geek
The Hotness
Games|People|Company
Rules | Subscriptions | Bookmarks | Search | Account | Moderators
Recommend
12
Andrew Rae
New Zealand
Wellington
flag msg tools
Avatar
mbmbmbmbmb
Lifeboats » Forums » Reviews
Quo Vadis, Diplomacy or maybe intrigue, more negotiation for you!
When I think of negotiation games I think of seriously long ones like Diplomacy or more accessible ones like Intrigue or Quo Vadis. It’s all about turning someone to your way of thinking. So what is the point of difference, why do you prefer one over the other?

Lifeboats is simple to play. There are a number of boats each requiring three movements to get to an island. Any meeples in the boat when it lands scores points. One boat is moved each turn and one boat springs a leak each turn. Each boat has seven spaces and a leak will replace a meeple if there is no space for a leak to spring. Each turn every player must also move one meeple into a different boat if they can. It is a voting game and so you vote for which boat leaks, you vote for which boat goes forward and all players in a boat with a leak votes for which player loses a meeple if there is not enough space. It’s mostly about the vote and therefore all about negotiation.

I played Lifeboats for the first time last night and it was a very different experience from the other games I have mentioned above. Upon reflection the difference was in the type of negotiation possible and it is affected significantly by the player numbers. The dynamics of negotiation games swing dramatically based on the number of players and almost exclusively an odd number is better than an even number. Normally four is the number of death for many negotiation games, where five breathes new life into otherwise tired stalemates. We played with five, but it didn’t seem to add as much as I would have thought. We constantly face three on two scenarios making restricting the value of the dual alliance.

Lifeboats, in my opinion, is more limited in the ability to negotiate than other games. In the other games mentioned I have found the primary mechanism is doing deals. Imagine Quo Vadis for example, “I support you to the next level if you’ll then support me”. The deal happens largely in isolation of the other players and each player gets an opportunity to do a deal. Trust and the ability to deal become the key factors.

Well Lifeboats is different, very different because although there is the similar element of trust, I found little opportunity to do deals with five players. The issue is the ability to transfer benefits from one vote to another. There are so many other players and factors that when a person votes they are voting largely in isolation for a single outcome. There was very little “I’ll do this if you do that” because the support just doesn’t translate well beyond the current vote.

This gives lifeboats a unique feel when it comes to negotiation. The primary skills appear to managing your people so that others are incentives to support you. It’s not about doing deals because the quick and dirty mechanism is always in play. Catch the leader will always dominate and half the skill is in convincing others that your meeples won’t come in so that the boat you are most interested in isn’t sunk or so that your meeple isn’t drowned. The quick and dirty algorithm dominates.

For this reason I say it is more a game of strategy and manipulation like diplomacy that it is a game of charisma and dealing like Quo Vadis. There are many factors beyond your control and you must plan very deeply and very precisely. Even then you will probably suffer from the whims and fancies of other players and the player that will win is the player who most effectively convinces the majority that they are not a threat for the game. Even then it appears that Kingmakers can rule.

So if you are looking for a game of trading and dealing then go back to Settlers or even Quo Vadis, but if this sounds like you then lifeboats is a deep and subtle game that could keep your group going for years. This is not my cup of tea, but then I just don’t like tea!
Matt
New Zealand
Wellington
flag msg tools
Avatar
patron06
mbmbmbmb
citylife wrote:
This is not my cup of tea, but then I just don’t like tea!

I thought it was that you didn't like cups.
Anyway, Lifeboats didn't grab me the first (and only) time I played it. However, the concept of the game is cool, so maybe it just needs another play.
New Zealand
Wellington
flag msg tools
Avatar
patron06070809
mbmbmb
citylife wrote:
...lifeboats is a deep and subtle game that could keep your group going for years.


I don't think Lifeboats is deep (unless you fall overboard) or subtle at all. I'm curious why you think this?

