Award winning games with flaws.

Hello RookieDesign,

Thanks for letting us know why you think Amun-Re and Princes of Florence are "flawed". Like Jeff, I think it is important to be careful when using strong words when criticizing a game. Of course, it is totally up to you which games you like and which not for whatever reasons, but when you use a word like "flawed" it implies something objective rather than subjective.

Amun-Re is one of my favorite games and the sacrifice mechanic is one of my favorite game mechanics. What I like about it is that there are several factors to consider when you place you blind bid. It is not just a matter of bidding the most to get those 3 free items, you also have to consider how high the total sacrifice could get and adjust your bid accordingly. The players with camel provinces will want to drive the total sacrifice down, while the players with a lot of farmers will want to drive the sacrifice up. Then there are players who don't care much either way, but might be interested in bidding something to get a free item or two. As a player you will need to find your way through this maze of conflicting intrerests and come up with a correct bid.

To me, the sacrifice adds a nice pyschological dilemma and a bit of uncertainty to the game to counteract the more predictable and calculable action phase. It also adds a nice strategic layer to the game. Already during the province auction phase you have to predict how the sacrifice is going to turn out. If there are a lot of camel provinces, then the players who have those provinces will probably drive the sacrifice down, making the camels more valubale and the farmer heavy provinces less valuable. Also, if you have a lot of farmers, you might not want to spend all your money during the action phase, but save some for the sacrifice. All in all, good stuff in my book.

You say that the sacrifice level doesn't go to 4 very often with 3 players. This is probably true, because most certainly one player will be interested in driving down the sacrifice, making it near impossible to get top level 4. Is this a flaw? I don't think so. Rather it is something to keep in mind and plan around during the game. From a game mechanic point of view, getting the sacrfice to level 4 isn't very interesting. The tipping point of the sacrfice lies between level 2 and 3. Do the camels pay out, or not?

In almost every game the dynamics will be different with a different number of players and every game has a "sweet spot" of number of players at which it plays best. Amun-Re is no exception. I certainly would't call it a flaw.

OK, I agree with this somewhat. I don't like the tiebreak mechanism very much myself either, because it is very arbitrary. You need some kind of tiebreak mechanism when dealing with blind bids, but a better solution would have been to let all players involved in the tie get all the goods. For example, if players would tie for first place, each of them would receive three items.

This is mostly a theoretical complaint. Bids are blind, so you never know for sure what others are bidding exactly. This means chances are very slim that the player holding the Amun-Re token will win several consecutive bids on tiebreaker. By the way, if holding the Amun-Re token is so good, perhaps you should bid a little bit more to get it?

OK, so it is an opinion, rather than an objective assessment of the quality of the game.

I only played PoF once, so take this with a grain of salt, but what I liked so much about PoF (and also about Amun-Re) is that you can do a lot of planning, but there's always a level of uncertainty as to what your opponents might be interested in and for how much you can get an item in the auction. You can make a whole plan, but if you cannot get that crucial item in the auction it might all fall to pieces.

PoF is certainly not the most interactive game in the world. So, if you want a game where you can directly interfere with the plans of your opponents, then this won't be a game for you. Apparently, judged by it's rankings, a lot of people don't mind that there's not so much interactivity in the game, or even like it because of that!

There are some highly rated games which I don't like either. Tastes just differ. However, rather than thinking that whole the world has gone crazy except for you it is much more useful to try and think about why a lot of people like these games despite the things that you conceive as "flaws". If you can figure out what people like and don't like about games and why they apparently don't mind some of these "flaws" you will become a better designer for it. :)

- René Wiersma

As far as Princes of Florence is concerned, this is a completely different game depending on the number of people who are playing. A 3-player game is relatively placid, and generates the most complaints of "multi-player solitaire." In a 3er, very few resources are extinguished by the end of the game.

But the five-player game generates a great deal of player interaction, as the resources extinguish very quickly - for example, the Profession deck will usually vanish in the middle of the second round, and the last Recruitment card is usually won in the fifth round. So the auctions tend to be much more intense with five.

Again, though, what meaning does "highly placed in the game community" have except to say that those are the games that members of the game community they've indicated they like? I see that you don't care for the games, and I think that's fine, but I don't yet see why it bothers you that other people like these games. If you don't like the games, you don't have to play them. But what do you think is hurt by people liking these "flawed" games? What benefit do you perceive "highly rated games" to enjoy that in some way causes you vexation when an unworthy game receives unearned adulation?

I'll leave it to those more sarcastic than me to jazz you for this amusing misuse of English.

I'm sorry for how this sounds, but all you've really had to say about Princes thus far is "I don't like it". Without something more specific, I'd say you're in the overwhelming minority and there's no real reason why the majority should feel uncomfortable about the conclusion it has drawn in rating the game highly.

-Jeff

I really think there's not much to discuss here. You apparently don't like a few games that a lot of other people do like a lot. Like I said before: tastes differ, and that's OK. I think almost everyone can point to a bunch of games in the BGG top 100 which they don't like that much.

You are not "wrong", nor are the people who do like those game "right". A rating, or even an award, is just a subjective thing after all. If you don't like these highly rated games: don't play them!

A rating is always correct. Or a rating is always incorrect, depending on your point of view. Or to put it yet another way: a rating doesn't matter. What does a game's rating mean to you?

When I look at the BBG's top 100, I see "War of the Ring" and "Memoir '44" in the top. These are games I have never played, but since I like most of the other highly rated games at BGG, they might be interesting to me as well.

Then I check out the comments on the games. "War of the Ring" is a 4-6 hour war game. It looks great, but I just know I will never get to play it. "Memoir '44" is a 1 hour, 2 player war game. Another game I know I will have hard time getting to the table.

The trick is to find out what you like and don't like about certain games and then trying to filter the comments in such a way that you get an indictaion whether you'll like a game or not.

For example, it seems that you don't like games that don't have a lot of interaction or play as "multiplayer solitaire". So, when you browse through a game's comments and you see a lot of references to "multiplayer solitaire", "little interaction" then that might be an indication that you probably won't like that game a lot. I'm pretty sure you won't be a fan of "Goa" for the same reasons that you don't like "Princes of Florence".

Bottomline is, people like different games for different reasons. Find out what you like and don't like about games, and why, and it'll be much easier to filter out games you probably won't like before you play them.

- René Wiersma

I haven't played either game enough to have given either a rating, so I couldn't say whether I rate the games as highly as other folks have, but I'd say that they must deserve the ratings they've earned insofar as a rating is nothing more or less than the collective opinion of many gamers. You absolutely are saying that other gamers must be wrong to like these games, and I think that needs at least as much support as someone saying that the games are good -- particularly when you take into account the inherently subjective nature of calling games "good" and "bad" in the first place.

Keep in mind, also, that this is a design discussion group moreso than a gaming discussion group. That's not to say that your post is off-topic, but rather, that if you really want an answer to the question "what makes Amun-Re and PoF great games", post that question over at spielfrieks -- you'll get a lot of responses.

But for me, I keep coming back to the question, "what difference does it make"? What harm do you perceive in these games being highly rated by others?

-Jeff

- Seth