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I've been of the opinion that the solo series is a neat idea - rewarding you for good play, and becoming harder and harder to "win" each game by raising the target score. However in the first 5 solo games I played it seemed incredibly easy to not only succeed in the first game, but to blow the target score away, starting the second game with plenty of food to play Occupations, pay for nifty stuff your occupations give you, or just feed your family in the first harvest.
Granted, those 5 games were all played "two-headed moron" style - where a friend and I would basically collaborate on a game and try to do our best. It's probable that makes it easier to do well, and I figured our team of 2 was probably doing better than most single people could do... but I got the impression that even alone the game would be too easy.
So, tonight I played 2 games in a new Solo series using the E deck. I tried to make it a point to play faster than we do in the "team" game, rather than meticulously planning every action up to the next harvest. Instead, while I did a lot of planning, I tried to go somewhat with my gut. In the first game I managed a score of 65, and chose to keep the Mason. I think that was a mistake, because I also had the Grocer, which would probably have been a better bet, especially considering I was going to start game 2 with 7 food, enough to buy just about all the groceries the guy had to offer! I did well in the early game by hiring that Grocer, taking Day Labor several times, plowing 2 fields, and then planting the Grain and Veggie I got from the Grocer. I figured that Day Labor was sort of like taking 2 resources (the ones off the top of the Seller's stack), and I went from there. It helped that the Grocer gives a Stone in the early game, so I was able to get a Clay oven in a hurry.
In the second game I was sorry I didn't have the Grocer because I realized I'd have to wait forever to get Stone. I had several Minor Improvements that required 1 Stone! But I made use of the Mason by only having to build rooms once during the game. I had an Axe (requires 1 Stone!), so I saved up enough wood to buy 4 Stables and 2 rooms (12 wood), and built it all at once. Later, after upgrading to Stone I immediately got a 5th room. I ended with a score of 71 points in that game, a full 16 points ahead of the target score - an even bigger margin than in game 1! I nearly chose to keep the Clay Mixer (2 extra Clay when you take the Clay space) in the first game, and I drew him again here. I also had the Seasonal Worker guy (+1 Grain with Day Labor action), who I nearly kept this time as well. Instead I decided to keep the Meat-Seller, because I figure next game I can start by getting room for 3 sheep and starting to breed them right away, and that's 2 food per turn right there. No need to buy a Fireplace or Hearth (I'll likely be getting an oven anyway). The biggest disappointment was not keeping the Grocer because getting Grain, Veggie, and Stone that early and without even having to spend an action is a really big deal.
I'd already given some thought into how to make the Solo Series more challenging and therefore more fun. One thing that I think would help is to stop juicing the animal spaces once they get 4 animals on them. I wouldn't want to quit juicing anything else, but with the animals I think it makes sense - if you want them to breed then you have to actually make room for them and take them onto your farm... not just let them breed int he wild before collecting all of them at once!
One more thing that might make it a bigger challenge is to spread that free food out so you don't get it all up front. Maybe put 1 food on each space, starting from Round 14 and counting down... so if you start with 7 food you get it in rounds 8-14. This would still be a reward, as the later part of the game would lighten a little, but the early food combined with free occupations really makes the game trivial.
Any other thoughts on making the Solo series more of a challenge?
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I also find the solo game trivial the way it is now, but there are lots of folks I heard of who don't manage the solo game.
Your idea with the food laid out on action cards rather than getting it at once is very good, although I would do it the other way round. Later in the game it is much easier to feed your family when you have a food generating engine going, so the extra food given as a reward wouldn't be as valuable at the end.
I think it's a good idea to have a quicker and easier start in each of the following games of a series. Of course, this makes the game even more trivial, but also different. If I had no food every game of a series, I'd start each game in exactly the same manner - plus minus what benefits I'd get from my pre-played occupations. Having that food at the beginning, be it even laid out on action cards, gives me an extra action I can do something different with.
In my view, people like us who have no problem with the solo game regardless of which cards we get, should raise the target points. Let's say 60, 65, 69, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77 - ten points more as usual. This might be pretty tough as we'd be getting less food each game.
