6 ms·

Designing Twilight Struggle, the top-ranked board game

jaryd 12y ago
As a major Twilight Struggle fan I urge any newbies to check out: http://twilightstrategy.com/ http://twilightstrategy.com/! (I am not affiliated with twilightstrategy.com in any way)
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  It's linked in the article.
- lowboy 12y ago
  Twilight Strategy is fantastic. I made something to better navigate the card strategy pages (hyperlinks between cards): http://twistrug.jjt.io/#/cards http://twistrug.jjt.io/#/cards
zeroonetwothree 12y ago
I tried playing this game but I really didn't like it. I found it way too long and complicated. We never actually finished a game. I much prefer <1 hour games. So sad, since there are so few great two player games. I was really hoping this would be one of them.
- lukifer 12y ago
  For a great two-player game, obligatory plug for Netrunner: information asymmetry and mind-games in a Gibsonesque cyberpunk setting.
  - steveklabnik 12y ago
    Huuuuuuge plus one here. Netrunner is such a good game. They could really work on their templating, though, but that's Fantasy Flight...
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    I really enjoy Netrunner as well, but the original seems far better than the reboot.
- bsilvereagle 12y ago
  Dominion and Boss Monster are 2-4 player games with 5-45 minute games that are both pretty good. Boss Monster is pretty heavily a luck game, while Dominion is a combination of both skill and luck.
  - CookWithMe 12y ago
    I didn't play too many 2-player dominion games, but I enjoyed the 3 or 4-player games more. For both types, card sets with little interaction usually have one or two good strategies, and luck plays a large-ish role in whether you or your opponent(s) can execute the strategy faster. Card sets with more interaction are IMO strategically more interesting with more than one opponent. Usually, everyone will focus on keeping the strongest player from winning, who in turn gains less from further weakening a single opponent already weaker than him. In 2-player games, the stronger player can just lash out at the only other opponent, which directly increases his chance of winning. So the chance of turning a game around after half the time played is much slimmer in a 2-player game than in a 4-player game, from my experience. Anyway, Dominion is a great game that packs a lot of strategical depth in a rather short playing time!
    - dmurray 12y ago
      >Usually, everyone will focus on keeping the strongest player from winning Do you have any specific examples of how this happens? One of the design goals of Dominion is that there are no "kingmaker" mechanics, so you never have a choice of which player to attack or help. Cards that allow interaction usually target either the player to your left, or all other players.
- cfeduke 12y ago
  Roma and Arena: Roma II are excellent 2 player only games. Sub 1 hour and good strategy. I would disagree with you on TS, as it is one of the simplest two player games with any depth I have ever played. My wife owns a game store; I have played a great many two player games.
- jmilloy 12y ago
  What two player games do you know and like already? I love to play Coloretto, Battle Lines, Hive, and lately Innovation.
msluyter 12y ago
I like Twilight Struggle a great deal, but I find its top BGG ranking somewhat odd. I'd wager there's a sort of selection effect: the sort of person willing to sit down for a 2 player game in the first place is probably the sort of hard-core gamer who enjoys highly complex brainburners, and thus is more likely to rate it highly. Compare that to the sort of moderate/casual boardgamer who prefers something along the lines of 7 Wonders. The former will play 7 Wonders and (may) give it a mediocre rating, while the latter aren't even going to try TS. Just a theory. And for the record, the last time I played, TS took 5 hours, but neither of us were fluent and were thus often consulting the rules and/or stuck in analysis paralysis.
- quink 12y ago
  http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/nicodv/bgg/blob/master/BGG%20Top%201000%20Reanalyzed.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/nicodv/bgg/blob/master/BG... Spoiler: Twilight Struggle still #1.
finnh 12y ago
I am dismayed that Connect Four has a below-average rating. Still a great game in my book ... I burned many hours in Thailand playing this on the beach, Beer Chang in hand.
- evanb 12y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it were ultimately related to the fact that it's a solved game. Programs exist which provably never lose. So the strategy is known, there are (in principle, anyway) no "hard choices" that many of the higher-ranked games have.
  - 1123581321 12y ago
    Yes, it's become a poster child for "bad game" and so it's rated worse than it deserves and lower than games that are (i my opinion) worse because so many people have heard that it's solved.
- cdelsolar 12y ago
  Well, Scrabble not being rated near #1 is preposterous. I'm a tournament Scrabble player (there are a few thousand of us in the US that are rated) and Scrabble is an amazingly well designed, deep and strategically very complex game, yet is rated in the high hundreds somewhere, whereas games with much smaller tourney communities are rated much higher.
  - Retra 12y ago
    Scrabble quickly gets boring unless you are willing to get serious about it. Nothing spectacular happens in your average game of scrabble.
    - ashark 12y ago
