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Archive for Jim Cote
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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I'm not easily impressed. But occasionally, various things will stand out to me in a way that demands a positive response from my brain. This is a list of those things over the past several years of boardgaming. Note that, just because I am impressed with one specific property of a game, it doesn't mean that I like the game, or that I don't have problems with other parts.
BGG Moderation
Internet forums seem to end up either anarchistic or draconian. While BGG moderation isn't perfect, the system is fairly loose, yet maintains a nice level of maturity.
Through the Ages: Mechanics Mashup
I am amazed at how well this huge jumble of mechanics works together: card drafting, hand management, auction, abstracted combat, semi-unknown future events, resources, development, action points, building, etc. Most games with this much going on feel like uncomfortable overlaps of two or more games.
Race for the Galaxy: Iconography
The icons are so well-thought-out and consistent. I don't see why so many people complain about them. Worlds are circles. Intuitive. Diamond is "the other one": development. Color matches goods type. Intuitive. Card in hand is...card in hand. Eye is look at more cards. Dollar sign is trade/money. Hexes are victory points. That's about 95% of the game. I was so impressed that I developed a player aid for Tribune using this style.
Automobile: Leapfrogging
The board looks like a strange version of Monopoly. Each space represents an increasingly modernized type of automobile. The older your factories are, the more losses you take. This mechanism to make you want to leapfrog your opponents. It may have been inspired by the rusting mechanic of 18xx games, but is clearly more forgiving. I don't love every Martin Wallace game, but I am always surprised at how he manages to find something new in a sea of increasingly rehashed mechanics.
Increasing Attraction
Some games have things that may be chosen by players. At any given time, the things have different values based on the game state. Rather than designing the game or the things themselves to be exactly equal/balanced/symmetric, these games make the unselected things more attractive over time. In Puerto Rico, unselected roles get a coin. In Saint Petersburg and Gloria Mundi, cards become cheaper over time. In Vinci (and I assume Small World), unselected civilization combos cost victory points to skip. I love the organic way that this solves the problem. It allows players to value each thing as he or she sees fit at that given moment in the game.
Shogi: Drops
Long ago, in complete ignorance, I had dismissed Shogi as a mere Chess variant with strange symbols. But the fact that captured pieces may be put back into play increases my interest in the game by an order of magnitude. Not only might the game play out in waves (similar to GIPF), but also captured pieces can be stronger than those in play since they may be placed almost anywhere. It would not be strange for one player to have 20 pieces in play, while the other has 10 in play and 10 "in hand".
Secret Roles
I enjoy a good deduction game, but the standard abstract ones pretty much all come down to elimination: you collect enough information such that only one answer remains. In deduction games with secret roles (eg Werewolf, Battlestar Galactica, Meuterer), players use human interaction (eg player choices, bluffing, body language) to make deductions and to deceive opponents.
Empire of the Sun: The Map
I like GMT Games maps in general, especially Mark Simonitch's work. This map in particular is rather impressive, clear, functional, and pleasing. Not only does it have to deal with all of the standard type of hex-and-counter issues (cities, terrain, airfields, ports, atolls, roads/rails, labels, resources, borders), but it also has a standard map underneath. Look at all the possible nastiness: tiny islands and juts of water crossing hex sides. It would have been too easy to simply tweak reality to make it conform to the hexes. Instead, Mark shades the "unplayable" land/water areas so that you can see the real untouched underlying map while still having the hex grid be unambiguous. Bravo.
Napoleon's Triumph: Design for Effect
In most wargames that I play, I am thinking about the raw actions that the game system allows, the movement, the attacks, the steps in involved to execute the various phases. In NT, the attack sequence does not feel like a simulation of anything you would see in a real battle, yet the results feel very natural. I find myself thinking at a meta level about the maneuvers and engagements.
