One other mechanism I should have mentioned is the use of the Rocinate (a rogue ship) as a catch-up mechanism. After scoring, the player in last place gets the Roci, giving them a special power. It's a fun, balanced, thematic catch-up mechanism.
Cave Troll kind of has this mechanism with the scoring pile. You find yourself waiting to play cards that have scoring symbols based on how many scoring symbols are currently in the scoring pile.
I played Carson City for the first time yesterday. Your analysis of the Expanse card river had some interesting similarities and differences with the Carson City action-selection river. In Expanse, you are anticipating and preparing for the scoring opportunities, while in Carson City the game presents you with all the scoring options at the start of the game. I think the interesting difference is that in Carson City the scoring spaces whittle down as rounds pass, both in terms of the actions disappearing as well as the addition of extra workers for all the players, which ultimately crowds the board and the scoring opportunities. Both mechanics offer interesting options for engaging other players in regards to when to take an action to score points or when to take actions to build your strategic footing.
Ben: That's fascinating--I love the idea of the scoring options starting out at the beginning of the game and then disappearing one by one as players use them. Is there anything to prevent a player from choosing those options one by one every turn, creating an anticlimactic finale?
Jamey: I've linked a BGG image as reference (boardgamegeek.com/image/994433/carson-city). The bottom row of the action-selection river has seven scoring options. Four of these options allow you to pay X money for 1 victory point, where X scales from $5 to $2 in descending order. Thus, the spaces earlier on the track are a less efficient means of scoring victory points with money. After each round ends with all actions on the track taken, you move the round marker up that bottom row, which blocks out one of the more efficient scoring options. For example, the end of round one has the round marker moving over the $2 for 1 victory point space never to be used again. In the image, you can see that the round marker is covering the $4 for 1 victory point space leaving only the $5 for 1 victory point option for money. At the start of the game, you have three workers and possibly a few more depending on the character you draft at the beginning of each round (think drafting characters as starting position benefits from Viticulture). In the early rounds, you can use your workers to get early uncontested victory points at the sacrifice of building your engine, but in the later rounds, players are scrambling to get the final four scoring spaces available. On top of this, you can place workers on the same spaces as other players' workers resulting in a duel; this is the Wild West after all. The winner of the duel spends their worker and receives the option to use the space, while the loser simply takes back their worker for use in a future round or as extra power in a future duel in the current round. Power in the duel isn't dissimilar from Scythe where you can see the power of your opponent outside of a single 1d6 roll, however using power in the duel doesn't make the resource go away like in Scythe. This then leads to some players having a lot of leftover money to carry to the next round. However, the characters you draft each round all have a variable limit of how much money they will allow you to carry over to the next round. So, if I have $50 left in hand, but my character only allows for $25, I am then forces to take a consolation action for free: a sad $10 for 1 victory point, rounded down. All this to say, I do not think this leads to an anticlimactic finale. At the end of the game, it isn't uncommon for players to have 7 - 10 workers to place versus the 3 I mentioned at the start of the game. While there are only four scoring options on the main action track, the core of the game is building Carson City, and players will score a good amount of points for how well they did that. Typically, you will see a lot of people fighting over those final four scoring spaces, but there are alternatives to score in the city building. They just might be more costly.
Thanks for your detailed reply, Ben! This makes a lot of sense. I thought each category would only score once for the entire game, but it makes a big difference that they score once per round instead.
Indeed! Sorry for the lack of brevity. It uses a lot of mechanisms in a unique interconnected way. Even with my long-winded explanation, I don't think I aptly described how tense that final round can be. For an admirer of mechanisms such as yourself, I highly recommend a play if you get the chance.