      Scrabble is a game that's ruined for casual players as soon as someone in the group memorizes all the permissible two-letter words and a bunch of the obscure three-letter words. It's like the kid who owns the only copy of Street Fighter II in his class and, after a few weeks, can't find anyone who will play it with him.
CurtHagenlocher 12y ago
It's a computer game and not a board game, but I'm surprised that "Balance of Power" wasn't mentioned as a predecessor.
- clavalle 12y ago
  It started as a board game. The digital port is very recent.
  - LanceH 12y ago
    There was a Balance of Power - geopolitical game in the 80's. It was all about influencing various countries, nudging them left or right. Then there would be an impasse and the missiles would start flying. It didn't seem like much of a game to me.
    - firebones 12y ago
      Chris Crawford created the game. On the Mac, it was really a great game for the time (1985), and I'm not sure I ever managed to win. (Blowing up the world or losing to the Soviet Union tended to be much more likely outcomes given my incompetence at playing brinksmanship.) I liked it because it was probably the first turn-based game I played that really made great use of Mac graphics featuring great interactive maps and mock newspaper headlines summarizing the reaction to actions, along with a frustratingly tough AI opponent. Crawford was of an era where the interesting games were much more about teaching and conveying the designer's worldview, and less about creating Skinner boxes for maximizing IAP or expansion pack sales, or franchises. The reason the missiles would always fly had a lot to do with the fact that as a player, you had to really view it not as a confrontational game, but as a cooperative game (with the AI) where mutually assured survival meant concessions were more important than aggression. This is pretty much antithetical to the conditioning in every other game of playing to win. Some good history on the game here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game)
ansible 12y ago
For those of you who haven't seen the Tabletop series [1] yet, it's a fun way to get a feel for the many shorter board games out there. Previous seasons had shows on Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and King of Tokyo mentioned in the article. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSlvu0zbD4YuPOF https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSl...
michaelochurch 12y ago
Two-player games are attractive for a couple of reasons. First, by definition, half the players win. People like winning, and are likely to replay and rate highly a game they think they have a chance to win. Also, with just one opponent, there is little downtime. You don’t have to wait while the turn gets passed around the table to three, four or five other players. That’s boring. I can give some insight into why 2-player games are popular. (ETA: when I wrote this, I missed that 3-player games do slightly better.) I'm a guy who engineered (optimized?) the fuck out of a 4-player card game (to minimize card-luck in a trick-taking game) called Ambition: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhHZh5IEKBDf56ExgErv4o/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhH... I succeeded in the design challenge, and I think it's a damn good game, but the game hasn't caught on and player-number (or, for math people, player arity) is almost certainly the biggest culprit. It takes exactly 4. (There's a 3-player variant, but it's not as fun and I'd rather just play a game designed for 3, like Skat.) The reason I bring this up is that I have insight into what 2-player games do so well. It's cultural. A 2-player game (or a 2-party game, like Bridge which has 2 teams of two players) is a showdown and it's decisive. It develops a "mind sport" culture. There's less of a feeling of decisivity in a 3- or 4-player game because you can't always separate "A outplayed B and C" from "B played best but C's mistakes unintentionally advantaged A over B and A won". Game outcomes generally have four components: Chance, skill, strategic interaction, and flux. Flux is minute-by-minute engagement in the game (which can be modeled as a fluctuation in skill). Skill and flux are what we care about. The "strategic interaction" term might seem odd, because "strategy" and "skill" are often used interchangeably, but it actually refers to the scenario in 3+ party games where A, seeking his own strategic goals, unintentionally advantages B over C. This is sometimes called "strategic luck". (Or, it can devolve into a king-maker scenario. Or it can become an influence of table position, as in Puerto Rico, that some dislike. Or it can be made a part of the game, as in Diplomacy, where people pre-arrange interaction effects-- but might defect.) It's inevitable if you have more than 2 parties. And it makes it easy for people to feel "screwed", just as chance does, so while you can have that element and still have a good game (just as I'd argue that random chance doesn't make a game "bad", even if the Euro aesthetic eschews it) you're not likely to develop the "mind sport" culture of Go, Chess, or Bridge if that's the case. I don't know for sure if this explains 2-player games getting higher ratings, but 2-player games and variable-player games (like Texas Hold 'em, which accommodates varying player number better than, say, a highly-engineered trick-taking game) do the best job of catching on and developing a reputation. A 2-player game is a showdown and a variarity game accommodates a group of unplanned size; exactly 3, 4, or 5 limits the audience and "catch on" speed.

