You are teaching or are way more experienced at a game than the majority of your opponents. How much, if any, help do you give?
This is practical. Next Saturday I will be attending game night with my NEW FRIENDS. I will most likely be teaching at least 2 games and/or playing Alhambra with 5 other people who have played once.
So if I was there to win, I wouldn't give any hints. But I'm not there solely to win. Winning against players who are struggling to make moves isn't very fulfilling.
The experience is more important than the outcome.
or
The journey is it's own reward.
So I like to give hints. I don't want to just win, I want peoples best game.
But how many hints and how often?
What's the happy median?
I "think" next week I will outline the broad strategies and what things you have to manage, a couple of tactical tips, and let the table figure out the rest.
I am specifically thinking of Notre Dame as I write this. So my beginners guide to Notre Dame.
There's 4 ways to score points in ND. Go to the church, go to the incremented VP location, hiring towns folk, and getting messages via carriage house. To have a chance, you have to get significant points from two sources.
There are 3 things you have to manage, in order of importance.
The rat-track: get a plague value of over 9 and you lose a previous play off the board AND 5 points. I have never seen a game won by a player getting the plague.
Money: Money is used to hire townies, and to go to the cathedral. The more you spend on a cathedral move, the more points you score. Hiring townies is really important, I have never seen a game won by a player who ran out of money during the buy townie phase. Money for the big church is less important, but it makes the church moves more efficient.
Influence counters: If you run out of dudes in your active supply, you move them around the board instead. I have seen many games won by people who had to relocate influence counters instead of playing a new one.
Tactical moves:
Avoid the park and hotel as much as possible. It is unlikely that you will avoid both the entire game, but both these moves have the worst returns. A hotel is more versatile with one play, and the park is better long term, but too many plays there means a long game.
I think I can do a pretty good job teaching a game if I spend a few minutes organizing my thoughts beforehand. The last thing I always go over is high level/common strategy and tips. FOR ME, I want to know the pitfalls and strategies (what I am working toward). So I assume that's what everyone else would want too :)
ReplyDeleteI think as a newbie you first want to learn the basics and common strategy is part of that. 'This is one way to win, but no one ever does that, it's low percentage' is good information. If you are an advanced player, sure some day you work on that rare epsilon strat but don't let newbieman waste his time there. I think it's hard to do personally but when playing with people who are more experienced, it's not a bad idea to sometimes say 'i don't know, what is the ideal move?' You are probably at the short-term tactical level there, not deep strat, and if you have a lot of info they don't (what's in your hand , for instance if there are concealed cards) then they can only give you round parameters. And then you have to learn. Trial and error.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the Nugent-not-Hopkins, the experience is the point. You'll grow there more than just at the outcome.
furthermore - I think that's enough for me, I want to know roughly what I should be doing the first few turns until I get a feel for it myself. I usually don't want help during the game itself.
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