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I agree that the solo series rules as written are much too easy. With halfway decent cards you should easily score in the 60's on the first game. It only gets easier from there as you start acquiring massive bonus food and are able to assemble your Occupations into a coherent and reliable strategy. But I think the simplest and most obvious balancing method is simply to up the goal scores. The scores in the rules increase by +5, +4, +3, ... I've been playing instead with +6, +5, +4, ... That doesn't sound like a big difference, but it actually adds up pretty fast. Not only do you need to hit higher scores, but your bonus food gets cut down pretty significantly. I've had three very tense attempts at Game 8 of my current series, each one unfortunately cut short by the Flash app flaking out.  It's not quite so tense that I'd actually expect to lose, but I'm OK with that - it's tight enough that I have to plan carefully and not just coast. If I were feeling really hardcore, maybe I'd try +7, +6, +5, ... I'm fairly sure that would be quite difficult. But I think 50 is a good starting place - with really bad cards, 50 could be tough to make on the first game. The only other comment I'd make about balancing the solo series is that Lord of the Manor is far too powerful in this style of game. By the second or third game you should be maxxing at least 7 categories, maybe 8, so LoM is an automatic 7-8 points that doesn't even require any kind of serious strategy to take advantage of. That's far more than any other card is worth and presents real problems in setting challenging goal scores. I've been house-ruling that LoM can't be held as permanent. So basically it will provide you a great food boost for the next game, but then you'll still need to take another action to get a permanent occupation. There are probably plenty of other cards that are ridiculous in the same way, but that's the only one I've noticed out of the E deck so far.
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sedjtroll wrote: Any other thoughts on making the Solo series more of a challenge? Am I missing something? I thought the solo player rules state, and I've been playing where, the maximum wood you can ever get is 2. ie you don't add any additional wood when you don't take the wood action. That to me is a HUGE challenge. Just read the rules and here's the item in question: The action space “3 wood” (3 Holz) only supplies 2 wood in any round.I interpret that to mean you may never obtain more than 2 wood from this space.
Last edited on 2008-08-20 11:51:44 CST (Total Number of Edits: 2)
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hrdkor wrote: sedjtroll wrote: Any other thoughts on making the Solo series more of a challenge? Am I missing something? I thought the solo player rules state, and I've been playing where, the maximum wood you can ever get is 2. ie you don't add any additional wood when you don't take the wood action. That to me is a HUGE challenge. That WOULD be a huge challenge. I'm fairly certain that's not the case - if it were the maximum number of wood in the entire game would be 28 (barring cards which augment it), and that's if you spent 1 action every round collecting it. It may be an interesting challenge to play that way, as you'd probably have to Renovate really early and save that wood (of which you'll need maybe 20) for Fences and Stables. Another option to make it harder would be to make ALL the spaces work that way, but I think part of the fun is deciding WHEN to take the accumulating resources, and when to hold off until next round so it has 1/2 more pieces on it.
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sedjtroll wrote: hrdkor wrote: sedjtroll wrote: Any other thoughts on making the Solo series more of a challenge? Am I missing something? I thought the solo player rules state, and I've been playing where, the maximum wood you can ever get is 2. ie you don't add any additional wood when you don't take the wood action. That to me is a HUGE challenge. That WOULD be a huge challenge. I'm fairly certain that's not the case - I think it is as the solo player rules state: The action space “3 wood” (3 Holz) only supplies 2 wood in any round.That to me means no more than 2 wood supplied no matter if you skip it one turn or not.
Last edited on 2008-08-20 11:54:51 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
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hrdkor wrote: the solo player rules state:
The action space “3 wood” (3 Holz) only supplies 2 wood in any round.
That to me means no more than 2 wood supplied no matter if you skip it one turn or not. That means you add 2 wood to the space in any round, instead of 3. It changes the amount of wood, not the way the space works. It still accumulates, and you still get it all when you take the action.
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sedjtroll wrote: hrdkor wrote: the solo player rules state:
The action space “3 wood” (3 Holz) only supplies 2 wood in any round.
That to me means no more than 2 wood supplied no matter if you skip it one turn or not. That means you add 2 wood to the space in any round, instead of 3. It changes the amount of wood, not the way the space works. It still accumulates, and you still get it all when you take the action. I don't know... "only supplies", to me, means that there are never more than 2 there. Not that you only add two. If that's not the case then I suggest you try playing a solo version like this. My best score playing this way has been 40. It makes it WAY difficult, when the most wood you can ever get is 2 per turn. Like you said 28 total in the game, which is next to impossible if you want to feed your family.
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Given that the Flash app accumulates 2 wood per round and that many, many people played that in the months before release, I think it's safe to say that wood accumulates.
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tppytel wrote: Given that the Flash app accumulates 2 wood per round and that many, many people played that in the months before release, I think it's safe to say that wood accumulates. What's the Flash app?
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hrdkor wrote: What's the Flash app? The solitaire computerized version, available here in the Files section.
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Posted Wed Aug 20,2008 05:19 am
