Head for the Border(s)?

I stopped by the Edwardsiville Borders yesterday afternoon. There were a few games I'd consider picking up at the right price -- Dixit and Castle Panic are the two that I was most interested in. But, the Edwardsville store is still sitting on 20% off, which still leaves the games more expensive than Amazon (which sells them for 26% off MSRP). And, of course that's before I add in sales tax. (I know that I'm supposed to pay the sales tax on Amazon purchases, but the Edwardsville store adds a special TIF-style sales tax that makes it even more than a traditional sales tax.) So, in the midst of a closeout "everything must go" sale, Borders is still more expensive than Amazon. I suppose that there's just nothing more to say about that.

More APBA Soccer

Patrick and I played two games of APBA Soccer this weekend. Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur tied 1-1 on Friday. On Saturday, his English national team defeated my Yanks 3-0. I feel as though I've played it enough to have some preliminary thoughts. I posted them at BoardGameGeek in the APBA Soccer forums (and I'll repeat them here).

1. The components are normal (post-1990) APBA standards. The cards are two-color and solid stock. The print is a little small for my middle-aged eyes, but certainly acceptable. Ditto with the charts (which are essentially an appendix in the rulebook). I scanned the charts, enlarged them and printed them out to make it easier on me.

2. The rulebook is quite bad. It's disorganized, ugly and sometimes incomplete. I'm not a sports-game novice. (I've been playing APBA games since 1981.) And I'm not afraid to work hard to understand a rulebook. (I was playing Avalon Hill wargames back in the 1970s.) But it's really bad.

3. As mentioned elsewhere in the forums, the goal scoring numbers (for me, so far) are low. I haven't made careful measurements or crunched the numbers. But here are some back-of-the-envelope calculations using 2009-2010 Chelsea:

The game lasts 180 time periods. Of these, I'd estimate that about 120 are actual rolls on a player's card (as opposed to a throw-in, loose ball check, etc.). Each player's card has 36 possible outcomes. The number of these outcomes that translate into shots depends upon the player's abilities, the location on the field and the formations used. For example, if both squads are playing a 4-4-2, the Drogba card would have 12 shot results in Area A (closest to the net). It falls to 10 in Area B (just outside the box) and then 8 in Area C (in the corners). Continuing, it would be 6 in D, 4 in E, and 2 in F. For Essien the chances (moving from A to F) would be 8-8-7-5-4-2). For Terry, the chances would be 3-3-3-3-3-2.

Estimating the "average" location of the ball and the "average" player (and noting that the charts are weighted so that forwards are more likely to have the ball when it's in Areas A, B and C; but there is an Area X from which no one can shoot), I'd estimate that there's an average of about 4 shot chances (out of 36) on any given player roll. That translates into about 13 (combined) shots per game. Let's make it 15 to reflect the chances coming from direct kicks following fouls and corners (that are taken from a table, not the player's card).

Each player has a rating indicating the probability that the shot is on goal, and this probability is affected by the area and the assist rating of the teammate who passed it. (What constites a "pass" is one of the holes in the rulebook.) For Drogba, for example, this is likely to be a little better than 50-50. For Essien and Terry, it would be closer to one-third. For a number of players, it would be closer to 10-15%. So, we're down to about 6 (combined) on goal shots per game (that actually test the keeper).

Now, moving on to the keeper card, most keepers will stop the vast majority of shots. Peter Cech, for example will stop about 70% of these tests. That takes us down to fewer than 2 (combined) goals per game.

Our highest scoring game so far has been 1-1. I admit that most of what I'm presenting are estimates (altough my sons gave similar guesses when I asked them). I also admit that we've mostly played the better teams. I'm not only open to the possibility that these numbers are wrong, but I hope that they're wrong.

4. I really like the clutch points mechanic. Each team has a number of "clutch points" (usually between 4 and 7) that can be cashed in at various points of the game. For example, 4 points can be used to change a red card into a yellow card. Five points can be used to make a shot (almost) automatically on goal.

5. There is a lot of dice rolling and a lot of charts in this game. Each time period requires at least one roll on a card and/or chart, and then perhaps a follow-up roll. A typical two-minute block goes as follows:

The keeper kicks it in (roll dice and consult chart) to Area C, where it's picked up by (roll dice and consult chart) Player-2, who is (consult scoresheet) Lampard. Lampard takes it and (roll dice, consult card for number, consult chart with number) heads it into Area B for a loose ball. The ball is taken by (double check teams' ratings, roll dice and consult chart) West Ham's (roll dice, consult chart) player-3 who is (consult scoresheet) Behrami. Behrami (roll dice, consult card for number, take number to chart) passes it into Area D, player-2 who is (consult scoresheet) Okirie.

