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Multiple resource scoring mechanic

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IdahoEv
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Joined: 11/22/2010

I'm brainstorming scoring mechanics for a game I'm working on that involves the players generating multiple colored scoring tokens as the result of other actions. (There will be 3 to 5 colors of scoring tokens, to be determined in playtesting).

I want a scoring mechanism that meets two criteria:
1) To score highly, the players must diversify into multiple of the scoring token colors - preferably all of them. Diversity should be rewarded, and possibly necessary. The Tigris and Euphrates scoring mechanism is the extreme example of this; your score is the size of your smallest VP pool.

2) The different colors must be differently valued to different players. I.e. one player must get more value out of red, while another gets more value out of blue, etc. The Container value mechanic is the extreme example of this: each player has a different sequence of values for the different material types.

And, I'd like it to be very quick to add up at the end because this is a fast game, < 20 minutes. It would be ideal if scoring took only seconds.

I'd rather not have a straight hybrid of T&E + Container, i.e. each player gets a card that describes that player's score like "multiply your reds x3, your blues x2, and your greens x1 and take the smallest of those three values". That's fiddly and time-consuming to count.

My current best idea is a card for each player, dealt at random at game start, with a fixed sequence of colors on it. For example, one player might receive a card with four rows of colored boxes like: (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Wild)
R R R R B B B G G G Y Y
R R R B B B G G G Y Y W
R R R R B B B G G Y W W
R R R B B G Y W W W W

Then at game end the player would fill these rows with scoring tokens in order, not starting the next row until a previous one was filled - a player's final score would be the total number of boxes filled.

What I like about this is that it's easy for the player to do, easy to score, and it's easy for me to tune the curves of the color values more finely than simply Rx3, Bx2, Gx1 etc. However, it still seems a bit fiddly and not as overall simple as I'd like for this game.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

SiddGames
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Joined: 08/02/2008
Yep, that's fiddly

Maybe if the card could be hidden so the player can "fill it out" as he plays, it would make it easier to see/plan his progress. If you want to go with something like that, I think it might be better to make short-term goal cards - a player would fulfill one, place it in his scoring pile, and draw a new one (a single goal would be equal to just one row of your example).

Otherwise, finding a "simple formula" seems better.

Hm, what if you made a "giant goal" available that everyone could go for? For example, a "wonder" seen in many games (but could be anything). A small example:

R R R R R B B B = each space worth 2 pts
R R B B B Y Y = each space worth 3 pts
B B Y Y Y Y = each space worth 4 pts, etc.
R B Y W W
Y W W

So players could try to compete for R and B at the start of the game, or perhaps try to stockpile Y and W for the more valuable contributions later in the game. To move the game along, though, there would need to be some reason why gaining Y and W early was a disadvantage -- perhaps in addition to earning points for filling in the common goal, you also earn money (or whatever resource(s) you have in the game).

I think at this point, though, we've gone astray of your original idea for scoring points, heh.

rcjames14
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Joined: 09/17/2010
Exchange Rates

How about you add another layer / step to your victory point system and introduce an exchange?

Each player has a different personal exchange rate of red tokens to gold tokens, blue tokens to gold tokens and yellow tokens to gold tokens. In fact, you might even have red to blue, blue to yellow, red to yellow exchange rates as well during the game if those tokens somehow can be utilized as resources too. However, at the end, only gold tokens matter.

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