Game: In the Year of the Dragon

Thread: 2p strategy thoughts

aibrahim — 2008-08-27T20:56:36+00:00

Hi,

After playing a bunch of 2p games here are some of my thoughts on some special strategy considerations for this type of game:

1. 2p games can be as brutal as 5p games. Often the best move for the player first in turn order is to screw the other player instead of amassing the most points.

2. Challenging for turn order is important. If you are significantly behind in turn order (> -3) keep these thoughts in mind:
a) At first challenge on the turn order track. Don't get so far behind that the leading player feels no pressure at all in maintaining his turn track lead. You might be able to catch up with the helmet action. At some point you might want to give up the chase by taking a good elder tile while the turn track leader was taking a young tile to maintain his lead.
b) You should be ahead in points or have a lot of resources stocked up (otherwise why are you behind in turn order?). Usually this is because you hired princesses, builders, or tax collectors early on.
c) Have flexibility in what actions can benefit you. What this means is having several people tiles which augment actions you would like to take. For example, having a rice person, tax person, and builder when the relevant events have not passed makes it hard for the person going first to block you.
d) Take needed resources early, i.e. take rice when you get it.

3. Fireworks are more important in 2p because there is only one competitor for them.

4. Elder tiles are important. In general the elder monk and elder helmet are good. The elder rice is good if the harvest events are late. The elder healer is good if the disease events are far apart. The elder fireworks is okay paired with the younger fireworks (so that a single action gets you 4 fireworks and a good chance to be first place in both firework events). I wouldn't worry have the elder book guy too much.

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qzhdad — 2008-08-27T02:36:05+00:00

Max making his move

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Toynan — 2008-08-23T13:33:06+00:00

Close up at the begining of the game

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

ekavalauskas — 2008-08-21T16:06:23+00:00

we were not taught that part! I guess i'll read the rules before playing next time to see what else i may have missed. thanks!

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spearjr — 2008-08-20T19:37:15+00:00

Interface for Online Play on Mabiweb.com

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

easterly1 — 2008-08-20T02:30:31+00:00

Alan Kwan wrote:
Yes, I don't understand why, but a number of new players are missing that rule about passing.

I would assume, its because everyone focuses on trying to do something that they forget that they don't have to do something??? anyways, when i've taught YotD, I always have to stress several times through out that you can always pass if the options aren't good and you don't have enough yuan to buy a better action. but i do agree that new players forget this option frequently.

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-20T02:12:42+00:00

Yes, I don't understand why, but a number of new players are missing that rule about passing.

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

easterly1 — 2008-08-19T05:46:44+00:00

I would likely agree with that Alan, however when he talks of losing 4 persons and palace degradation.... I find it hard to believe there is any situation where not passing is better then only losing 1 person.

Thread: Re: selecting privilage action without using it

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-19T04:38:16+00:00

Thanks Paul.

The answer is what I expected ... including the comment that such choice is practically useless (and hence omitted from the rules for this reason).

Thread: Re: Don't forget...

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-19T04:35:26+00:00

After a few games decay will become second nature ... and voluntary decay part of your strategy.

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-19T04:33:47+00:00

Rarely you may actually want to lose 2 persons to Tribute in order to perform a more valuable action. For example, if I start the round with $2, and given the choice between building and losing 2 people to Tribute, or passing and losing 1 person to replacement plus 1 person to Tribute, I'll build!

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

easterly1 — 2008-08-18T21:45:19+00:00

ekavalauskas wrote:
However, I didn't have influence and couldn't get it! I was dead last in influence and dead broke with that damn tax collector looming in month 4 who demands 4 yuan or 4 heads! I paid my tax bill in heads!

I guess something that you may have overlooked... you can forgo your action to draw up to 3 yuan. (ie the most yuan you can have after doing this is 3)

so there is really no reason to ever lose more than 1 worker to the tax man.

Thread: Re: A Euro With A Body Count

ekavalauskas — 2008-08-18T19:34:25+00:00

I played for the first time at Gencon this past weekend. My first game was a 2-player game. Not all that exciting but acceptable when trying to learn the rules.

4 months into my 2nd game i quickly learned 2 very valuable lessons that my initial 2-player game didn't teach me. Influence and money are HUGE!