And, unlike some APBA games where 80% of the tables' results can be easily memorized, the soccer tables have so many possibilities that I don't see how more than about 25% could be memorized.

6. I enjoy the game's feel. Many possessions end up as dead ends, but there is a nice tension as you roll on the cards and pass the ball, trying (if only with your dice rolling) to maitain possession and work the ball in closer to the net for an opportunity.

7. The lack of individual defense ratings is a weird design decision. As mentioned elsewhere in the forums, every player listed as a forward gets a defensive rating of 1; every middie is a 2; every defender is a 3. Thus, there is no obvious disincentive to starting the best offensive player at each position. In fact, if the team is down, there isn't much disincentive to putting in forwards to play defender.

My hope is that one of the following is going on:

1) There is more going on in the players' cards than I immediately can see. Maybe offensive-minded players give the ball up more often. Maybe (when they have the ball) they're more likely to start a defense check (which often turns into a counterattack) where a defensive-minded player is more likely to create a loose ball (which can't immediatly become a counterattack).

(2) Maybe this was a temporary decision, and the whole defensive rating system will be overhauled in future card sets. APBA gave individual defensive ratings in hockey, baseball and football. Why not soccer?

Overall, I'm glad I got it. But I can't give it a 100% endorsement for soccer fans.

World Cup Action

With Women's World Cup Action going on this month, Andrew, Patrick and I played a quick game of The World Cup Card Game. All of Andrew's teams were eliminated in the quarterfinals. In the semi-finals, my Germany beat Patrick's Spain, and my Mexico beat Patrick's Portugal. So, it was Germany versus Mexico in the finals. Since the outcomes are based upon card play, this meant that I could decide who won the Cup. For whatever reason, I decided to give the goals to Mexico. (I guess I wanted to see a Concacaf team win.)

The World of Wargaming

Just a quick post to note a project started by BoardGameGeek user JoelCFC25. He overlayed various wargame maps, such as Here I Stand over a world map at Google Earth. It's a very cool idea, and I hope he's able to expand it.

Memorial Day Gaming

Over the years, it's become a little bit of a group tradition to play games over Memorial Day Weekend. By far, the biggest Memorial Day Weekend game-fest was 2004, when (in addition to several smaller games) we played Napoleon in Europe on Saturday, Mare Nostrum on Sunday and Joan of Arc on Monday. (St. Joan's feast day is May 30th, so we often try to fit a Hundred Years War game into the mix.) We've already fit two sessions into this weekend, and there's a chance we'll work in one more.

Saturday afternoon and evening we played Here I Stand. Andrew's Hapsburgs scored an autovictory in Turn 3. The Hapsburgs started the game by launching two major attacks into Drew's France. Steve's English also piled on, while Jeff's Ottomans made the usual push into Hungary. Meanwhile my Protestants got off to a good start in the religious struggles in Germany, as Al's Papacy struggled. The Hapsburgs also arranged a marriage that brought the Venetians in as their allies.

In Turn 2, the Ottomans made it to the gates of Vienna, but were stalled as a Janissary revolt near Istanbul cut their supply lines. The Hapsburgs and English worked a truce with the French that yielded Bordeaux to the Hapsburgs. This allowed the Hapsburgs to focus their energies in the New World, where they conquered several native peoples and founded several colonies. They also gained the Genoans as allies. Meanwhile the Reformation largely stalled, despite the Papacy being forced to devote resources to defending against a French army in Florence. Meanwhile Henry VIII moved through three wives before Edward was finally born.

In Turn 3, the Ottomans reached an official peace accord with the Hapsburgs, but Barbarossa's pirates continued to harrass Hapsburg and Papal shipping. As the Reformation came to grinding halt, the Hapsburgs and English launched expeditions to the New World. The Hapsburg victory came when they arranged yet another marriage, bringing the Scotts in as their allies. This gave Andrew enough keys to score the autovictory.

Today (Sunday) Andrew, Al, Drew, Steven and I played Power Grid. The gameboard is a map of the US. Players buy power stations (using an auction mechanic), the resources to power them and connections to US cities. Powering cities provides income that allows the players to buy more and expand. The game is very popular (currently ranked #5) at BoardGameGeek, so I was happy to give it a try. The components are nice (although the map is a little ugly). I was pleasantly surprised that the bookkeeping is fairly easy. And the mechanics introduce a lot of factors without a lot of fiddliness. So I did enjoy the game. I do think that the game would be far less interesting with three or four people, however. I also managed to win, which indicates a serious flaw somewhere in the game design.