Wargames in General
As I quest for more and more meat in my games, wargames are increasingly coming to the rescue. My recent past and present rulebook slush pile consists of Successors, GBoH/SPQR, M&P/NGBG, Gettysburg, No Retreat, Fighting Formations, Downtown, Fading Glory, Flying Colors, For the People, Empire of the Sun, OCS/DAK2, Proud Monster, and D-Day at Omaha Beach. I'm happy with all this, but I'd love to see other genres step up a lot. For over a year now, the newer non-wargames have been dreadful: reprints, expansions, rip-offs, and fluff.
Mon Aug 29, 2011 10:21 pm
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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I played my first 18xx game this week: 18AL. Having played Acquire and Imperial before, I was already predisposed to dislike it. I just don't get the essence of stock games.
If you own a company, you may buy and sell trains and privates, build track where you like, and decide if dividends are paid out or not. The only things that other players can do to interact/interfere with this seem to be:
Buy/sell shares: If the owner has 60%, then no one can take over the company. Selling shares drives the stock price down, but then you get less/no dividends. Buying shares only nets you money if the owner pays dividends, but he always gets more than you.
Blocking track: At one build per operating round, there are no big blocks like in the Steam line of games. This option seems almost non-existent.
Blocking stations: This seems pretty minor as well, but a little more effective than blocking track.
Buying trains: Keeping a company from getting the trains it wants, or causing rust seem like an over-the-top points of chaos.
So not only does the system feel like multi-player solitaire, but every decision feels uninteresting. You control two companies. I control one. What can I possibly do to have any effect on my income relative to yours? We can both see each company's cash/trains, each player's cash, and the best places to build track and stations. What are the non-auto-pilot decisions, and why are they interesting?
I understand that the game is not as I have described it. I am using the Socratic method, as always. Enlighten me.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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I started a "rules series" on my external blog. I think I'm just going to transition to BGG. Here are the 4 older ones:
Rules 1: Induction
Rules 2: Under/Over Specification
Rules 3: Terminology
Rules 4: Use Your Words
First, examples are a way to put a bunch of rules into practice. They should never contain anything that cannot be found in the rules themselves. I will go so far as to say that they should not even clarify the rules. The rules should clarify themselves. In a sense, that means that examples should never be needed. But in practice, a good example illustrates something in a simple way that might not be obvious after reading several verbose paragraphs. An example is like an inline player aid for that rules section.
Second, examples should be carefully chosen to avoid any possible confusion. Here's an extreme case where confusion is almost cultivated:
The 3 values on each unit are attack strength, defense strength, and movement points.
(later on)
If a defending unit is in a fort, its defense strength is doubled.
(later on)
If it is night, movement points are halved.
(later on)
Example: A 4-2-8 unit in a fort at night time has an attack strength of 4.
See what happened there? The rules talk about doubling and halving of values, then the example specifically uses numbers that when doubled or halved potentially make all the values equal 4. The other mistake is that the "fort at night time" phrase doesn't affect the value being referenced. In fact, this is almost misleading.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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I've been playing a bit more Go lately, working on getting over the hump from 4 kyu to 1 dan. I watch a lot of pro game analysis online. I think that I have a reasonable understanding of dan-level concepts, although my execution suffers from lack of experience.
In this game (on KGS), I played White in an even game against another 4 kyu. I think my direction of play was really good right from the beginning. I am not good at all with joseki (I don't study them), but I still have a pretty good idea how to play to develop in various directions. At the following point, I thought the game was over. I had over 100 points, and the other half of the board was still undeveloped. If I simply live anywhere in the lower left (which is impossible to prevent even against a 20 kyu player), then I win. My opponent's last move was to capture the 3 stones in the center. Did he not see that he was losing by a lot? Why make such a weak play?
So how do I follow up my great playing? I create two weak groups, make no attempt to keep them safe, then make desperate and stupid plays to connect them. Even so, if they both live, it's enough.
Until this move. My opponent makes an atari at P12. I responded too quickly; I just wanted to keep him out of my huge territory. This creates a full breach that no ko threat can save.