jaryd 12y ago

As a major Twilight Struggle fan I urge any newbies to check out: http://twilightstrategy.com/ http://twilightstrategy.com/! (I am not affiliated with twilightstrategy.com in any way)

steveklabnik 12y ago
It's linked in the article.
lowboy 12y ago
Twilight Strategy is fantastic. I made something to better navigate the card strategy pages (hyperlinks between cards): http://twistrug.jjt.io/#/cards http://twistrug.jjt.io/#/cards

zeroonetwothree 12y ago

I tried playing this game but I really didn't like it. I found it way too long and complicated. We never actually finished a game. I much prefer <1 hour games. So sad, since there are so few great two player games. I was really hoping this would be one of them.

lukifer 12y ago
For a great two-player game, obligatory plug for Netrunner: information asymmetry and mind-games in a Gibsonesque cyberpunk setting.
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  Huuuuuuge plus one here. Netrunner is such a good game. They could really work on their templating, though, but that's Fantasy Flight...
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  I really enjoy Netrunner as well, but the original seems far better than the reboot.
bsilvereagle 12y ago
Dominion and Boss Monster are 2-4 player games with 5-45 minute games that are both pretty good. Boss Monster is pretty heavily a luck game, while Dominion is a combination of both skill and luck.
- CookWithMe 12y ago
  I didn't play too many 2-player dominion games, but I enjoyed the 3 or 4-player games more. For both types, card sets with little interaction usually have one or two good strategies, and luck plays a large-ish role in whether you or your opponent(s) can execute the strategy faster. Card sets with more interaction are IMO strategically more interesting with more than one opponent. Usually, everyone will focus on keeping the strongest player from winning, who in turn gains less from further weakening a single opponent already weaker than him. In 2-player games, the stronger player can just lash out at the only other opponent, which directly increases his chance of winning. So the chance of turning a game around after half the time played is much slimmer in a 2-player game than in a 4-player game, from my experience. Anyway, Dominion is a great game that packs a lot of strategical depth in a rather short playing time!
  - dmurray 12y ago
    >Usually, everyone will focus on keeping the strongest player from winning Do you have any specific examples of how this happens? One of the design goals of Dominion is that there are no "kingmaker" mechanics, so you never have a choice of which player to attack or help. Cards that allow interaction usually target either the player to your left, or all other players.
cfeduke 12y ago
Roma and Arena: Roma II are excellent 2 player only games. Sub 1 hour and good strategy. I would disagree with you on TS, as it is one of the simplest two player games with any depth I have ever played. My wife owns a game store; I have played a great many two player games.
jmilloy 12y ago
What two player games do you know and like already? I love to play Coloretto, Battle Lines, Hive, and lately Innovation.

msluyter 12y ago

I like Twilight Struggle a great deal, but I find its top BGG ranking somewhat odd. I'd wager there's a sort of selection effect: the sort of person willing to sit down for a 2 player game in the first place is probably the sort of hard-core gamer who enjoys highly complex brainburners, and thus is more likely to rate it highly. Compare that to the sort of moderate/casual boardgamer who prefers something along the lines of 7 Wonders. The former will play 7 Wonders and (may) give it a mediocre rating, while the latter aren't even going to try TS. Just a theory. And for the record, the last time I played, TS took 5 hours, but neither of us were fluent and were thus often consulting the rules and/or stuck in analysis paralysis.

quink 12y ago
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/nicodv/bgg/blob/master/BGG%20Top%201000%20Reanalyzed.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/nicodv/bgg/blob/master/BG... Spoiler: Twilight Struggle still #1.

finnh 12y ago

I am dismayed that Connect Four has a below-average rating. Still a great game in my book ... I burned many hours in Thailand playing this on the beach, Beer Chang in hand.

evanb 12y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it were ultimately related to the fact that it's a solved game. Programs exist which provably never lose. So the strategy is known, there are (in principle, anyway) no "hard choices" that many of the higher-ranked games have.
- 1123581321 12y ago
  Yes, it's become a poster child for "bad game" and so it's rated worse than it deserves and lower than games that are (i my opinion) worse because so many people have heard that it's solved.
cdelsolar 12y ago
Well, Scrabble not being rated near #1 is preposterous. I'm a tournament Scrabble player (there are a few thousand of us in the US that are rated) and Scrabble is an amazingly well designed, deep and strategically very complex game, yet is rated in the high hundreds somewhere, whereas games with much smaller tourney communities are rated much higher.
- Retra 12y ago
  Scrabble quickly gets boring unless you are willing to get serious about it. Nothing spectacular happens in your average game of scrabble.
  - ashark 12y ago
    Scrabble is a game that's ruined for casual players as soon as someone in the group memorizes all the permissible two-letter words and a bunch of the obscure three-letter words. It's like the kid who owns the only copy of Street Fighter II in his class and, after a few weeks, can't find anyone who will play it with him.

