Musing about shared strategies

[ravenborne]

Watching over the newly posted vids, something struck me. Around where I play its become habit to play shared strategies. Speaking as a Rezzer player mainly, it struck me how vastly different the games would be if I had a different strategy than my opponent, and how the original design and balance of the game has been changed or impacted by shared strategies.

It also struck me how different the context of various comments and forum perspectives might be based on whether or not the posters are used to individual or shared strategies.

I am curious to hear some feedback on how your group usually does it, as well as how you think individual vs shared strategies affect game balance.

[Kadeton]

We normally use the Expanded Encounter chart, and play whatever comes up.

I tend to prefer Individual strategies myself, since it plays more into the complexity of having to pursue your own objectives while also considering how to stop your opponent pursuing theirs. With Shared strategies, chasing your objectives almost always denies them to the opponent, so there's less to think about.

Also, without Individual strategies, Lucius loses the use of his neat ability to re-flip.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I prefer individual strategies myself. Shared strategies often shift what imbalance there is in the game even more towards the stronger "good at everything" masters. At least with individual strategies I have a goal and my opponent has a goal, and perhaps i can sneak mine out from under him if he isn't a good enough player.

It also just feels more appropriate that most of the time each master has a different agenda than the opposing one.

[ravenborne]

How about your local tournaments, what do they use?

[karavak]

Shared is becoming the norm since that is tournament format pretty much. Like all game systems when preparing for the next tournament is the average game you adopt the tournament rules and conditions.

My group has been doing shared for a while as we practiced for tournaments but will be going back to individual next few games.

[13th Warrior]

Interesting.

I don't really know when or why tournaments moved to Shared Strategies, but I think they lost something when they did, especially as many shared strategies simply turn into Shared Slaughter in order to deny your opponent. I think another aspect of this is that the Standard Deployment has become the norm too, again not sure why.

We're constantly telling new players that part of the interest of the game is that the object isn't just to kill your opponent, but rather to acquire VPs through achieving schemes and strategies. The problem is that most shared strategies are easier to accomplish if your opponent has no models left, and this definitely impacts faction choice and the effectiveness of crews.

I think you lose an element of skill by fixing the strategies ahead of time, and even more so by only playing shared strategies. As karavak said, it has a knock-on effect on club play too: if all you ever play in tournaments are shared strategies then club / friendly games tend to follow suit as people practice for whatever the latest tournament is, all of which are becoming pretty much clones - 35ss, open faction, fixed shared strategies.

I'd like to see tournaments following the Encounter Setup Sequence a lot more closely (including varying game sizes), because at the moment the only steps that are used are the last three - Hire Crews, Select Schemes, Deploy Crews (the only step I wouldn't use is Choose Location because that would be a nightmare for Organisers).

Surely we're taking something away from the game by only using one size of game, half the setup rules and half the strategies.

Cheers

Rob

[ravenborne]

13th Warrior, I've been thinking the same exact thing. I realize now my judgement of the balance of the game has been skewed.

[dsmiles]

We normally use the Expanded Encounter chart, and play whatever comes up.

This. We flip, for everything, just like the book says.

[Hatchethead]

I've been pondering this myself, lately. My group opts for individual strategies almost exclusively. We don't flip on the expanded chart, we automatically flip for individual. It's not even a question.

On one hand, I like the variety, the asymmetry and the complexity therein. On the other hand, sometimes you end up with two strats that don't play well together, resulting in crews avoiding each other as they go about their business.

I'm thinking maybe we should start flipping for it. While there is very little interest in story encounters, we could always do away with that result. 1-8 Individual, 9-13 Shared.

It occurred to me the other day, I've never played Shared Slaughter. That doesn't seem right!

[Serigala]

I used to think that the reason tournaments tend to choose shared strategies, was to preserve balance. Having read the above, I'm not so sure...