I think it's a pretty, well, shallow game of bluffing and area majority, with a little bit of negotiation (but not much). Control levels appear very low. It's fun though I suppose.




Nick Case
England
Epsom
Surrey
flag msg tools
Avatar
0506070809
mb
meowsqueak wrote:

I don't think Lifeboats is deep (unless you fall overboard) or subtle at all. I'm curious why you think this?


All power to you for telling it as you see it.

meowsqueak wrote:

I think it's a pretty, well, shallow game of bluffing and area majority, with a little bit of negotiation (but not much). Control levels appear very low. It's fun though I suppose.


However I can't see how you can draw these conclusions.

Shallow Game? Lifeboats has had me racking my brain trying to twist solutions and strategies far more than it should then. The decisions over who to side with, who to vote for, which man to plop over the side and when to play Captain cards are all intertwined and the thought processes extremely complex. I doubt you could make a meaningful PC version of the game as the AI would be too dependant upon the interaction between players.

Area Majority?? Its very rare for one player to hold sway over a boat. Only a player with friends on board prevents his man from being thrown over. This aspect of the game is almost pure negotiation and diplomacy.

Not Much Negotiation??? In all the games I have played we have had to use a timer or a time keeper to limit negotiation, otherwise people tend to haggle for ever.

Low Control Levels????? I'm not sure that I understand what that means but you can't be a passenger in this game. Just surfing the results without trying to steer or influence them is missing the entire thrust of what this game is all about.

Lifeboats extracts the full range of negotiation techniques from each player, cajoling, reasoning, barguining, threatening. Its a great game to just watch as a spectator if you have dynamic players trying to twist every drop of sweat out of a deal. If simplified slightly I've always thought it would be a good exercise to use on those management training days to teach negotiation techniques and to guage how effective people are.

Your summary and disillusionment are poles apart from the reactions I have witnessed when I have played this and I'm tempted to say that you might benifit from trying this with a different group.

A while back I was struggling with viable approaches to this game and splurged this;

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/244072

More questions than answers but there's enough to ponder here to justify the game as suitably deep rather than shallow.
Last edited on 2008-05-29 04:33:45 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Frank Eisenhauer

Astana
Kazakhstan
msg tools
Avatar
patron070809
mbmbmbmbmb
While I love this game I still think Meouwsqueek has a point. The truth is somewhere between his and your impression of the game. On one hand it's a game of simply calculating the odds (votes), on the other it's a game of trying to convince everybody on who is the current leader and needs to be stopped. There are no negotiations per se as there are no binding agreements, it is more a competition in arguments. Most of all it's a lot of fun! I don't think our gaming group is the problem, it's more a matter of personal taste and that's ok!
Darryl Boone
Canada
Coquitlam
British Columbia
flag msg tools
Avatar
patron060708
mbmbmb
I've had fun with Lifeboats, but as a "negotiation" game it's terrible. What can you negotiate for? You could get some help on a particular vote in exchange for some help later, in theory, but the player positions change so drastically between turns that the opportunity to fulfill that deal later may disappear (and deals are non-binding anyway).

In practice what this means, and I've played with a few different groups, is that there isn't really any negotiation to speak of. Someone proposes one option and others basically say 'yea' or 'nay', because there's nothing meaningful you can offer to change someone's mind. It's a voting game, and as a voting game it works pretty well, but if someone is looking for a negotiation game, he'd be disappointed with Lifeboats.

Compare this with Quo Vadis. You can see everyone's position and voting strength so you can easily see who can help you and how, both now and later. Deals are binding for one full round, which puts people at ease and eliminates all those screwage and trust issues that can make people reserved about making deals. There's lots of wheeling and dealing in Quo Vadis, and as a negotiation game it succeeds far greater than Lifeboats does.
Front Page | Welcome | Contact | Privacy Policy | Advertise | Support BGG | Feeds RSS
BoardGameGeek and the BoardGameGeek logo are trademarks of BoardGameGeek, LLC.