Topic: Washington's War
've played 5 games now and we've had 2 games decided seemingly entirely by the card draw in the first two turns. Mark, if you're there, I'm curious why you opted for a single shared deck with no real ops or event decisionmaking? I never played We The People so I'm not sure if you just didn't want to stray too far from the original game but I've found the luck factor in the cards in very troubling.
By having one shared deck, you create a situation where if player A draws good cards (high ops), it increases the likelihood that player B will draw bad cards (low ops). Furthermore you've got 7 mandatory events which are just big fat zeros for the player who draws them - especially if the British player draws Declaration of Indepence and Benjamin Franklin.
I've analyzed the deck and of the 110 cards and the ops are distributed as follows: 19 pro American (17 ops), 16 pro British (16 ops), major campaign card (9 ops), 3 minor campaign (18 ops), 5 War End (0 ops), 22 1 op (22 ops), 22 2 op (44 ops), and 22 3 op (66 ops). In otherwords 192 ops distributed over 110 cards. THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT 137 of those ops are on 48 cards. Granted the campaign cards are useful only for activations and not CP placement but there is clearly potential for huge variance in ops per game for each player. What happens if you have a game where the US player draws 3 3 ops cards and a minor campaign card on turn 1 while the British player draws 3 1 op cards, 1 2 op card, Declaration of Independence, and 2 War End cards? Basically the British player gets completely boxed out and the game is over before it begins. Now we've probably had some outlier results but the fact remains we've had 2 out of 5 games, where the British player had a slew of 1 op cards mixed in with 3 War Ends and Declaration of Independence or Benjamin Franklin on turn 1 and 2...
By having one shared deck, you create a situation where if player A draws good cards (high ops), it increases the likelihood that player B will draw bad cards (low ops). Furthermore you've got 7 mandatory events which are just big fat zeros for the player who draws them - especially if the British player draws Declaration of Indepence and Benjamin Franklin.
I've analyzed the deck and of the 110 cards and the ops are distributed as follows: 19 pro American (17 ops), 16 pro British (16 ops), major campaign card (9 ops), 3 minor campaign (18 ops), 5 War End (0 ops), 22 1 op (22 ops), 22 2 op (44 ops), and 22 3 op (66 ops). In otherwords 192 ops distributed over 110 cards. THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT 137 of those ops are on 48 cards. Granted the campaign cards are useful only for activations and not CP placement but there is clearly potential for huge variance in ops per game for each player. What happens if you have a game where the US player draws 3 3 ops cards and a minor campaign card on turn 1 while the British player draws 3 1 op cards, 1 2 op card, Declaration of Independence, and 2 War End cards? Basically the British player gets completely boxed out and the game is over before it begins. Now we've probably had some outlier results but the fact remains we've had 2 out of 5 games, where the British player had a slew of 1 op cards mixed in with 3 War Ends and Declaration of Independence or Benjamin Franklin on turn 1 and 2...
Thanks for the analysis, but I already knew all of that as that is how I designed the deck. What you see as a problem I see as a major design feature. I think I know what I am doing, so be clear there are no mistakes or unintended consequences going on here. However, your mathematical analysis misses the point. Approximately half the deck has about two thirds of what you call OPs... which is too course a metric. Anyway the point of a CDG is to deal with chaos. Bad hands always happen and I personally dislike CDGs that try and factor out the chaos. My next column in c3i is titled, "Too script or not to script, that is the design question."
Scripting which you would prefer and others that have chimed in have supported a view that separate decks segregated by time (early, mid, late war, etc.) are more advanced and superior. All are entitled to their opinions, but I have the opposite view. Scripting diminishes the historical value of a CDG from my perspective. The reason I created this technique is players have way too much information, especially in a pre-twentieth century wargame. I want their to be uncertainty as to which events will occur so you cannot card count or build a strategy about some future occurrence that the original participants could have no foreknowledge of. In my mind time segregated separate decks is less not more historical, so I do not use them. I did go for separate decks in my Empire of the Sun game but I used probability to control event availability vice time segregation.
The decision not to use the Hannibal-For The People OP/Event choice is explained in my designer's notes. We the People and Washington's War uses a whole hand vice individual card decision process, which I find that I prefer. Anyway that is why one deck...
Mark
Posted by markherman
at 3:35 PM EDT
