BLOG: About catching up mechanisms

In the past two weeks, I had a chance to play again two great classic board games – Le Havre and Age of Empires III. Both of them are easily in my Top 100 Games of All Time and I cannot say enough how much I love and respect these designs.

And yet, something very strange happened. In my game of Le Havre, I went too aggressive in the first few rounds, buying buildings that will help me in a long run and suddenly, at the stage of 4th or 5th round my engine just died, I had no food, I had loans, I had to pay the interest, each round became a struggle and desperate run to just survive, to barely make it and to not take another loan. I ended up with a pathetic score of 87 points.

Right the next day, on Monday, I played Age of Empires III and even though Greg super clearly reminded me before the game began that money is very important in the game, I made few first decisions in a different way. I went for Soldier and Missionaire, while other players took the building that gives +5$, or for a ship that delivers goods… Three rounds later, at the end of the first Era, my income was 4 bucks, while average at the table was about 15 if I recall correctly. Soon it turned out I cannot afford new buildings, I have fewer miniatures than others, and basically, I am out of the game…

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In board games, we use all these wise words like the snowball effect, like run-away leader problem and they all describe the same effect – some people have fun at the table, some don’t.

Le Havre and Age of Empires III are brilliant designs. I would never ever consider thinking that they have design flaws or problems. And yet, here are the facts – after first 30 minutes of Le Havre there was long 120 minutes of zero fun, zero happiness, a lot of frustration and stress. On Monday, after initial 30 minutes of excitement, there were 160 minutes of weariness and disappointment.

Last week I spent 6 hours playing board games and 5 of these hours were the terrible experience. Something went really wrong.

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I myself designed Pre-a-Porter and for years I was proud that it is a heavy euro, a game that is brutal and not forgiving. Today I wonder if that’s actually a reason to be proud of. Is not-forgiving feature indeed a quality?

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This week I was wondering if there are any mechanisms that could help me out. Would I – if possible – take a catching up bonus tile, a bonus that says something like: ‘Ignacy, you played like a dumbass in the first rounds but we want to help. At the end of the game this catch-up bonus tile will cost you -15 VP, but now have it, use it and just play and enjoy the game instead of sitting here like whine-ass with the frowned face for the next 3 hours…”

Would my experience with Le Havre be better if instead of circling around over and over with paying interest on loans and having no fun in this insane credit circle, I would just get -10 VP per loan at the end of the game instead of being pulled down each round by interest? Having this -10 or -20 or -30 VP penalty, would I enjoy the game like everybody else at the table building new buildings and creating combos?

Would you prefer to – at some point in the game – admit something like: “OK, I screw up. Give me -20 VP penalty so I’ll probably won’t win the game, but please, let me magically catch-up and be a real competitor at the table instead of spending here next 2 hours seeing you leaving me behind each following round…”

What are you thoughts on the topic? Any examples of games which dealt with this issue in a perfect way?


Originally posted on BTTS Blog on BGG Forum: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/74361/about-catching-mechanisms

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