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First Tilt - Board Game Balance
Oct 23 2012 05:00 AM |
Paladin
in Game of Thrones
Small Council First Tilt Paladin
FIRST TILT: BOARDGAME BALANCEWelcome back to First Tilt, a column dedicated to helping new players learn the strategies that will help them win the Game of Thrones. If this is your first time reading this column, we recommend you start with the New Player’s FAQ which addresses many common questions and provides links to a wide variety of great articles and resources.
One of the questions newer players often have is about balance in the game. Are the core set decks balanced against one another? If they buy a single house expansion and incorporate it, will that house still be balanced against the other core set decks? What about buying a few chapter packs, will that throw off the balance? What if one player supplies all the cards and decks, what’s the best way to make sure they are balanced?
One way to create balanced decks as a new player is to approach this Living Card Game as if it were a boardgame--that is to say, to have one player supply all the cards and decks (or a group of players pool their cards together) so as to ensure everyone has access to the same resources and one player/deck/house doesn’t have an overwhelming advantage against the others. Balanced decks also provide a great foundation for teaching the game to others, as their balance helps ensure a smoother, less frustrating experience for newer players who may feel overwhelmed by the deck building and expansions available in AGoT.
With regular boardgames, it is usually the case that a single player will supply the game and playing pieces. If you play Axis & Allies or Settlers of Catan, only one person needs to buy the game and bring it to the game group for others to have a full play experience. On the other end of the spectrum are miniature war games, where players often buy figures for a single army which they then paint up and compose into an army list, with each player being responsible for buying and preparing their own army.
With CCGs, the model is closer to miniatures than to boardgames. Because certain cards are rarer and more powerful than others, players will often hunt for specific cards to build their dream decks, and will typically not worry about balancing out these decks with their remaining cards. In Magic: The Gathering, for example, building a competitive deck can be as cheap as buying a starter deck to play with fellow new players, or super-pricey and run in the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to play on the pro tournament scene. It depends on your group and your goals how much you will spend and what kind of decks you will end up with, but if one player wants to provide balanced decks in Magic (beyond starter sets), it usually entails either playing a sealed deck/booster draft, engaging in a hunt for many specific singles for multiple decks, or the buying of tons of packs (and the attendant piles of trash commons that come with said buying).
The nice thing about LCGs is that there is rarely a need to hunt for that perfect card, since there is no randomization and the purchase of a chapter pack will give you a full playset of the included cards. Thus, when you go to purchase a pack for, say, Ghaston Grey, you not only receive three copies of Ghaston, but also three copies of Burned and Pillaged. So even though your intent is to build a killer Martell deck, for the same price you’ve also received cards to build a killer Greyjoy choke deck. And this is why playing the game boardgame style is very easy: since you are not typically buying singles in AGoT, as your collection grows so too will your opportunities for building amazing decks even in houses/themes you don’t normally play, and it will do so with certainty. No need to buy the same Chapter Pack over and over in the hopes that you might eventually get both The Maester’s Path and The Laughing Storm--they’re both right there, and with three copies no less!
Of course, new players (or experienced players seeking to build balanced decks to teach the game) come into the game with varying resources and investment levels. Some people buy the core set and want to see if they like the game before delving further; others have many expansions at hand and want to provide an optimal playing experience when they teach the game to others. So let’s tackle some common scenarios and see what kind of balanced play experiences we can provide under each setup.
CORE SET, ALONE
The core set decks are fairly balanced against one another, but it may not always seem that way, particularly to first time players.
JOUST: Fairly balanced, but you can end up with some wonky matchups, as the decks do not have enough multiples of certain cards to achieve a consistent theme and level of effectiveness. So some games you may draw Cersei and Jaime and be a dominant Lannister player, and other games you may never see the heavy hitters. Similarly, think about giving newer players the Stark deck and Baratheon decks, and more experienced players the Lannisters and Targaryens. The classic Stark v. Lannister can be very frustrating if you give the Lannisters to a new player, who will wonder what all this kneeling is about when all they want to do is kill people.