B+42. Lesson: No matter how ahead you are, do not switch gears. Keep the concentration going for the entire game.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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We didn't notice it at the time, of course, and played as if we were trying to seal 6 gates for real. After the 8th gate opened, we prepared ourselves for the usual defeat at the hands of the Ancient One. However, McGlen's ability to ignore 1 stamina loss from any source, plus the Healing Stone's ability to restore 1 point of sanity or stamina, made him untouchable. He didn't even need his trusty Tommy Gun. We could have saved an hour of play time by NOT killing anything.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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I think one of the most fundamental properties of a game is that it has to have an element of the unknown. This comes in many forms, and we each use different words to represent--and even personify--those elements.
Probability: Natural but non-conscious chance derived from a physical phenomenon.
- Known: Phenomena with predictable distribution (eg dice, cards).
- Unknown: The distribution is unpredictable because...
- - Memory: ...of the inability to remember past events (eg card draws).
- - Hidden: ...there are unknowable aspects (eg face-down cards/tiles).
Calculation: The inability of the mind to work out all possible branches of complex decision trees. Not thinking at least a few moves ahead might be considered lazy. But hundreds of moves is normally impossible. Intuition must take over.
Chaos: This is the term I use for conscious chance (ie player choices). You could argue that it's similar to Probability/Unknown/Hidden, but psychology presents emergent aspects not found elsewhere: bluffing, taunting, metagaming, kingmaking, alliances, etc.
- Future: What the other players are going to do. Will they do what's best for them (tactically/strategically)? Do they know what's best? Will they block others' plays? Are they biased in any way (against leader, against a player who screwed them)?
- Past: What the other players have already done, but what is not yet publicly known. Is it possible to get hints about what they have done from their actions and body language?
Physics: Complex (usually non-discrete) natural phenomena related to position, movement, collision, friction, and balance.
Note that the term "luck" is absent, since it is a false phenomenon.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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Among the many uses for semicolons, one may be counter-intuitive for those not used to using them. While periods serve to split words into separate sentences, semicolons can join two sentences together. Consider:
His shoes were wet. It was raining.
A semicolon is so important here, that if I read these two sentences from any professional source, I would assume the shoes were NOT wet because of the rain. If you are trying to link these two facts together, as in:
His shoes were wet, because it was raining.
...or the grammatically incorrect:
His shoes were wet, it was raining.
...then you should consider a semicolon. Note that the second sentence is not capitalized unless the first word requires it:
His shoes were wet; it was raining.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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Compare the following two sentences:
The game is five years old.
We played the five-year-old game.
In the first sentence, the base is "the game is old". "Years" modifies "old", and "five" modifies "years".
In the second sentence, the base is "we played the game". "Five-year-old" is a multi-word phrase that acts as a single adjective.
We played with the big red ball.
In this case, the ball is both "big" and "red". A comma often separates adjectives used in this way.
We played with the three-colored ball.
The ball is not "three". It must be hyphenated to turn the phrase into the proper adjective.
A few more examples:
long-range plans
game-specific discussion
well-thought-out strategy
behind-the-scenes negotiations
case-by-case basis
Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:50 pm
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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You can accuse me of playing semantic games, or redefining accepted terminology if you like, but I think it's time to stop using phrases that confuse or conflate game mechanics. Let's just start using the actual meaning of the words. The example games shown for each category do not necessarily have the prescribed mechanics in the BGG system.
Area Majority: Players gain some benefit (eg victory points) based on their relative numbers in various areas. In some games only one player scores; in others, two or more players score. This is often incorrectly called Area Influence because some games uses the thematic phrase "adding influence". It is also incorrectly called Area Control because of the false notion that the player with the most "influence" controls the area.
Area Control: Players (alliances) gain benefits (eg unique power, satisfy victory conditions) by being the sole occupant of various areas. I will grant that this is a special-case subset of Area Majority, but it's almost always implemented in a manner far different from typical Area Majority games. For the term to apply, it must be possible for control to change over time.
Area Influence: Occupation of a location has an influence or a special effect on nearby locations. In wargames, this is commonly called a Zone of Control.
Area Enclosure: Players score (some) points by blocking off areas of the board.
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Jim Cote
United States
Maine
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The word is: definitely.
It is not definately, definatly, or definitly. Think of:
finite
infinite
infinity
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