Game: Britannia

Thread: Re: A Review 1000 Years In The Making ...... Roughly ....... give or take a millenia.

lewpuls — 2008-07-01T11:33:13+00:00

"Sequence of Play" rules is what FFG did, as opposed to "read the rules thoroughly, then play the game and refer back to rules as needed". The idea behind Sequence of Play is that people will actually try to play the game while reading the rules for the first time. This IS what Euro-style players often do, but I don't see Britannia as particularly attractive to Euro-players (though, believe it or not, one person actually said it's a Euro-style game!). So SoP rules are designed to be read as you go, not as reference material. And tend to fail as reference material. My old-style version of the rules can be downloaded at my Web site (pulsiphergames.com).

I tried to convince FFG to include a video about how to play in the game, but they said they didn't think their customers needed it. Yet they did need SoPlay. Who knows?

The game IS too long for many people. I have a prototype that, on second play, took people 1:40. That's what I'm aiming at, at least one version in a game that will be 90-120 minutes. And possibly another version that will be longer. Then a few really long games may be published ultimately as "monster" games.

Thread: Re: Britannia: flawed in ways but still a good game overall

perfalbion — 2008-07-01T01:07:24+00:00

whac3 wrote:
Yet I would duly point out that NO ONE has seen fit to explain what precisely the flaw in my reasoning was. That kind of information would be highly advantageous to relatively new players such as myself.

I don't want this to appear to be personal, so please don't take it as such. I don't think this statement is accurate.

Experienced players have pointed out that there is an ebb and flow in the game that you only learn through repeated plays.

Experienced players have pointed out that to achieve the scores you've quoted, at least one of the colors had to have made some very bad choices during the game.

Experienced players have pointed out that the scores your listing seem disproportionately high or low, indicating either issues with how the scoring is being done or with the decisions being made.

The only way that we can provide a stronger rationale would be to have a session replay that we could comment on. There simply isn't enough detail in what's been provided to say "Ah - the Welsh were far too aggressive here and left themselves too open to attack." Or "By doing that with the Picts, you've opened the door for the Scots when they arrive in two turns and really set up Yellow." Or "It doesn't make much sense for the Angles to be attacking the Saxons heavily when the Brigantes are still in play."

You're really asking for solid conclusions when all we have to go on is your impressions and some scores. The scores listed are not in the "normal" range (260 is usually a lock to win the game, and I think I've seen that all of twice), and where they're off, they're off by a huge margin.

There's any number of potential causes for that. You could have a rule wrong (are you allowing raiders to retreat back to the sea?), could be scoring wrong (one player I encountered scored visiting points for every turn they visited/held an area), or simply could be choosing bad strategies (why are the Welsh in Essex on Turn 6?).

Without a detailed session report, there's little more we can say.

Thread: Re: Britannia: flawed in ways but still a good game overall

lewpuls — 2008-06-30T01:55:27+00:00

Yes, new players ARE likely to get the impression the game is unbalanced, though in myriad different ways. I recall a player at WBC (playing yellow, as it happened). When the game ended (and he lost), he said "what could I do, I didn't have a chance." He assumed there was a problem with the game.

The problem is that game players nowadays expect a game to reveal all of its strategy by the time they've played it once or twice. This may be because so many "Euro" style games are a mechanism and little more; once you figure out how to take advantage of the mechanism, there's no more depth to the game. It's also because most Euro games, as "family games on steroids", are intended to allow someone a chance to win even if they've been making bad moves for half to two thirds of the game. Brit is more like chess, if you screw up big early, you'd pretty much Doomed.

At WBC some experts began to point out possibilities and problems he hadn't even recognized, as a first-time player, and he began to see how little he actually knew.

There are comments on BGG from people who played once, assumed they'd seen everything, believed the game to be unbalanced, and trashed it with a low rating. Takes a lot of gall, if you ask me, but there's a greater tendency these days for people to think their opinion is just as good as any other regardless of how little or much they have to back it up. Moshe DID play the game several times, unlike these folks.

I can't think of anything that would help avoid the creation of this impression. Longer strategy notes in the rules (would the players read them?)? A video about strategy that players can download (would they go get it?)?

What I am doing in newer games is having two versions, one fairly short and simple, so at least if you play poorly you only suffer for 90 minutes, not 4-5 hours. The longer version is more complex (and usually diceless to boot).

Lew

Thread: Re: Britannia: flawed in ways but still a good game overall

whac3 — 2008-06-30T12:42:34+00:00

Ewan;

First, I apologize. In rereading your comments, I took them as more personally insulting than I think they were intended to be.

Second, I do not intend to blame my opponents but I fell into the trap of trying to explain what fundamentally cannot be explained. I am willing to accept that my experience is anomalous. I attempted to be clear in the original review that I had only been playing the game a few months, albeit quite a lot during those months. As stated, the impressions of the game I took were based on that.

Thus, I will not attempt to argue with experts on the game who have been playing for thirty years or however long. Nevertheless, I would point out that these are indeed the impressions someone new to the game is liable to get. I have a number of games which to new players seem unbalanced and not a few of these state as much so that, while new to the game, I just took that for granted and tried to gain experience.

Again, I raised specific points as to why the game SEEMED unbalanced to me and will grant the superior knowledge of those more experienced at the game than myself. Yet I would duly point out that NO ONE has seen fit to explain what precisely the flaw in my reasoning was. That kind of information would be highly advantageous to relatively new players such as myself.

Thread: Re: Britannia: flawed in ways but still a good game overall

whac3 — 2008-06-29T03:41:02+00:00

ewan wrote:
whac3 wrote:

For both yellow and red, I got 321-- tied exactly-- of which for yellow 136 was from the Romans. I scored with them all possible points except for a few forts raiders managed to destroy. Green was next with 180 something and blue with 150 something.

For context: I've played something close to 500 games of Brit, including wins at both major US tournaments and a UK championship. At WBC over the past few years I've managed to grab ten of the 'high-score' plaques.

Never, in any game I've ever seen, has anyone come close to 321.

For *two* colours to do so in the same game is simply unbelieveable. Honestly, at this point I have to suspect that the whole thread is a troll.

[The sum of the four colours' scores should be a little over 800, in general; can be slightly less in a knife-fight game, somewhat more in a very friendly one, but no more than maybe 900 max. I think the lowest winning score I've seen was around 190, and that was a *vicious* game :)]

You are welcome to suspect whatever you jolly well please, mate. In fact, if you wish to be insulting and rude, I could make a few suggestions of what you are welcome to do.

Be that as it may, the review is genuine. I do not claim to have played the game for years but I played it enough before writing the review to see the pattern. I will grant that these impressions may change when I have learned more how to play but I do not have any more experienced people to play with.

Thread: Re: Britannia: flawed in ways but still a good game overall

Konwacht — 2008-06-29T07:24:53+00:00

@ewan: Well, I would not say that such strong. In our many, many games in the last ten years I have seen scores above 300 often enough. At least five times in the last three years, according my statistics. Highest score ever for ONE colour was 347 for red. But indeed with much dice luck and a home-run of Irish, Saxons and Brigs :)

Even in an experienced gaming group there can be evenings when the dice speak another language than they are supposed to do :D

But I´m with you when speaking of two colours. I have too never seen any game in which two colours managed to score that high. When any player manages to get a score above 300 the others always scored much less - I´m pretty sure it isn´t possible for both players to get 300 points and above.

By the way: According to my statistics in our gaming group the lowest score ever was 112 by green. That was an evening where green got bashed by everyone just as a try, how "bad it can run for one colour". ;)