Gheos does the choose when to score thing a bit - There are two types of scoring, one comes up randomly and you play until a player count determined of these come up, the other is that each player has three scoring tokens, and at the end of your turn you can play one of your tokens, and everyone scores. Ideally you'll play when you're scoring not only more than everyone else, but at the three points in the game you'd score the most more than everyone else, but you never know when the regular scoring tiles are going to come up, nor can you really be sure if hanging on for one more turn will improve your position or the other three players will do things to ruin your plans in the meanwhile. Very interesting stuff going on in the game, though it hasn't aged the most elegantly. ...Saying that, it's an enjoyable light 'stock' game that takes about 45 minutes (with the 'stocks' being followers in six civilizations, in a game where you play as gods creating and changing the world by tile placement)
Timing when you choose to score is a big part of Rudiger Dorn's Arkadia. You have four chances to score in the game and it's up to you when to take the opportunity. At first I was nervous about this, expecting to flub the timing, but the scoring moments are finely attuned to the pace, turning points and state of the game -- you get a feel for them quite naturally. It's very satisfying to bank a swag of points directly as a result of your own choice to do so. As if I needed another reason to buy The Expanse game...
I see a lot of this kind of scoring mechanism in Ryan Laukat's games. His recent Klondike Rush, which is a Knizia style auction/stock game, gives each player a card they can spend once during the game which gives you the exact value of all your stocks (you also score this at the end). You want to wait as long as you can to use this, since the more you wait, the more this scoring is worth, but you will also start to run out of money in the middle of the game, so use of this card is essential to keep your cash flow going. Do you play it early so that you can get an early money and stock edge? Or do you play it late for maximum value? It's a nice push and pull.
That's a great point about Ryan's games--I've talked about the bragging mechanism in Islebound, which I love. Thanks for sharing the example about Klondike Rush!
This reminds me of one of your other favorite mechanisms: scoring in Palaces of Carrara. You choose when you score certain towns or areas and you can take away certain bonuses from players when you do so. But have you maximized your scoring potential? Will someone else take it?
The new thumbnails are probably a good idea for branding... however, I do not think the rule of 3rds applies to things like the little image of your face in the hex. Have you looked at centering your face? It might bring more overall balance.
One other mechanism I should have mentioned is the use of the Rocinate (a rogue ship) as a catch-up mechanism. After scoring, the player in last place gets the Roci, giving them a special power. It's a fun, balanced, thematic catch-up mechanism.
Love the Argent bell tower cards that inch toward the end of the round at player discretion. So tense!
Cave Troll kind of has this mechanism with the scoring pile. You find yourself waiting to play cards that have scoring symbols based on how many scoring symbols are currently in the scoring pile.
Did you try the expansion doors and corners too? I love the base game.!
I love love the rocinante and the initiative track ... It is so good balaced. But would play it with 4 only.
I've only played the base game. :)
I played Carson City for the first time yesterday. Your analysis of the Expanse card river had some interesting similarities and differences with the Carson City action-selection river. In Expanse, you are anticipating and preparing for the scoring opportunities, while in Carson City the game presents you with all the scoring options at the start of the game. I think the interesting difference is that in Carson City the scoring spaces whittle down as rounds pass, both in terms of the actions disappearing as well as the addition of extra workers for all the players, which ultimately crowds the board and the scoring opportunities. Both mechanics offer interesting options for engaging other players in regards to when to take an action to score points or when to take actions to build your strategic footing.
Ben: That's fascinating--I love the idea of the scoring options starting out at the beginning of the game and then disappearing one by one as players use them. Is there anything to prevent a player from choosing those options one by one every turn, creating an anticlimactic finale?
Jamey: I've linked a BGG image as reference (boardgamegeek.com/image/994433/carson-city). The bottom row of the action-selection river has seven scoring options. Four of these options allow you to pay X money for 1 victory point, where X scales from $5 to $2 in descending order. Thus, the spaces earlier on the track are a less efficient means of scoring victory points with money. After each round ends with all actions on the track taken, you move the round marker up that bottom row, which blocks out one of the more efficient scoring options. For example, the end of round one has the round marker moving over the $2 for 1 victory point space never to be used again. In the image, you can see that the round marker is covering the $4 for 1 victory point space leaving only the $5 for 1 victory point option for money.
At the start of the game, you have three workers and possibly a few more depending on the character you draft at the beginning of each round (think drafting characters as starting position benefits from Viticulture). In the early rounds, you can use your workers to get early uncontested victory points at the sacrifice of building your engine, but in the later rounds, players are scrambling to get the final four scoring spaces available. On top of this, you can place workers on the same spaces as other players' workers resulting in a duel; this is the Wild West after all. The winner of the duel spends their worker and receives the option to use the space, while the loser simply takes back their worker for use in a future round or as extra power in a future duel in the current round. Power in the duel isn't dissimilar from Scythe where you can see the power of your opponent outside of a single 1d6 roll, however using power in the duel doesn't make the resource go away like in Scythe.