I'm a Loser

A new NBER paper by Steven Levitt and Thomas Miles concludes that there is an important skill component in poker. The two economists look at year-to-year results in the World Series of Poker -- an annual tournament that's open to anyone willing to pay the entry fee. They find persistence in players' performance, which indicates that skill is important. If poker was purely luck-driven, players who finished near the top one year should be randomly spread out the following year; but they're not. This result doesn't surprise me; many of the games I play have a luck component (such as dice and cards), but that doesn't mean that skill plays no role. (As an interesting aside, Leveitt and Miles point out that several studies find that there is virtually no persistence in the management of mutual funds.)

Seeing this study was somewhat timely, as I've been thinking a lot this week about my (lack of) skills as a gamer. A few weeks ago I was describing the Avalon Hill game Diplomacy to a colleague at work. He was surprised when I told him that not only was I not a strong player, but that I had never won a game. It reminded me of a discussion we had about a year ago, when he asked me what games I was "good" at. And I had a hard time naming one.

I'm twelve years younger than my brother, Dennis, and, growing up, he never took it easy on me when we played games. I was OK with that. In fact, (aside from helping a new player with the rules and basic strategy) I don't understand people who are afraid to play to win. (Being rude, of course, is a different matter altogether.) I learned early on, as a child, that I had to be able to enjoy playing a game -- win or lose.

Perhaps that "just enjoy the game" attitude handicaps me in some way; maybe it robbed me of a "winning attitude." But I really don't win all that often. So, when my friend asked me what games I'm good at, I was stumped. For the sake of discussion, the definition of good might be that you win more than your "fair share." So, you'd expect an average player to win a two-player game 50% of the time or a four-player game 25% of the time. Since I'm usually the rules guy in my group, I can think of a few games (such as Kingmaker) that I "know" better than most people, in the sense that I know the rules, the cards, and the odds. But (at least for me) that doesn't seem to translate into victory.

Pressed for an answer, I told my colleague that I was "good" at Avalon Hill's History of the World. My recollection was that I had won that game more than my "fair share" of times. Then I started playing History of the World at GamesByEmail with a mixture of long-time friends (such as Al, Steve, Jeff, Andrew, Tom and Mike) and some strangers that I met at BoardGameGeek. From November 2010 through mid-May 2011, I managed to lose 15 straight games. A couple of them were close-run things that could have gone in my direction, but most weren't. Zero for freakin' 15 in the game that I thought I was "good" at.

Which is a long was of saying that I finially won game number 16 by sneeking out a one-point last-turn victory over Tom, who is good at the game despite that fact that he's over 30 years younger than I am and just learned the game last fall. Maybe it's because he doesn't have an older brother.

First try of APBA Soccer

As hoped, Dennis, Teresa and Mom bought me APBA Soccer for my birthday last week. Patrick and I were able to give it a quick try last weekend, with Patrick taking 2010 Barcelona and me taking 2010 Inter Milan. Barcelona won 1-0.

My first impressions are mixed. The good news is that it's a nice enough game. It definitely feels like you're watching a soccer game. Note, however, that I said "watching." It's probably the nature of the sport that, unlike American football, where the coach calls plays, once you set your starting 11 and pick a formation, your job is done until you feel the need to switch.

One exception, that I feel is the most creative part of the game, is the "clutch points" system. Each team starts with a certain number of clutch points. Better teams start with more, so, for example, Barcelona starts with 10. These points can be "cashed in" to alter the game. For example, a few minutes into our game, I cashed in 5 clutch points so that a red card on my center back would be "discussed by the referees" and turned into a yellow card. Patrick used 5 points for his goalie to make a great save.

Part of what makes APBA Baseball so enjoyable is its elegance. Roll on the card; look on a chart. Eighty percent of the time you'll know the result without even looking. But part of the problem with APBA Football, Hockey and Basketball was the amount of bookkeeping required. At some points the amount of calculating and re-calculating in those games makes it feel like you're doing your taxes. Every lineup change requires re-calculating various numbers. The bad news is that APBA Soccer does require a new set of calculations every time a lineup change occurs. The good news is that lineup changes are less frequent in soccer than in the other sports.

My biggest complaint about APBA Soccer is the awful rulebook. The rulebook is poor from a technical standpoint, an editing standpoint and an aesthetic standpoint. I plan to write a full review at BoardGameGeek, but the rulebook looks like it was typed -- literally, on a typewriter -- and then copied. Several parts are unclear or missing. So, while the author felt the need to explain the positions (something I'm guessing anyone who would buy the game would know), he or she didn't include such simple instructions as how to restart the game after an injury. Finally, while not everyone gets as worked up as I do about missing commas before independent clauses, there are parts of the rulebook with missing words and non-sentences.

APBA also made the decision to downsize their tables, presumably to save money. The irony is that, when I discovered APBA in the 1980s, I had a small budget and good eyes. I would have gladly made do with smaller boards in exchange for a lower price. Now I have more money but bad eyesight, and I really miss the big boards.

I'm looking forward to playing some more this weekend.