Game: Saboteur

Thread: Re: Gold distrubution question

HëllRÆZØR — 2008-07-05T02:04:13+00:00

UnknownParkerBrother wrote:
But after that, I think it should be blind, let each person in turn take a face down card from what's left. Why should the 2nd guy get to select a better card than the 3rd guy, simply because of where he's sitting in relation to you? At this stage, everyone is even, so no one should get an advantage.
This would increase the chance that the gold-digger who found the treasure gets more than 4 gold nuggets, especially with many players, and it would be harder to estimate how many nuggets this player has. I think being able to choose the first gold card is already a good advantage, your change would make it even better (and more random), maybe too strong.

In addition, I don't think the rules are unjust as they are. Even as a gold-digger, you can influence if the next (assumed) gold-digger to your left will have the chance to find the treasure, which would presumably leave you with only 1 nugget, if there are many players. And if your reward would only be 1 nugget, trying to stop him might be a good decision, even if you risk that the saboteurs win. ;)

Thread: Re: Gold distrubution question

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-07-04T05:21:05+00:00

I don't own the game and have never played, but that never stopped me from offering an opinion before...

Most pleasing to me seems to be a combination of the above. The person who completed the path should get the benefit of doing so. So he should be able to look at all the cards, and choose the best one for himself.

But after that, I think it should be blind, let each person in turn take a face down card from what's left. Why should the 2nd guy get to select a better card than the 3rd guy, simply because of where he's sitting in relation to you? At this stage, everyone is even, so no one should get an advantage.

Thread: Re: Gold distrubution question

HëllRÆZØR — 2008-07-03T11:13:55+00:00

Cisco Serret wrote:
The rules say (when saboteurs win)
"If there was only one saboteur, he gets gold nugget cards worth a total
of four nuggets (not four gold nugget cards)..."

I asked who or how the cards are selected for the saboteurs. Do the saboteur(s) select the combination of cards they want? Can the saboteur, in fact, select "four gold nugget cards (of 1 nugget each)" even though the rules say "(not four gold nugget cards)"?

the answer is "The saboteur can decide the cards to make up his 4 nuggets"

So I guess you hand the gold deck to the saboteur(s) and they pick out the cards - so he could select one 3-nugget card and 1 1-nugget card, or 2 2-nugget cards, or 4 1-nugget cards.

Its probably in the best interest of the saboteur(s) to grab the 3-nugget cards when he can, that way he reduces the chances of a gold digger in the next round of getting a 3 nugget card. Of course - the saboteur could be a gold digger in the next round, and so runs the risk of hurting himself.
I think the best choice depends on the amount of gold the saboteur has. If he's in the lead, choosing 3+1 or 2+2 should be a good choice, so it's harder for other players to catch up, and getting less gold in later rounds doesn't hurt much if the others also get less.

On the other hand, if the saboteur has less gold than other players, it's better to take 4x1, so he still has a chance to catch up in later rounds. If someone else grabs some 3s or 2s later, then the saboteur would have lost anyway, wether the other player benefits from his choice or not.

...however, I'm not sure if I like this ruling, and think about trying the following variation:

When the saboteurs won, one saboteur draws gold cards until some of the cards add to the number of nuggets he's entitled to. He then takes his cards and places surplus cards (if any) at the bottom of the deck. Then the other saboteurs draw cards in a similar way, proceeding counter-clockwise. Finally, the gold cards are shuffled.

I tested this method by drawing 4 nuggets for 11 virtual "saboteurs" each, and the outcome was quite pleasant - no 4x1 sets, one 2x2 set, and otherwise just 1+1+2 or 1+3. I'm not sure wether I'll stick to the official clarification, but if I won't, this variation will presumably do its job well. :)

Thread: Re: Reveal goal card or not?