MELEE: The decks are very well balanced for melee. The biggest hurdle you'll face is that if you're teaching the game to new players, a melee match is likely going to take a while, as each player will not only be learning the rules, they'll also be learning what their cards do and what other decks do--in other words, a whole lot of learning will in turn result in an extended game. Consider teaching the game with 1 on 1 Jousts instead, so that each player at least has a grasp on the game mechanics and what their own deck does. (Indeed, consider this ongoing advice for the rest of the article--teaching the game through Joust is likely to result in less aggravating and drawn out melee experiences down the road.)
DECKBUILDING: Very limited. The decks could do with some tweaking to plots, however, so once you and the other players are comfortable with the game, you have some room for deckbuilding. As an example, the presence of Valar in Stark is an odd choice, given that Stark is the best at military challenges in the core set and the least likely to need such a reset option. So if you want some customization that won't upset the balance too much, consider drafting plots amongst your group
CORE SET x 2:
If one is eager to play a balanced game of AGoT and share the game with friends, this is probably the best way to do so while still keeping costs down. While one core set provides decent decks, two core sets allow for the tweaking of these decks into more reliable machines with clearer focuses and more reliable draw of key cards. As a starting point, build Darksbane’s Balanced Decks from this link. You will now have great beginner decks that have some consistency and are not overwhelming for new players.
JOUST: Almost any of the decks should pair up nicely. You might still have some problems with newer players not getting the point of some abilities, but the increased consistency in deck themes and cards should help them better understand the focus and interplay of the cards in each house.
MELEE: An almost optimal and, indeed, boardgame-like experience for newer players. The decks are well balanced, and their consistency means that players should be seeing the same cards repeatedly and understanding the point of not only their own decks, but also that of their opponents, much more quickly. A game with beginners will still likely take a while, but it should be clearer to everyone what each deck does by the end of one game.
DECKBUILDING: Switching decks among players is a great way to keep the experience fresh and new. Once players are comfortable with the game, you can have some decent room to tweak the decks. With two cores, there will be a number of plot choices, so a plot draft could shake things up, and with at least two copies of every plot, no single person will claim the “best†ones. Also, with the extra cards from the second set, each deck has some room for customization that won’t overwhelm a new player nor shake up the play environment too much for the other players, providing a decent and gentle introduction to deck building.
CORE SET PLUS ONE/TWO/ALL HOUSE EXPANSIONS
This is a common situation. Sometimes, players just really love a house and want to get that particular box expansion, but also want to be able to share their cards and decks with their friends. This is doable, but keep some things in mind:
- If you buy only one House expansion, then it is very likely that decks built with that expansion will be more powerful than core-set only decks.
- If you buy two House expansions, you have just created an awesome and very customizable play experience for Joust.
- If you go with Greyjoy or Martell, these should not be played by completely new players. First, because they don't come built as decks, and second, because their mechanics are a little different from the core four houses. Oh, and if new players have seen the TV show but not read the books, these houses will just not be as exciting or meaningful to them.
- The House expansions for the four core houses include deck lists for thematic decks that use only cards from a single core set and the House Expansion. You want balanced decks that also ooze theme? Buy the four core house expansions, provide one to each player along with relevant cards from the core set, and you have a great and very customizable game.
- Consider proxies for any setup you have, but especially here you may want to consider proxying Valar and some other core set plots to ensure equal access.
MELEE: If you have one house expansion, again that deck is going to be more powerful than core set only decks. But Melee provides some built in balance, as core set only players can always team up against the house expansion deck. If every player has a deck built from a house expansion, then you should have a great base for some epic and thematic Melee matches.
DECKBUILDING: With one house expansion, deck building will only be balanced if you both stick to the same house. With more than one house expansion, you will have a well balanced environment with ample room for deckbuilding.
CORE SET PLUS CHAPTER PACKS
Maintaining balance here will really depend on what Chapter Packs you have and what houses you are building decks for. The best way to do it would be to either buy a few key Chapter Packs that boost every house similarly (such as Refugees of War, which provides cheap refugee characters for each house) or to buy a single cycle to ensure fair coverage of all the houses (Beyond the Narrow Sea or A Tale of Champions are good ones for beginners).
Another approach, if you are looking to build semi-competitive decks, but still keep things balanced, is to pick your favorite house(s), but the house expansion, and then buy the packs to build the decks suggested in earlier First Tilt articles on how to build good decks with a limited card pool.