I decided to purchase the double scroll early in the game(turn 1 i believe), using all my money, thinking...no problem, i'll simply replace it the next turn! Boy was i WRONG! I spent the first 3 months raking in an additional 2 VP's and feeling good about myself. However, I didn't have influence and couldn't get it! I was dead last in influence and dead broke with that damn tax collector looming in month 4 who demands 4 yuan or 4 heads! I paid my tax bill in heads!

To further add insult to injury if any of your palaces ever go vacant, they automatically assume you don't need all those floors and make you subtract a floor.

So here i am, game #2, month 5. I own 2 single floor palaces and NO PEOPLE! WOW!

It was a painful lesson. I do love the game though.

Thread: Don't forget...

rgnet1 — 2008-08-17T06:05:24+00:00

...palace decay! Just played first game tonight and completely forgot about the decay. The reference cards don't mention it at all and it's an easy to miss paragraph in the rules when you're skimming them as a reference during the game.

If there's ever a reprint, they should think about making decay an actual phase, or at least mentioning it as a part of the "Event" phase.

Or maybe I just suck for not recalling it after reading the rules through the night before.

Thread: Re: selecting privilage action without using it

Psauberer — 2008-08-16T15:16:13+00:00

Here is the answer I got

Hi Paul,

A good question, but we never ever had the situation that somebody wants to do so - and that´s why we missed to take that possibility into our ruling.
But I would say: A player can choose whatever he wants - and so he can choose also a pretty "senseless" action if he wants to ...
viele grüße/best regards
stefan

Thread: Re: selecting privilage action without using it

LemonyFresh — 2008-08-16T13:11:52+00:00

Do we have an answer to this yet?

Thread: Re: selecting privilage action without using it

Redking — 2008-08-16T11:17:32+00:00

As an aside, it might be worth taking a small privilege over several turns rather than a large priv as 3 small cost the same as 1 large, but if you are high status (on the person track) you can keep blocking later players from the priv action. I suspect this would be more viable than spending an action just to deny priv access, as you gain NOTHING and they can just priv next turn instead, taking some other useful action (build?) in the current turn.

Just a thought.

Thread: Re: 2 player variant for ITYOTD

Kaizen Zanshin — 2008-08-11T03:53:43+00:00

Yeah - I agree with your assessment. I too believe it is best played at 5 players - or 6 with our expansion variation. 2 player is a tease to the real thing. I like my variant and you like yours and thats cool for each of us.

Are coming out Monday? We are looking at playing Senji. If there is room for you to play that are you interested?

Best Regards,

Kevin

Thread: Re: 2 player variant for ITYOTD

jayjonbeach — 2008-08-11T00:26:09+00:00

Kev -

Thanks for the friendly challenge. I really have no reason to try both variants, I'm happy with the one I came up with and have played it twice to test it. Your suggestion looks like it might also work although it might also be too punishing for the second player as I mentioned. If your curious as to which might be better please try them both and try to post unbias results, I have no interest as I find the 2 player game of Dragon very weak with or without a variant and would much rather player something else with 2 as there are much better choices.

Even 3 player has very little interest for me as it just doesn't compare to a very competitive 4 to 6 player game, its very much like playing a 2 or 3 player POF game, a tease compared to the 5 player and just not for me but I still wanted to help those who might be in a position where they have little choice as I know lots of people only have one opponent.

Cheers

Jay

Thread: Re: 2 player variant for ITYOTD

Kaizen Zanshin — 2008-08-10T18:36:29+00:00

jayjonbeach wrote:

It seems people want to try suggesting things which is good and all but no one actually wants to try the variant that was posted with any thoughts which is too bad. If people actually tried it instead of just posting alternatives, they might just find out it works very well and makes a more intersting 2 player experience.

Well I'm still up to playing our two variants back to back and see which one works best - then we could post our thoughts on the matter here on Tuesday. Sound good?

Thread: Re: 2 player variant for ITYOTD

jayjonbeach — 2008-08-10T18:12:53+00:00

maddiedogson wrote:
how about splitting the cards into 3 stacks as in a 3p game, and after his primary choice (A), the first player places the dummy dragon on another stack (B), then the second player either places his dragon on the stack that's left (C) for free, or on the first player's stack for 3 yuan, or on the dummy's stack (B) and pays an amount depending on how many spaces he is behind on the people track. say, he pays 1 yuan if he's behind 0 or 1 space, 2 yuan if he's 2 spaces behind, and 3 yuan otherwise (these numbers are flexible according to the players' needs)

this would make a more complex and subtle race on the people track

That was more or less suggested already and I already posted my thoughts about it.

