Tetris Link Scrimmage

[zaphod77]

it really looks to me that myz has the game in the bag unless caff gets to place his I next turn.  mys has three placements that score now, and he is likely to be given an opening for a T unless caff skips a turn or plays his I.

i would have went J4G myself.

[myndzi]

caffeine also has five more pieces than I do. Unless I can force the game to end early by covering large holes, which will cost me ~2 points and bring us to a tie, I am more likely to lose turns than he is in the coming turns, and he is likely to be able to have the "final say" on the board, which could easily be worth the extra points that I am currently up. Look past the injustice of skipping turns at the bigger picture.

Edit: oh, now you're telling me how to play too, nice! Tell me, would I have more or less of a chance of not losing points next turn if I'd completely ruined the board?

[Sisu]

[attachmentid=315]

caffeine 12-15 myndzi

caffeine rolls TETRIS LINK

[zaphod77]

i was merely saying what I would have done.

My point is you don't have to cover those big holes. he is more likely going to be the one who has to.

nearly every move will be linked at this point, so it's a matter of making the other player lose points. And whoever loses points will probably give the other player an opening to not lose points.

Now he can ruin the board so badly you cannot move without loosing points if he so chooses, while he still has an out. or he can take his free point and you still can play either of your pieces.

[caffeine]

L3G

[myndzi]

You're assuming that 1) I don't lose my next turn, 2) he rolled a piece that I could stack on cleanly and 3) chose to play it so. 2 is far from certain and so is 1. At this point my best bet is to maintain my lead, play safely, and only sacrifice points if he does first. And try to create a situation where I can tie up the board *without* losing points.

And while I appreciate that not everyone may have made the same choices I did, it's rather rude to comment on a game in progress (at least without being invited to). Let us finish our game and then talk all you want, eh?

[Sisu]

[attachmentid=316]

caffeine 13-15 myndzi

myndzi rolls T

[myndzi]

T1G

[zaphod77]

Ok. but i still stand by my statement that you have the much better position, despite your piece deficit.

[myndzi]

You're banking too much on my getting to take a turn at all. The dice have really favored me over caffeine so far, and probability tells me that the balance is gonna swing back the other way at some point - hopefully not before the end of the game

Edit: got the name wrong...

[caffeine]

If the game doesn't end with a perfect clear (where both players use all 25 pieces), ending the game with less pieces is a good thing, all else being equal.

Edit: my bad =x

[zaphod77]

Sorry, again. seems i've gotten some people a bit flustered.

I'll rant again after.

[myndzi]

I'd have to say the opposite is true. I guess it's not too early to talk about stuff anymore.

I began the game operating on the assumption that more linked chains was worth more. I had confused the scoring in my head, thinking that a chain of three was worth 1 point. I find this more interesting strategically, since it forces choices between control and sacrificing points. With the possibility of missing a turn, though, it wouldn't be a very balanced game - as we can see. I achieved my original goal, but it doesn't benefit me. Why?

Because as long as every piece you drop is part of a chain, then all that matters is not making holes.

The only way to actively prevent the other player from scoring is to block off a section of one or two pieces - which I managed to do, but only because of extreme luck - and without that I wouldn't be competitive at all at this moment since I made so many holes.

There is the tie-breaker scenario of course, but I'm not convinced it's worth sacrificing even one point for that.

Note, this is a two player match - I'm sure the balance is different for three or even four players. But with two players, achieving a link of three pieces appears to be quite easy, and this reduces the game to a fairly simple task - stack cleanly, connect three pieces always. You can see at the beginning of the game the sacrifices I had to make to cut off caffeine's links. Now imagine it not mattering if I cut him off in most cases, and you can see why I feel this way.

So then, where does missing turns come into it?

I gained an early control advantage because of caffeine's lost turns, but that control didn't actually do me much good - and I had to sacrifice for it. I could have kept the points I lost, but then caffeine would have had better scoring opportunities too, so I consider it about equal.

Missing turns early is actually rather unlikely, assuming fair dice, and it means that the other player is more likely to exhaust their pieces sooner - as you can see, since we encountered more extreme circumstances than I would expect is typical - this has happened. My rolls have been extremely lucky overall, I think I've only missed one turn? I should by rights have missed many more, and that has guided my stacking decisions.

Having more turns is only an advantage if you can bring the game to a close, but doing that without incurring penalties is not easy. If I had a larger point lead, I wouldn't hesitate to block off the right or left side - but since caffeine still has an I piece, he can still score no matter which side I block off. Too dangerous.

The reason I don't believe that the skipped turns are as significant a problem as you make them out to be is simply that the balance returns at the end of the game. Take that combined with the fact that all you really have to do is stack cleanly and not orphan pieces and well... it's not so bad at all.

What it really comes down to is that Tetris Link is not a strategy game - it's a party game. There are elements of randomness that are beyond control and obviously chosen intentionally. This is the kind of game I could play with my little sister and she wouldn't despair of playing because there's the element of randomness and chance that can grant moments of excitement and victory. And that is what the game is intended to be and supposed to be. If you don't like that game, then maybe you should go play King of Stackers, rather than trying to turn it into the closest analogue to Guideline that you can.


Zaphod: I'm not flustered, but I also was raised to hold my tongue when other people are playing games, and I find it rude not to do so. If you're watching, watch and don't butt in. In addition to that, I know that the first play-through of any game is never enough to learn everything about it - doubly so if you're not playing at all. There are things going on that you learn as you make the decisions that you don't pick up on when you are just watching. I find it a bit arrogant to jump in with your two cents and start proposing major changes to the game mechanics without ever having actually given it a decent chance. I guarantee the team behind this game spent much more time, energy, and thought on how they wanted it to work than you have so far.


Edit: one more note on piece scarcity. It appears that there are just about enough pieces that it's possible to have a game where both players use all their pieces. It's unlikely due to various strategic choices though, so there's certainly the chance of using your position to end the game early and therefore deny your opponent their remaining pieces as points. If I can end the game and caffeine has 4 more pieces than I do, that's 4 potential points that he's down compared to me. If it costs me 4 points to do that though, it doesn't benefit me. There is an interesting balancing mechanic at play here - the more players there are, the less skipped turns there will be since the matrix will fill faster. It will also be harder to link pieces, so skipped turns are much more impactful in large games but are also much less likely to happen.

[caffeine]

I was more referring to the fact that if the game ends with one player having had x more turns than his opponent, then that's potentially +x more points he'll finish the game with, all else being equal.

Edit: saw your edit--you got it.

[zaphod77]

As I said, I will continue my rant after the game ends.

And again, I'm sorry for commenting on the placement.

I have no problem with party games. I do, however, have problems with party games that call themselves strategy games.