Pedrator — 2008-07-03T01:32:58+00:00

The gold card needs to be connected to the entrance card. If you manage to follow an uninterrupted path from the entrance card to any gold card, only then the gold card is revealed

Thread: Re: Game balance: odds in favour of Saboteurs based on player no

HëllRÆZØR — 2008-07-03T12:59:06+00:00

EndersGame wrote:
7 players: 3 Saboteurs and 5 Gold-Diggers
62% of games (5/8): Saboteur power 3/7 = 43%
38% of games (3/8): Saboteur power 2/7 = 17%
2/7 is about 29%, not 17%. However, thanks for the statistics. :)

chockle wrote:
I think to really balance the game, however, some math/stats/combinatorics whiz could come up with the average number of gold won by the good dwarves for each number of players based on number of gold cards taken and passed around among the good dwarves. Then compare that to the number of gold won by the saboteurs with the same number of players.

Then we could see just how imbalanced each number of players is for the saboteurs.
That's roughly what I intend to do:

Calculate the average amount of gold per miner/saboteur for each #players and calculate the optimal win/lose ratio between miners and saboteurs, so everyone gains the same average amount of gold. Then compare this optimal win/lose ratio with the average miner/saboteur ratio per #players, and then estimate if the game might be unbalanced for certain #players.

...of course this would be nothing more than an estimation, leaving many factors unconsidered. ;)

Thread: Re: After 110 plays, I'm still not tired of this game...

Grimwold — 2008-07-03T11:14:06+00:00

Moviebuffs wrote:
Grimwold wrote:
I've now logged 110 plays of this little gem of a card game ...

You know, that's about £0.06 a game :)
I'm probably due for a new copy aren't I? ;)

It's even less if you work out per player... 110 games with a total of 562 players.. about 1.2p per player per game.

Thread: Re: After 110 plays, I'm still not tired of this game...

Moviebuffs — 2008-07-03T10:57:05+00:00

Grimwold wrote:
I've now logged 110 plays of this little gem of a card game ...

You know, that's about £0.06 a game :)

Grimwold wrote:
.... and the variant of 'putting the middle destination card 1 space further away'.

Hmmm ... We've not tried this.

Must give it a go....

N.

Thread: After 110 plays, I'm still not tired of this game...

Grimwold — 2008-07-02T11:06:41+00:00

Players: Andy(grimwold), Al, Brendan(brendannewell); Inky(helixlab); Kevin; Myfanwy; RichardS(spillers); Toby(T-Boy67)
Duration: 30 minutes

Still in the mood for some treacherous, semi-cooperative action, the ex-Knights from Camelot set off down the mine for some gold.

In the first round Al, Brendan and Myfanwy were the saboteurs, and they were unable to stop the good dwarves from reaching the gold... Toby missed out since his tools were broken, and instead of letting Richard connect and put myself in second... I tried to obfuscate the tunnel, hoping to be the one to connect on my next turn... Kevin was able to help Inky connect however, so my gamble didn't pay off, and I was in 4th.

Next round, and I was a saboteur with Inky and Brendan... however because I went first and placed a tunnel card Inky and Brendan decided I was a good dwarf and broke my tools (cheers guys!).. I used this to my advantage a bit and tried to persuade the good dwarves I was good really! Then near the end I started diverting the tunnel away from the gold, and between the three of us we were able to stop the good dwarves from reaching the gold.

In the third and final round, Toby and Al were the two saboteurs... though somehow people managed to decide I was also a saboteur.. probably because I was trying to stop Inky from getting any more gold (knowing that he was already in the lead). There was a tense moment late on, with a big hole in the tunnel, when I made it look like I was about to put a 4-way dead end, right in the middle, but discarded it instead, in true dramatic fashion... it didn't help however, as the saboteurs still managed to stop us from getting the gold.

Overall this meant that Inky won, and I was second... Poor Myfanwy had been on the wrong end in each round and finished with nothing.

Final Scores

7:gg: - Inky
5:gg: - Grim
4:gg: - Kevin
3:gg: - Al
3:gg: - Brendan
3:gg: - Richard
3:gg: - Toby
0:gg: - Myfanwy

I've now logged 110 plays of this little gem of a card game, and as the title suggests I am still not tired of it. Always different, and always fun... especially if you allow a bit of trash-talking, over-acting and meta-gaming...
It's perhaps worth noting here, that I now always play with the variant of 'no gold for the good dwarves with broken tools', and the variant of 'putting the middle destination card 1 space further away'.