It seems people want to try suggesting things which is good and all but no one actually wants to try the variant that was posted with any thoughts which is too bad. If people actually tried it instead of just posting alternatives, they might just find out it works very well and makes a more intersting 2 player experience.

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

jayjonbeach — 2008-08-10T18:04:20+00:00

While I am not going to try to change the OP's mind as he seems to have made it up already, I will post the link to the 2 player variant I came up with for anyone interested.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/269806

While I see some people are enjoying the 2 player game, after I had played quite a few 3 to 5 players games of this I found the 2 player version to be very lacking in many ways. I have played the variant and find it more interesting than the 2 player as written, YMMV.

J

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

micklizzy — 2008-08-10T07:31:15+00:00

kusinohki wrote:
I believe the number of tiles for N players is:

Old people = N-1
Young people = N+1

For the Geisha, tax men, and builders (who don't have an old/young version), there are 2*N tiles.

This is all from memory so please double check, but it looks correct given the above discussion.

Correct!

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

kusinohki — 2008-08-10T05:46:10+00:00

I believe the number of tiles for N players is:

Old people = N-1
Young people = N+1

For the Geisha, tax men, and builders (who don't have an old/young version), there are 2*N tiles.

This is all from memory so please double check, but it looks correct given the above discussion.

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-08-10T02:15:21+00:00

Yup, that was very much a minority opinion.

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

Snake1 — 2008-08-10T01:51:10+00:00

Don't listen to the naysayer's either, Dragon plays great with two.

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

cayluster — 2008-08-10T01:43:41+00:00

That makes sense... after looking at the parts list, I realized that the ratio of old/young overall is 4/6, so naturally reducing the old by one for every person missing seems obvious. But the rules still read pretty differently, at least to me. Anyway, thanks for clarifying.

Thread: Re: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

Snake1 — 2008-08-10T01:10:36+00:00

It's a 3-1 ratio, 3 young and 1 old.

Thread: Confusion about number of old/young people... can someone clarify?

cayluster — 2008-08-10T01:05:33+00:00

I just got In the Year of the Dragon today, and after the game (it was just two of us) AND reading some of the forum posts about the game being poor for two, I began to wonder: what is the proper ratio of old/young people in the game? The rules seem to say that there are 2 workers of each type, 2 old and 2 young... which played ok, but it does seem to mean the scarcity is not much of an issue. A post in one of the other forums seemed to suggest that with 2 you should use 3 young workers and 1 older worker, which makes more sense to me, but after re-reading them, the instructions seem pretty clear on this point. Can someone help me settle this once and for all? Is it a 2/2 ratio or a 3/1 ratio of young to old workers when playing with two?

Thread: Re: runaway win in 5 perfect rounds (3-player game)

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-09T03:52:15+00:00

[BGCOLOR=#00FFFF]Final scoring[/BGCOLOR]:

tarot = (10x2) persons + (6+2) monk + (9/3) money = 31
mHabes = (5x2) persons + 2 monk + (10/3) money = 15
scholle = (9x2) persons + 6 monk = 24

[BGCOLOR=#00FFFF]Final result[/BGCOLOR]:

tarot = 110 + 31 = 141
mHabes = 91 + 15 = 106
scholle = 71 + 24 = 95

[BGCOLOR=#00FFFF]Conclusion[/BGCOLOR]:

[BGCOLOR=#FFAAAA]Playing double build in a game with the second drought on round 5 against two players who have not seen this strategy before[/BGCOLOR] , I won with a large margin of 35 VP. So I did win even without counting the points from my large privilage.

MHabes was playing a strategy of raising money for large privilages, but that was not easy under this event order. Scholle was playing the typical strategy of keeping many people alive, but it wasn't VP-efficient, though he did pick up quite many points through research in the late game. Their scores around 100 were not low, but with this event order could only be greatly [BGCOLOR=#FFAAAA]outscored by the double build[/BGCOLOR].

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

falloutfan — 2008-08-08T21:58:20+00:00

Hi

We found the game a bit dry with two. Maybe it's us, but we seemed to spend most of our circling each other like a pair of equally matched boxers. There was a certain predictable nature to the struggle. My wife commented that there was a bit of a problem with the leader pulling away quickly once the advantage was formed.

