Setup

Jan 8th - Maybe players should draft their initial 2 cards... Advanced variant?

Better - deal each player 3 cards, they discard 1 and keep 2.

When did I decide to change starting credits?

 

10/20 Secondly, I gave the starting player 4 cards to choose from (instead of 3), but he still discarded down to 2 cards like everyone else. I think this offsets the “starting with just one coin” disadvantage, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. Letting players select from a 4 cards instead of 3 is another possible way of balancing player order advantage.

10/19 	The first player felt severely hampered by only having one coin. “I can only explore or produce.” The second player also complained about trying to keep up with the first player. When everyone feels that they are at a disadvantage, it may be balanced (: Also, note who wins the second game.

 

10/17 So, I ran the numbers on first player advantage. In games without a single successful attack (e.g. no one is awarded the UR card), the start player wins ¾ (75%) of the time. That’s way too much. In games with at least one successful attack (e.g. someone ends up with the UR card), the start player wins 3/7 (42%) of the time. That’s much more reasonable, but still not ideal. So, tomorrow I’d like to test a new rule (I think Chris or Manny suggested this) – the first player starts with 1 credit, the second player 2 credits, etc.

 

10/3 One player wanted to draft the initial cards, instead of seeing 3 and choosing 2. I think this could be an option for advanced players, but I’m not sure it adds much.


 * 1) Is there a first player advantage? I don’t think so. Maybe the first player could start with 2 coins instead of 3.