Straying beyond the above guidelines will make maintaining balance difficult, but not impossible. If you have an odd scattering of chapter packs, but want to keep balance, then be selective about what cards you add to each deck and build decks with an eye towards ensuring that power levels AND consistency stay about equal. Easier said than done!
- bigfomlof, thedaffodilfish, ringworm and 2 others like this
7 Comments
Given my experience in getting into and learning the game I would argue that anyone interested in playing for the long term should get the core set and play with just those decks for a while. They have enough complexity so as to teach timing and mechanics but don't have shadows cards or the newer keywords and effects introduced later on. Only after getting a good grip on playing with the core decks would I recommend branching out and buying extra. It's a good idea to have a flavor of each house before committing to purchasing chapter packs or other expansions.
Also, FFG if you are reading this, put a copy of the FAQ in each core box that is shipped out. For new players: after you read the core rulebook immediately read the FAQ front to back, and then read it again. A lot of us on here have no problem answering questions but most questions are covered by the FAQ which also gives several good examples to help you follow the more complex rules.
IMO the best way to keep things balanced is to just use common sense. The first house expansion we got was LotR; even though we were all newbs, one glance at the cards in the box (especially the agenda and some of the plots) and we agreed that there would be little to no point in playing joust matches against a Lanni deck using those cards with core set only decks. We just put LotR aside until we got a couple more house expansions.
Likewise, one guy in our group decided to buy a bunch of chapter packs and singles to net-deck a tournament-winning Baratheon Wildling deck, spending about $100 on the affair (I kid you not). The rest of us told him not to waste his money before he did it but he went ahead anyways and his prized tourney deck just collected dust for a few months. Not what you want to do.
I'll say that I don't consider Lannister a hard deck to start with. The concept of kneeling people's characters is quite intuitive and its value is easily grasped. It's just point-and-click character lockdown; nothing hard about that. The only starter deck that stood out to me as somewhat more difficult to play than the rest was the Targ deck, as it seemed to have a lot more card-specific triggers that you need to remember to do each turn (such as putting Khal Brogo into play, saving a gold for Daario, getting Forever Burning back, etc.).
I'll also say that I favor buying the house expansions before bothering with chapter packs. While the LCG format ensures that every CP purchase is worth your money, the expansion boxes are still much more bang for your buck; each one is chock full of great/key cards for the houses, many of which aren't even house-specific. Buying QoD for example gives everyone in your meta the chance to try options like Dissension, River Row, Paper Shield, Loyalty Money Can Buy, Burning Bridges, and Muster the Realm. The really worthwhile cards from the CPs are much more spread out and it'll take a lot of them to assemble equally strong collections for all houses.
Last but not least, I'll say that I do not recommend encouraging new players to read the FAQ twice first thing out of the box. First of all, they won't remember anyways. The game's basic rules are enough information to absorb without also saddling them with a deluge of clarifications, errata and the like. I didn't read the FAQ until well after I learned the basic game and still run into issues I can't remember from it quite frequently.
Secondly, telling people they have to read the FAQ, or really should read it, in order to play is much more likely to daunt or discourage them from playing, I think. I know that for my group no one wanted to sit down and read dozens of pages before playing; I'm one of only two guys in my group who even bothered to read the manual, the others just watched our first few games and learned on the fly. Now, having the FAQ open and consulting it when specific issues come up, I think is a good idea, but I don't think it's practical to try and learn it all at once, and certainly not when you're just starting.
In hindsight it may have been a bit imbalanced, but when I got the expansion I only used "my" cards (Besides subbing in a plot once in a while), so it sort of evened out. (Since core has probably better rush cards then the expansion.)
Of course I started with the oldtown cycle, but I prefered to run the knight agenda so maesters didn't make a huge difference (till I completed the cycle... muhahahahhaa
We were really good about trading stuff though, I pretty much gave away most of the cards from other houses from the chapter packs I have, and still have enough left over to add to any deluxe expansions or core set I might pick up in the future.
By the same token though, I wouldn't recommend ignoring the FAQ for too long, as you don't want to develop bad habits or uneducated behaviors regarding the timing structure of the various phases.