We're both analytical types, so perhaps our results are not surprising.

Seems best as a 3-4 player game, with the 2 player game being significantly less interesting. (At least for us)

A lot of different games CAN be played two player, but that may not always be the sweet spot.

Regards

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

Ambrose — 2008-08-08T21:22:53+00:00

I'm up for a game of Go! Got an account on KGS or IGS?

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

valar12 — 2008-08-08T20:39:44+00:00

For the record I was the opponent of this reviewer and I was seriously bored winning any of these games. The randomness of the action selection also bothered me as I'm used to Puerto Rico having a more consistent consequence to the action selection. If you're going to make 1/4 of the player's choices subject to randomness it's too random for my tastes. Playing this game felt like staring at a progress bar in Windows. Long, dull, and slow.

I'd rather play Go.

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

Ambrose — 2008-08-08T19:13:58+00:00

mdornbrook wrote:
Steven Duff wrote:
Would have liked to have seen some final scores or a session log to see just what you're complaining about here.

See above for what I'm complaining about. As for scores, they were within 4-5 points of one another each game. However, once one player grabbed a small advantage, that player was able to expand it to consistent control, simply pacing the player that had fallen behind.

Now nothing that you complained of makes sense to me.

What would you like in exchange for In the Year of the Dragon?

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

mdornbrook — 2008-08-08T18:44:49+00:00

Steven Duff wrote:
Would have liked to have seen some final scores or a session log to see just what you're complaining about here.

See above for what I'm complaining about. As for scores, they were within 4-5 points of one another each game. However, once one player grabbed a small advantage, that player was able to expand it to consistent control, simply pacing the player that had fallen behind.

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-08-08T18:03:20+00:00

mdornbrook wrote:
For Trade.

I guess that's easier than finding smarter friends that can at least play a competent game of this...

Would have liked to have seen some final scores or a session log to see just what you're complaining about here.

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-08T17:29:01+00:00

mdornbrook wrote:
Or if I'm doing something wrong or there's just a disparity between my opponent and I making good VP decisions.

This game can have a runaway leader, but it's because of difference in playing skill, not because of unbalanced game mechanics or luck. Many of humankind's greatest games, including chess, go, GIPF project games and Puerto Rico, can have a runaway leader; this doesn't stop them from being great games.

The 2-player game has the convenience that, if one player is clearly winning, the other can just resign. This game is not straightforward, and the novice can have many misconceptions; the winner may share some of his insights, as a courtesy.

I understand that some players may prefer lighter entertainment such as Carcassonne and Lost Cities, while some may prefer games of skill such as this one. It's just personal preference and there's nothing wrong with that. But 5P YotD is to a large extent as much a game of skill as the 2P game. Some strategies change a bit, but a player who doesn't "get it" will lose every time to strong opponents regardless of how many he's playing against.

Thread: Re: Decidedly Uninteresting 2-player

mdornbrook — 2008-08-08T02:50:13+00:00

Played again a few more times. I imagine that this is what people who do not play our beloved games feel like when we force them. "Yup, I'm playing a board game. wow... What am I doing that matters, again?"

For Trade.

Thread: Re: Moving Persons

Alan Kwan — 2008-08-08T01:38:18+00:00

If you can move persons around, the Craftsman should have a value of -2 instead of +2.

Thread: Re: Moving Persons

EvanMinn — 2008-08-07T14:45:44+00:00

ErisQuilty wrote:
Once a person has been placed in a palace, can that person later be moved?

...

The rules for placing a newly acquired person:

]]>

It pretty clearly state your choices are:

- place it in a palace that has room

or

- place it in a full palace and remove a person that was there from the game.

There is not an option for putting the person removed into a different palace.

There is also no phase for moving people around. Only for taking and placing.

Thread: Re: Moving Persons

EvanMinn — 2008-08-07T14:29:06+00:00

Werbaer wrote:
...
According to the german rules, you have to place the new person in a palace, as long as you have room available. If you don't have room, you may discard the new person immeditately. But you don't receive people points for it.

English rules are the same:

]]>

Thread: Re: Moving Persons

LemonyFresh — 2008-08-07T14:25:29+00:00

Big Bad Lex wrote:
why would you ever build more than one palace knowing that one floor of the empty Palace(s) would be lost immediately?

