need help for a tile-laying game

Just some random thoughts...

A classic tactical choice is the safe-low-reward vs the risky-high-reward. Related to this is the instant-payoff vs delayed-payoff.

One way to do this would be to make the score increase for playing multiple tiles (or combinations of tiles). In this case the scoring should be linked to the difficulty of getting the tiles (or combinations of tiles).

You said that player normally buy 2 colors per turn with the option to store tiles in the warehouse. So following the principle of "more score for a difficult action", it seems players should get more score for playing multiple colors in the same turn, and less score for playing just one or 2 colors. This gives players incentive to store a few different colors for bigger plays in future turns.

What about something like:
- Score each tile before playing the next tile.
- Select one direction (north, east, south, west) in which to score.
- The score is equal to the greatest of:
- Number of tiles of the same color
- Number of different colors, with +1 score for each scoring tile that you played this turn
- The tile you just played never scores.

Example, where * indicates the tiles played this turn.

1 1* - scores 1 for 1 of the same color
1 1* 2* - scores 2 for 2 of the same color
1 1* 2* 3* - scores 4 for 2 different colors +2 of these tiles played this turn
1 1* 2* 3* 4* - scores 6 for 3 different colors +3 of these tiles were played this turn
1 1* 2* 3* 4* 1* - scores 8 for 4 different colors +4 of these tiles were played this turn
Total score for 5 tiles: 21

Example, showing how multiple of the same color can't get as much score

1 1* - scores 1
1 1* 1* - scores 2
1 1* 1* 1* - scores 3
1 1* 1* 1* 1* - scores 4
1 1* 1* 1* 1* 1* - scores 5
Total score for 5 tiles: 15

Another scoring system that uses adjacency instead of lines:
- Score each tile before playing the next tile.
- The score is equal to the sum of:
- Number of adjacent tiles of the same color as the tile just placed
- 2 points for each different color adjacent

I suspect that any scoring system based on adjacency would need another rule to encourage players to play somewhere other than adjacent to the existing tiles. Otherwise gameplay would always spread out from a single point, and may become too limited. Also the player going first has a disadvantage because they have nothing to place adjacent to.

An example of a rule to encourage multiple patches of flowers to sprout across the board would be "2 points if the tile is not touching any other tiles (including diagonals)." With a rule like this, I expect that play would start with random patches of flowers sprouting across the board, and then start to fill in the gaps once higher scoring opportunities became apparent.

Along a different tangent, have you considered whether one of the "colors" of tiles could actually be a "path"? The path could then have different scoring rules to the flowers, creating more options.

I hope these suggestions planted some ideas.
kos

The pagodas are a good idea.

I immediately thought of them as blocking line of sight on my first suggested scoring system (the one where you would score all the flowers in a direction). The issue with my original suggestion was that if I build up a high-scoring chain my opponent gets to use it too. But I can "cap" it with a pagoda and thus deny the chain to my opponent. I could also use pagodas to cap medium-scoring chains purely to prevent my opponent turning them into high-scoring chains. In either case, the pagodas present more tactical options without increasing the complexity of the rules.

A different scoring option using pagodas could be that the pagodas are the only tiles that score. In effect, the flowers are worthless until there is somewhere to sit and enjoy them. Thematically it makes sense, and it may improve the speed of the game because you only have to calculate score for 1/5 of the tile placements, rather than every tile.

By instant-reward delayed-reward, I was thinking of it in terms of turns, not game-end. That is, a scoring system designed in such a way that I have a choice between playing a safe move this turn for a moderate reward, or spend a few turns making low reward moves in order to build up for a massive reward three or four turns from now. This is also a good mechanic to reduce the learning curve for new players. The safe moves should be obvious even to new players, while the more complex (and rewarding) moves should require more thought and/or forward planning. Without the opportunity for forward planning, the game would quickly become boring for experienced players.

Applying this concept to your game, I think that the ability to build up combos comes from the warehouse rather than board position. That is, without ownership of tiles there is no point me building up an awesome board position only to have my opponent cash in on it. So instead I have to build up an awesome warehouse (sacrificing scoring opportunities for a few turns to do so) and then lay it all down in one turn.

Another random thought to throw into the mix: Have you considered asymmetrical scoring? What if one player scored on the cardinal directions, while the other player scored on diagonals? Or one player scores from lines while the other player scores from adjacency. I was trying to work out a way so that a great board position for me was not automatically also a great board position for my opponent (to reduce the effect of my opponent automatically cashing in on the board position that I created). If this is a mini-game inside a larger game, presumably played several times in the course of the larger game, then the positions could swap each time you play the mini-game in order to reduce the effect of any bias in the alternate scoring systems.

Regards,
kos