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Author Topic: In defense of Monopoly  (Read 53245 times)

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popsofctown

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #100 on: March 09, 2018, 01:30:21 am »
+1

I can't see how the obvious strategy of offering less favorable trades and more frequent attacks to the frontrunner doesn't drastically increase the sample size needed for the best player to win more often.
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faust

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #101 on: March 09, 2018, 03:11:49 am »
+1

Valeria has all the fun dice-rolling of Machi Koro but also lets you still collect resources even if the dice are cruel to you.
Can you tell me more about that game? How good is it?

Mainly asking because Valeria is also the name of my girlfriend and thus it would make for a hilarious present... if it's any good.
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Seprix

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #102 on: March 09, 2018, 03:23:35 am »
+3

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Kuildeous

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #103 on: March 09, 2018, 10:43:56 am »
+1

Mainly asking because Valeria is also the name of my girlfriend and thus it would make for a hilarious present... if it's any good.

Your girlfriend's name is awesome.

So the concept is similar to Thunderstone but with a Catan/Machi Koro style of resource gathering rather than a deckbuilder. You start off with a Peasant and a Knight. Their numbers are 5 and 6. Every time a player rolls one of these numbers or a sum that matches these numbers, you trigger their resource. Peasant gives you a Gold, and Knight gives you a Fight. You can recruit other citizens ranging from 1 to 12 to add to your tableau. Doubles will trigger the same citizen twice, so a 12 will get you two Fight per Knight plus whatever the 12 gives you (which is usually pretty good considering its rarity). The other Citizens give you varying amounts of Gold, Fight, Magic, or even Victory Points when their numbers come up.

On top of recruiting citizens, you can fight monsters. There are five stacks, and each stack has weaker monsters leading up to a boss monster. You cash in Fight tokens and sometimes Magic tokens. They're worth VP and give you an additional reward, such as more resources or additional citizen recruiting.

And there are Domain cards you can buy with Gold. They give you VPs and some sort of ability that can help you out, such as paying 2 Gold to change a die to a 6 or gaining VP every time doubles are rolled.

Similar to Dominion, you play until X number of stacks are exhausted. X = twice the number of players. You also end if all monsters are defeated or all domains are bought. There's your Dominion Province/Colony rule.

The base set is pretty good, but the expansions are nice so far. They've added monsters and domains as well as additional citizens. They also added event cards. Half the Exhausted markers you lay out will trigger random events. They add a little uncertainty to the game. I won a game recently because an event allowed us to spend 3 resources for 5 VP. I had the resources; my wife did not. I won by 3 points.

So it's luck-driven like Monopoly and Catan, but I feel you have a much greater control of your luck. I usually always buy cards so 1-12 are fully represented with extras depending on my secret goal (extra VPs for certain icons). And some domain cards can let you choose your luck by bumping a die to a certain value.  The closest comparison is to Machi Koro, but not as sloppy.

So if you guys are cool with a fantasy theme, you may dig this.
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Watno

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #104 on: March 09, 2018, 11:25:28 am »
+2

Machi Koro is about as good a baseline for judging games as Monopoly.
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GendoIkari

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #105 on: March 09, 2018, 01:24:28 pm »
0

What tournament is this?

The online tournaments and ladder hosted by java settlers.
My mistake for presuming that was the norm everywhere.

Quote
I find this very hard to believe. Yes, the average turn would be faster, but you would need far more turns per game, since reaching 10 points would be much harder without being able to trade with other players. Also, even though many turns would only be about 4 seconds; several turns would still easily take at least 30 seconds while players think about their options; or even just go through the physical motions of trading with the bank; playing development cards; dealing with moving the robber, etc.

Make no mistake, 15 min games only happen with players that have been around the block.  You need to have memorized the four items on the cheat sheet, know how to get to 10 points efficiently, and know the main strategies for getting to 10. 

I played ~100 games with the no trade rule (online, and in person), and I bet zero of them surpassed 20 min.
when my friends played settlers in person with no trading, we did 15 min including new board setups between games.
I've done a 15 min game from a closed and packed box.

Even when people had bank trading and card playing and construction in the same turn, they are typically done in 15-20 seconds per turn.
Turns where people were merely building road settlement were regularly done in 10 seconds or less.
One thing you are missing in your analysis is that a much higher percentage of turns are that you are unable to build.  when trading is allowed, you can have games where something is purchased almost every turn.  there are LOTS of 4 second turns when trading isn't allowed. 

Quote
That sounds like it would be a completely different game... maybe better, but probably worse. Trading is pretty fundamental to Catan.

I am in 100% agreement with you that it is a different game.  totally breaks the mold.
but not worse.  not better.  different.

ports are more important.  trading to the bank happens.  you can't trade away a victory.  you don't have the leader getting blacklisted while the other players try to catch up.

It's more technical, and less touchy-feely.  It's more skill, and less politics.

For some people, this is the clearly better game.  For some, it ruins the game.

I didn't realize you were taking about online games. I can see how those would be much faster to start with; an online game always is. Look at Dominion; you can play a game online in 5 minutes, but in person is going to be at least 20.
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weesh

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #106 on: March 09, 2018, 02:07:13 pm »
0

...
I played ~100 games with the no trade rule (online, and in person), and I bet zero of them surpassed 20 min.
when my friends played settlers in person with no trading, we did 15 min including new board setups between games.
I've done a 15 min game from a closed and packed box.
...
I didn't realize you were taking about online games. I can see how those would be much faster to start with; an online game always is.

