by Mislav
stevelabny wrote:
This is wrong on a lot of levels and what seems a simple game at first glance reveals itself as slightly deeper after a game or two.
It almost sounds to me that either 1> you are giving points out just for numbers on dice and not for 3-of-a-kinds or 2> your group decided early that buying cards was a bad strategy so none of you do it.
You can only attack if you roll claws, you can only score points if you roll 3-of-a-kinds of numbers. First - claws are easier to get, second - a Tokyo "Strategy" IS a points strategy. you get 2 points for staying a round in Tokyo. Third, slightly contrary to the theme, most people AVOID Tokyo as best they can early in the game (which can lead to it actually becoming a good spot to steal early points)
An attacker in Tokyo will re-roll all hearts, keep all claws and energy, and only try for points if they come up. A point-guy out of of Tokyo who is not keeping claws, will try for points, but have to keep hearts to not slowly bleed out. The math advantage is for the guy in Tokyo. Even just getting 1 or 2 claws means the "points guy" (and everyone else) need 1 or 2 hearts to balance it out. Which now means you're looking for a 3-of-a-kind on 4-5 dice instead of 6 to score ANY points. Meanwhile, Tokyo attacker gets 2 points for being in Tokyo and still has 4-5 dice for energy or points too.
The game is a careful push your luck of when to take and leave Tokyo while maintaining your health while trying to eek out points or do massive damage (which is usually done by some claws + some cards not just lots of claws)
I think your groupthink broke the game.
It almost sounds to me that either 1> you are giving points out just for numbers on dice and not for 3-of-a-kinds or 2> your group decided early that buying cards was a bad strategy so none of you do it.
You can only attack if you roll claws, you can only score points if you roll 3-of-a-kinds of numbers. First - claws are easier to get, second - a Tokyo "Strategy" IS a points strategy. you get 2 points for staying a round in Tokyo. Third, slightly contrary to the theme, most people AVOID Tokyo as best they can early in the game (which can lead to it actually becoming a good spot to steal early points)
An attacker in Tokyo will re-roll all hearts, keep all claws and energy, and only try for points if they come up. A point-guy out of of Tokyo who is not keeping claws, will try for points, but have to keep hearts to not slowly bleed out. The math advantage is for the guy in Tokyo. Even just getting 1 or 2 claws means the "points guy" (and everyone else) need 1 or 2 hearts to balance it out. Which now means you're looking for a 3-of-a-kind on 4-5 dice instead of 6 to score ANY points. Meanwhile, Tokyo attacker gets 2 points for being in Tokyo and still has 4-5 dice for energy or points too.
The game is a careful push your luck of when to take and leave Tokyo while maintaining your health while trying to eek out points or do massive damage (which is usually done by some claws + some cards not just lots of claws)
I think your groupthink broke the game.
I like your analysis and trying to put it into the context of our game, it seems that some of us do not attack as hard as we should while being in Tokyo. Attacking should probably be primary thing to do while in Tokyo, in order to effectively reduce people's dice (because they have to use few of them for healing). Of course it all depends on what you roll, but going to Tokyo just to collect points or energy (which some of us do) is probably not a good idea, and certainly VERY bad when there is a big point leader.
But in any case, catching up the point leader is not an easy task and requires careful play by all other players. I guess I would prefer if there was a better chance for individual players to accomplish the catch up. Cards probably serve that purpose but they just don't get enough use and only very few of them are so powerful to possibly change the course of the game.