can get pretty uninteresting due to dice variance. I've had games where two players made lots of resources on 9 and two players made lots of resources on 5. Five got rolled 14 times and 9 got rolled 3 times. Even with good spots if the dice are against you it can easily become a lot of do nothing while other people play the game. A lot of people also play with the houserule no trading because there is too much kingmaking in trading. It's too easy to place aggressively for ore if you know you can trade for whatever you're missing of the settlement. If you have to 4:1 it's a bit more of a tradeoff.
    - Spellman 7y ago

dragontamer 7y ago

"Dead man walking" is one of the worst feelings ever. Settlers of Catan has a few "dead man walking" situations, but they're somewhat rare.... Especially because the optimal strategy in Catan is to trade with players weaker than you. So all "dead men walking" get boosted by the stronger players. The 1st place player never wants to trade with the 2nd place player, or vice versa. "Ticket to Ride" has more dead-man walking situations, where you know you've messed up but nothing can be done until the game is over. And because the game is elimination free, you feel like a jerk to leave before the game is over. --------------- The goal is to find a game that strikes the balance. Keep everyone playing, but make everyone feel like their contributions (even if they're behind) are noteworthy. Carcassonne is probably the best.

Spellman 7y ago
Nitpick on Catan. The optimal strategy is to trade with players weaker than you who have something worth trading. I've had many games where the "dead man walking" comes into effect because a player generates too few resources or not in demand resources (usually by bad initial placement) and therefore is only useful to squeeze for the occasional resource. They can't engage in constant trades because they literally have nothing, potentially not even as a space blocker. So optimal strategy becomes mostly ignore them except for kingmaker.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  I'm assuming decent initial placement (EVERYONE gets a pick at one of the 4-best spots in the game, and the player who get's 4th pick gets 4th AND 5th pick). Everyone has at least one good pick in my experience. The situation where you have a clear "dead man walking", even when you did everything correctly, is when opposing players block you in with roads, preventing your expansion. Once one of your initial 2 villages are blocked, the 2nd village becomes a target for blockage, because everyone knows that blocking your 2nd village will effectively eliminate you from the game. Not "really eliminate", you're still a player and are kinda forced to play. But you can't make a 3rd village, and basically have no pathway to victory. A few unlucky rolls, or an opponent's lucky "Road Building" card, can bring up the road-block strategy extremely quickly.
- TimPC 7y ago
  Catan can get pretty uninteresting due to dice variance. I've had games where two players made lots of resources on 9 and two players made lots of resources on 5. Five got rolled 14 times and 9 got rolled 3 times. Even with good spots if the dice are against you it can easily become a lot of do nothing while other people play the game. A lot of people also play with the houserule no trading because there is too much kingmaking in trading. It's too easy to place aggressively for ore if you know you can trade for whatever you're missing of the settlement. If you have to 4:1 it's a bit more of a tradeoff.
  - Spellman 7y ago