I do think however that randomising the strategies, could mean that you have lost the game before you have flipped a single card. Some crews struggle with some strategies. In a pickup game you might just concede and reflip, but in a tournamt you can't do that. At least if you know which strategies you have to be able to accomplish then you do need to bring a crew that has a half decent chance of doing so (opponent not withstanding).

Playing at the Harrogate tournament tomorrow, where we are playing shared core strategies, flipped randomly each round.

[snord]

We used to play fixed shared strategies in our local tournaments, but the last 2 were following the rules flipping on the Expanded Encounter Chart before each game. IMHO and of my friends, this format plays to the strengths of Malifaux as a game and it is much better than fixing shared strategies ahead of time.

We will continue to play like that.

[13th Warrior]

I do think however that randomising the strategies, could mean that you have lost the game before you have flipped a single card. Some crews struggle with some strategies.

Except that you choose your Master after you flip for strategy, so once you know what your strategy is, you can pick the most appropriate Master available to you.

And surely there's no reason why paying a Soulstone for a re-flip couldn't be used in a tournament?

Again, it's all about managing your options, and that's an element of (tournament) play that is lacking if you know the strategies in advance.

[Hatchethead]

I think my group has simply fallen into a rut. We were set in our ways by the time book 2 dropped, we stuck to our guns, playing the occasional shared strat when the flip would dictate (both players flipping the same individual strategy).

It is our custom.

Now that I'm planning my club's first ever tournament, I'm finally seeing our tunnel vision for what it is.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Hatchethead

[Calmdown]

Interesting.

I don't really know when or why tournaments moved to Shared Strategies, but I think they lost something when they did, especially as many shared strategies simply turn into Shared Slaughter in order to deny your opponent. I think another aspect of this is that the Standard Deployment has become the norm too, again not sure why.

We're constantly telling new players that part of the interest of the game is that the object isn't just to kill your opponent, but rather to acquire VPs through achieving schemes and strategies. The problem is that most shared strategies are easier to accomplish if your opponent has no models left, and this definitely impacts faction choice and the effectiveness of crews.

I think you lose an element of skill by fixing the strategies ahead of time, and even more so by only playing shared strategies. As karavak said, it has a knock-on effect on club play too: if all you ever play in tournaments are shared strategies then club / friendly games tend to follow suit as people practice for whatever the latest tournament is, all of which are becoming pretty much clones - 35ss, open faction, fixed shared strategies.

I'd like to see tournaments following the Encounter Setup Sequence a lot more closely (including varying game sizes), because at the moment the only steps that are used are the last three - Hire Crews, Select Schemes, Deploy Crews (the only step I wouldn't use is Choose Location because that would be a nightmare for Organisers).

Surely we're taking something away from the game by only using one size of game, half the setup rules and half the strategies.

Cheers

Rob

I agree with you mostly.

Id say the reason tournaments evolved towards Shared Strategies is so that everyone plays the same each round; its pretty standard in most games for all players to play the same game. I do t think Malifaux loses anything for doing this.

That said, I do think that Shared Strategies are generally pretty badly written. Treasure Hunt and Destroy Evidence put far too much focus on first activation wins, Line in the Sand is hugely biased to the attacker, Slaughtdr is broken by game mechanics such as stitched together and poison, and so on. Youre right that the best way to win most of them is simp,y to annihilate your opponent. I think in an ideal world the shared strats need a rework but should remain the tourney norm.

As to deployments and so on, well... Deployments other than standard do generally suck, imho. And for reasons of practicality (ie space) tourneys avoid it.I dont think malifaux loses anything without the other deployment types.

I do agree on crew selection. Tournament Malifaux is being ruined by the propensity for fixed masters, or crews, and so on. Last year TO reasons for this were that "people wouldnt play cos their collections were too small". I dont think this was ever the case and certainly isnt anymore. This really needs to stop and we need to start playing the game properly; fixing elements just punishes weaker masts and makes people want to play stuff like dreamer, kirai collette and hamelin even more since they can do everything.