Alkis answered this question above. It happens not infrequently.

Thread: Re: Privileges

EvanMinn — 2008-08-07T14:18:28+00:00

Big Bad Lex wrote:
Half the fireworks (number rounded up) are returned.

That's mentioned in the rules....but are they priveledges?

No. They are different things:

]]>

Thread: Re: Privileges

EvanMinn — 2008-08-07T14:12:20+00:00

]]>

Since you can only buy one per round if you turned them in every round you would never be able to "accumulate" more than one.

]]>

That is the entire section on scoring.

It doesn't say anything about turning in privileges (or palaces or court ladies).

Thread: Re: Releasing someone during epidemic

fardoche — 2008-08-07T14:11:19+00:00

EvanMinn wrote:
]]>

oh..thanks. In the French version, its not worded in this way, which led to the initial confusion

Thread: Re: Moving Persons

Big Bad Lex — 2008-08-07T14:06:45+00:00

Just to be clear. The rules state

'The player may build as many new palace floors as he choooses.....or he can build new Palaces from 1-3 stories high.'

With the emphasis on the plural of Palace'S', if you can't move people around, why would you ever build more than one palace knowing that one floor of the empty Palace(s) would be lost immediately?

An official stance from RGG or Stefan Feld should be appreciated here.

Thread: Re: Privileges

Big Bad Lex — 2008-08-07T13:47:13+00:00

Half the fireworks (number rounded up) are returned.

That's mentioned in the rules....but are they priveledges?

Thread: Re: Releasing someone during epidemic

verandi — 2008-08-07T13:30:12+00:00

Clara has been a naughty girl.

Thread: Re: Releasing someone during epidemic

EvanMinn — 2008-08-07T13:23:51+00:00

Thread: Re: Releasing someone during epidemic

Moviebuffs — 2008-08-07T12:52:00+00:00

Yes he can.

In fact, I think this is mentioned in the rules somewhere.

Just think of him as a kindly Pharmacist .... he makes sure everyone else has medicine before he notices there's nothing left for himself.

N.

Thread: Releasing someone during epidemic

fardoche — 2008-08-07T12:27:15+00:00

Suppose you have just one pharmacist during the second epidemic. You then have to release 2 of your persons. Can your pharmacist be one of the two persons released, since it is not useful anymore?

Thread: Re: A one-word review

mmc chuck — 2008-08-06T03:37:57+00:00

I have played it twice, both 5 player games. In the first game, while one player was grabbing VPs early, another seemed to be building toward a long term victory (while I was still catching on). I mentioned during the game that if the long term strategy didn't win, there is something wrong with the game - well he won and by plenty! At any rate, I finished 3rd and spent the next 24 hours thinking about this game. I loved it immensely and coudn't wait to play again.

About 2 weeks later I was able to play it again (I need to game more), and this time I had a definate strategy to the game (I put quite a bit of emphasis on going first each round). At any rate, to my immense joy, I won with only the prior winner close to me in score. Quite enjoyable!! I can't wait to play again!!!

This is already in my top games with Power Grid, Princes of Florence, and Age of Empires III.

Thread: Re: selecting privilage action without using it

Starsunsky — 2008-08-06T02:28:40+00:00

Yes, I would like to have reference answer, too.

I may be a bit out of control because I have been bugged by many players who just choose to explain a rule in a way they like to fit their situations. My comparison may be moot but I would like just to highlight my experiences that someone argues they can ignore an action for their good because the sentence does not contain a "must" and they can mean "may", which I think is cunning. I think, it would be painful for the publisher to quantify every sentence and to make a rule crystal clear.

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mdu2boy — 2008-06-13T00:43:24+00:00

From Bobby Tweak's game night

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rbayu2 — 2008-05-28T18:02:59+00:00

Year of the Dragon

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rbayu2 — 2008-05-28T17:47:28+00:00

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Samort7 — 2008-05-04T20:36:09+00:00

Inside view of the Darice case.

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Samort7 — 2008-05-03T20:57:14+00:00

Darice case plus baggies in the box.

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brdparker — 2008-04-27T05:08:36+00:00

This is me... losing horribly

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Martin Ralya — 2008-03-16T17:45:40+00:00

End of a tense 3-player game: Blue wins by tiebreaker (higher people score)