This then leads to some players having a lot of leftover money to carry to the next round. However, the characters you draft each round all have a variable limit of how much money they will allow you to carry over to the next round. So, if I have $50 left in hand, but my character only allows for $25, I am then forces to take a consolation action for free: a sad $10 for 1 victory point, rounded down.
All this to say, I do not think this leads to an anticlimactic finale. At the end of the game, it isn't uncommon for players to have 7 - 10 workers to place versus the 3 I mentioned at the start of the game. While there are only four scoring options on the main action track, the core of the game is building Carson City, and players will score a good amount of points for how well they did that. Typically, you will see a lot of people fighting over those final four scoring spaces, but there are alternatives to score in the city building. They just might be more costly.
Thanks for your detailed reply, Ben! This makes a lot of sense. I thought each category would only score once for the entire game, but it makes a big difference that they score once per round instead.
Indeed! Sorry for the lack of brevity. It uses a lot of mechanisms in a unique interconnected way. Even with my long-winded explanation, I don't think I aptly described how tense that final round can be. For an admirer of mechanisms such as yourself, I highly recommend a play if you get the chance.
I'll add it to my list! :)
Gheos does the choose when to score thing a bit - There are two types of scoring, one comes up randomly and you play until a player count determined of these come up, the other is that each player has three scoring tokens, and at the end of your turn you can play one of your tokens, and everyone scores. Ideally you'll play when you're scoring not only more than everyone else, but at the three points in the game you'd score the most more than everyone else, but you never know when the regular scoring tiles are going to come up, nor can you really be sure if hanging on for one more turn will improve your position or the other three players will do things to ruin your plans in the meanwhile. Very interesting stuff going on in the game, though it hasn't aged the most elegantly.
...Saying that, it's an enjoyable light 'stock' game that takes about 45 minutes (with the 'stocks' being followers in six civilizations, in a game where you play as gods creating and changing the world by tile placement)
That sounds really neat! I like the type of passive player action that creates.
Timing when you choose to score is a big part of Rudiger Dorn's Arkadia. You have four chances to score in the game and it's up to you when to take the opportunity. At first I was nervous about this, expecting to flub the timing, but the scoring moments are finely attuned to the pace, turning points and state of the game -- you get a feel for them quite naturally. It's very satisfying to bank a swag of points directly as a result of your own choice to do so. As if I needed another reason to buy The Expanse game...
Thanks for the mention of Arkadia, James--I haven't heard of it, but I'm curious about it now!
I see a lot of this kind of scoring mechanism in Ryan Laukat's games. His recent Klondike Rush, which is a Knizia style auction/stock game, gives each player a card they can spend once during the game which gives you the exact value of all your stocks (you also score this at the end). You want to wait as long as you can to use this, since the more you wait, the more this scoring is worth, but you will also start to run out of money in the middle of the game, so use of this card is essential to keep your cash flow going. Do you play it early so that you can get an early money and stock edge? Or do you play it late for maximum value? It's a nice push and pull.
That's a great point about Ryan's games--I've talked about the bragging mechanism in Islebound, which I love. Thanks for sharing the example about Klondike Rush!
This reminds me of one of your other favorite mechanisms: scoring in Palaces of Carrara. You choose when you score certain towns or areas and you can take away certain bonuses from players when you do so. But have you maximized your scoring potential? Will someone else take it?
Your memory is better than mine! That's a great example.
I like the new thumbnail image! Now you just need some intro music. :)
But that would require editing! :)
The new thumbnails are probably a good idea for branding... however, I do not think the rule of 3rds applies to things like the little image of your face in the hex. Have you looked at centering your face? It might bring more overall balance.
I'm open to changing it if it's an issue, but I like that Biddy makes an appearance in it! :)
Then you do you. Was just putting that out there. Catch you in the next one!