Both actually.
In my experience, the online nature was not terribly relevant to how much time was taken.
It's hard to know for sure, but I suspect that the in person no trading games were a touch slower...but they were close enough that I'd want to pull out a stopwatch and measure a bunch of them before I'd be comfortable that the game portion was slower.

Obviously the setup is slower in person, but the game itself didn't elongate perceptibly.

In person, people could shortcut things, place a settlement, then say "go", then when the next player is reaching for the dice, they'd return 4 wood, a brick and a sheep to the supply without specifically trading to the port first, like the online client requires.

Also, the jsettlers client left a bit to be desired.  It required a lot of unneeded clicks of tiny buttons.  perhaps a better coder combined with better graphic designer could have made it significantly faster to play than live matches.

Quote
Look at Dominion; you can play a game online in 5 minutes, but in person is going to be at least 20.
Is 20 the severe low end, or is that repeatable?!
I play with people that have logged 80+ games, and we regularly take 45 min (excluding setup).
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blueblimp

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #107 on: March 10, 2018, 06:57:01 am »
+4

I've played no-trading Catan IRL a while ago. I remember it being reasonably fun. I don't like trading, so for me it was an improvement. It also increases the number of turns (though each turn is shorter on average), which helps even out the dice luck.

The issue I think is that when most people want to play Catan, it's because they want to trade. So those people are not going to be happy with the variant. And if you don't like trading, it seems preferable to play a game that doesn't build trading into its design.
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GendoIkari

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #108 on: March 10, 2018, 01:14:02 pm »
+1

20 would be a severe low end; 2 person game only. 45 sounds more typical.
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LostPhoenix

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #109 on: July 23, 2018, 12:45:46 am »
+4

One variant of Catan I really like is the Event cards, introduced in the Traders and Barbarians expansion. Instead of rolling the dice each turn, you flip over the top card a deck with the production numbers on them. The number of each result in the deck corresponds with the probability of that roll. (For example, there are five "6s" in the deck, three "10s," etc.) When the deck is exhausted, you shuffle the cards and draw again. This mitigates some of the randomness, as you will no longer have those freak situations where your "5" is rolled once during the entire game while "11" is rolled three times in a row. You can comfortably build while knowing exactly how often you'll receive resources.
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markusin

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #110 on: July 23, 2018, 10:36:07 am »
0

One variant of Catan I really like is the Event cards, introduced in the Traders and Barbarians expansion. Instead of rolling the dice each turn, you flip over the top card a deck with the production numbers on them. The number of each result in the deck corresponds with the probability of that roll. (For example, there are five "6s" in the deck, three "10s," etc.) When the deck is exhausted, you shuffle the cards and draw again. This mitigates some of the randomness, as you will no longer have those freak situations where your "5" is rolled once during the entire game while "11" is rolled three times in a row. You can comfortably build while knowing exactly how often you'll receive resources.

I've tried this version once with my family. It didn't stick. It should be noticed that the deck of "dice rolls" is shuffled when there are like five cards left, so there is still some variance in distribution per shuffle of the deck.
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pacovf

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #111 on: March 07, 2021, 10:30:27 am »
+5

Someone rename this thread:  "The Necro Wars".  Then everyone immediately shut up and let the games begin.  See you in 2 years.

I shall reclaim my title.

*marks March 7th 2018 on Google Calendar*

pacovf, you joked about doing it.

I actually did.

Man, imagine if I had actually noted it down on my calendar, then missed posting on the thread long enough that someone else managed to ninja me. That would be stupid.

...see you March 7th, 2021.

Nothing I could say today would change the meaning (if there is any) of this post. So I will say nothing.
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Titandrake

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #112 on: March 07, 2021, 02:59:09 pm »
+2

Someone rename this thread:  "The Necro Wars".  Then everyone immediately shut up and let the games begin.  See you in 2 years.

I shall reclaim my title.

*marks March 7th 2018 on Google Calendar*

pacovf, you joked about doing it.

I actually did.

Man, imagine if I had actually noted it down on my calendar, then missed posting on the thread long enough that someone else managed to ninja me. That would be stupid.

...see you March 7th, 2021.

Nothing I could say today would change the meaning (if there is any) of this post. So I will say nothing.

Man, imagine if I had actually noted it down on my calendar too, but set the event time too late.

...I guess the next date is March 7, 2025?
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pacovf

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #113 on: March 07, 2021, 03:22:42 pm »
0

Yup. Could even say 12pm forum time.
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Titandrake

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #114 on: March 08, 2021, 02:38:59 am »
0

Yup. Could even say 12pm forum time.

What time zone is that? I have everything set to local time right now.
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LostPhoenix

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #115 on: March 08, 2021, 10:40:51 am »
+1

Yup. Could even say 12pm forum time.

What time zone is that? I have everything set to local time right now.

Tuvalu time. GMT+12
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pacovf

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Re: In defense of Monopoly
« Reply #116 on: March 08, 2021, 04:56:40 pm »
0

Yup. Could even say 12pm forum time.

What time zone is that? I have everything set to local time right now.

I believe it is EST? At time of writing this, forum says it's 4:56pm.
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