CurtHagenlocher 12y ago

It's a computer game and not a board game, but I'm surprised that "Balance of Power" wasn't mentioned as a predecessor.

clavalle 12y ago
It started as a board game. The digital port is very recent.
- LanceH 12y ago
  There was a Balance of Power - geopolitical game in the 80's. It was all about influencing various countries, nudging them left or right. Then there would be an impasse and the missiles would start flying. It didn't seem like much of a game to me.
  - firebones 12y ago
    Chris Crawford created the game. On the Mac, it was really a great game for the time (1985), and I'm not sure I ever managed to win. (Blowing up the world or losing to the Soviet Union tended to be much more likely outcomes given my incompetence at playing brinksmanship.) I liked it because it was probably the first turn-based game I played that really made great use of Mac graphics featuring great interactive maps and mock newspaper headlines summarizing the reaction to actions, along with a frustratingly tough AI opponent. Crawford was of an era where the interesting games were much more about teaching and conveying the designer's worldview, and less about creating Skinner boxes for maximizing IAP or expansion pack sales, or franchises. The reason the missiles would always fly had a lot to do with the fact that as a player, you had to really view it not as a confrontational game, but as a cooperative game (with the AI) where mutually assured survival meant concessions were more important than aggression. This is pretty much antithetical to the conditioning in every other game of playing to win. Some good history on the game here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game)

ansible 12y ago

For those of you who haven't seen the Tabletop series [1] yet, it's a fun way to get a feel for the many shorter board games out there. Previous seasons had shows on Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and King of Tokyo mentioned in the article. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSlvu0zbD4YuPOF https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSl...

michaelochurch 12y ago

Two-player games are attractive for a couple of reasons. First, by definition, half the players win. People like winning, and are likely to replay and rate highly a game they think they have a chance to win. Also, with just one opponent, there is little downtime. You don’t have to wait while the turn gets passed around the table to three, four or five other players. That’s boring. I can give some insight into why 2-player games are popular. (ETA: when I wrote this, I missed that 3-player games do slightly better.) I'm a guy who engineered (optimized?) the fuck out of a 4-player card game (to minimize card-luck in a trick-taking game) called Ambition: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhHZh5IEKBDf56ExgErv4o/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhH... I succeeded in the design challenge, and I think it's a damn good game, but the game hasn't caught on and player-number (or, for math people, player arity) is almost certainly the biggest culprit. It takes exactly 4. (There's a 3-player variant, but it's not as fun and I'd rather just play a game designed for 3, like Skat.) The reason I bring this up is that I have insight into what 2-player games do so well. It's cultural. A 2-player game (or a 2-party game, like Bridge which has 2 teams of two players) is a showdown and it's decisive. It develops a "mind sport" culture. There's less of a feeling of decisivity in a 3- or 4-player game because you can't always separate "A outplayed B and C" from "B played best but C's mistakes unintentionally advantaged A over B and A won". Game outcomes generally have four components: Chance, skill, strategic interaction, and flux. Flux is minute-by-minute engagement in the game (which can be modeled as a fluctuation in skill). Skill and flux are what we care about. The "strategic interaction" term might seem odd, because "strategy" and "skill" are often used interchangeably, but it actually refers to the scenario in 3+ party games where A, seeking his own strategic goals, unintentionally advantages B over C. This is sometimes called "strategic luck". (Or, it can devolve into a king-maker scenario. Or it can become an influence of table position, as in Puerto Rico, that some dislike. Or it can be made a part of the game, as in Diplomacy, where people pre-arrange interaction effects-- but might defect.) It's inevitable if you have more than 2 parties. And it makes it easy for people to feel "screwed", just as chance does, so while you can have that element and still have a good game (just as I'd argue that random chance doesn't make a game "bad", even if the Euro aesthetic eschews it) you're not likely to develop the "mind sport" culture of Go, Chess, or Bridge if that's the case. I don't know for sure if this explains 2-player games getting higher ratings, but 2-player games and variable-player games (like Texas Hold 'em, which accommodates varying player number better than, say, a highly-engineered trick-taking game) do the best job of catching on and developing a reputation. A 2-player game is a showdown and a variarity game accommodates a group of unplanned size; exactly 3, 4, or 5 limits the audience and "catch on" speed.