[Todd]

I'm all for using the set-up rules in their entirety (terrain generation being the exception). Shared Strategies (especially with any master fixing or limitations to crew choice) only serves to encourage the stronger jack of all trades masters/crews.

It seems that many tournaments are leaning towards shared strategies and the fixing of crews/masters to some extent. This makes no sense at all. Fixing of masters/crews doesn't make poor master choices better regardless of it being a player's only available crew. On top of that you're likely to have to face other player's power crews due to the shared strategies.

The way Malifaux is designed, it seems the intent is to include shared strategies only some of the time. If the goal of using Shared Strategies in tournaments is to ensure consistency, why not randomize the strategy selection but apply it to all the matches. The TO flips twice on the core chart (either shuffling the deck in between flips, or from two different decks) to determine the two strategies used across the board. As with a normal game this might result in a shared strategy or it might not. If non-shared strategies are flipped, the players in the individual matches would then randomize who gets which strategy. This way, strategies are random, not always shared, consistently applied, and preserve the integrity of the game's design. No one would be able to complain that another player got an easier strategy match-up then they did, and players aren't using shared strategies in every game.

@Calmdown

Why don't you like the other deployment types? Other than diagonal deployment being a pain to easily determine with terrain on the board, I don't see any tournament practicality issues. I feel like they add a further (albeit small) level of depth to the game. Also, they tend to effect how easily many schemes are to achieve (example: power ritual on a corner vs. standard or diagonal).

[Calmdown]

@Calmdown

Why don't you like the other deployment types? Other than diagonal deployment being a pain to easily determine with terrain on the board, I don't see any tournament practicality issues. I feel like they add a further (albeit small) level of depth to the game. Also, they tend to effect how easily many schemes are to achieve (example: power ritual on a corner vs. standard or diagonal).

I don't really feel that they add anything to the game.

I do feel however that they can take away from the game. I think that terrain should always be set up with the deployment style in mind, to make sure it is fair and balanced and there are not too many wide corridors, dead zones etc; you can't do this if you don't know what deployment type will be used. When you add into this the fiddliness of fitting people into small spaces for a tourney and not knowing how they want to orient themselves - I feel there are only cons compared to no pros.

[Todd]

I don't really feel that they add anything to the game.

I do feel however that they can take away from the game. I think that terrain should always be set up with the deployment style in mind, to make sure it is fair and balanced and there are not too many wide corridors, dead zones etc; you can't do this if you don't know what deployment type will be used. When you add into this the fiddliness of fitting people into small spaces for a tourney and not knowing how they want to orient themselves - I feel there are only cons compared to no pros.

I really don't see how different deployments create any additional space issues at small/cramped venues. The board is 3'x3', pretty easy to reach anywhere even from your own side. Do you typically play on masked off 4x4's, I could see that being more difficult. Even so, different deployment type wouldn't cause any more issues than any other game (40k uses diagonal deployment on a 6x4). Worse case scenario, you're playing sideways. I'm sure most Malifaux players are able to cope with that.

I agree about terrain balance. My solution has been to just take all three deployment types into account when initially placing terrain and follow a few simple guidelines (no gaps smaller than 50mm, don't cut areas of the board off with choke points, make sure things like rivers have plenty of crossings, etc). Certain strategies/schemes are equally affected by terrain placement. Same thing, you place accordingly, or move offending terrain (not hard for the TO to do, if the players can't agree on it). You wouldn't remove all the terrain related strategies/schemes from the game just because it forces you to use some added consideration when placing terrain, right?

The deployment types add another aspect of variety/options to the game. They don't make a huge difference, but add a subtle layer like all of the other set-up steps. They add another degree of complexity when choosing your crew and schemes. You feel they don't add anything, but look at the difference between corner deployment and standard deployment in relation to schemes like Breakthrough and Hold out.

Obviously the less of these choices, the more balanced/competitive a tournament game it would be. I like to play miniature games competitively, but personally, a game where my master/crew is fixed, my deployment is fixed, and I will always be playing the same handful of shared strategies is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was attracted to about Malifaux.