Money: Worth it's weight?
Stephen Glenn
I saw a posting a short while ago that gave a mini review of the new Knizia
title, Money. Actually, it was a "mini" mini review (it simply gave the game
four out of ten points)
I believe it was Greg S. who posted this.
I was really looking forward to enjoying this game. It sounded intriguing and
the cards looked really great. Can anyone offer a little more info on this
game? In other words, was it a 4 compared to RK's other games? Or a 4 compared
to all games in general. The former would be acceptable to me. The latter,
probably not.
Thanks
Stephen Glenn
PBEMESIS <http://www.geocities.com/~pbemesis>
******************************************************
This is a quest, a guest for fun. I’m gonna have fun,
and you’re gonna have fun. We’re all gonna have so
much f***ing fun we’re gonna be whistling
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****************************** Clark "Sparky" Griswald
GREG SCHLOESSER
> I saw a posting a short while ago that gave a mini review of the new Knizia
> title, Money. Actually, it was a "mini" mini review (it simply gave the game
> four out of ten points)
>
> I was really looking forward to enjoying this game. It sounded intriguing and
> the cards looked really great. Can anyone offer a little more info on this
> game? In other words, was it a 4 compared to RK's other games? Or a 4 compared
> to all games in general. The former would be acceptable to me. The latter,
> probably not.
Here is a copy of the MONEY report I did from my series of articles from Gulf
Games.
MONEY
This one is a major disappointment from Reiner Knizia. Frankly, I
expect more from him. Although the cards are very nice (hard card
stock with authentic currency artwork), the game mechanics are
extremely bland. Dull. Uninspiring. Well, at least to me.
Players are trying to collect the most valuable set of currency. Each
currency represented comes in the following denominations: three
20's, three 30's, one 40, one 50 and one 60. There are also a few $10
Kugerans thrown in. The catch is that a player must accumulate $200
worth of a currency in order to receive its full value. Otherwise,
$100 is subtracted from the score. Thus, $180 would only score $80.
There is also a $100 bonus for managing to collect all 3 of one
denomination ($20 or $30).
The basic mechanism is a simple exchange of cards. Two sets of four
cards are set out, and each player places a bid of currencies from
their hand on the table. The player who placed the highest bid (ties
are broken by the lowest serial number on the cards .. .YUCK!) can
either exchange his bid cards for one of the two sets of four cards,
OR any one of the other players bids. That's it. Yep, that's it.
Nothing more than that.
The game is played until the deck of currency cards is depleted, and
the player who accumulated the highest value of currencies wins.
Yawn.
I played twice and it left me just as bored each time. Nothing of
value here. Move on.
Mark 450, Eric 440, Ty 370, Greg 330, Lenny 250
Ratings: Mark 7, Eric 7, Ty 7, Greg 4, Lenny 2
** You can obviously tell from the ratings that several gamers enjoyed it. I
found it uninspired and dull.
--
Greg J. Schloesser
The Westbank Gamers: http://home.earthlink.net/~gschloesser/
Bruno Faidutti
latest Knizia design.
The basic system of cvard exchange is simple and clever, and could have
made a wonderful game. Unfortunately, the point scoring system is so
complex that a normal player cannot handle it, and the games become
therefore totally unpredicatble. Mr Knizia seels to forget that most
players have no mathematics PhD and cannot calculate complex probabilities
in a few seconds.
Once more, it's a pity, because the basic system is strong and clever. I'm
sure it can become a good game with changing the scoring system.
--
Bruno Faidutti
124 rue de Belleville
75020 PARIS
faid...@imaginet.fr
http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/~faidutti/
David desJardins
> Mr Knizia seels to forget that most players have no mathematics PhD
> and cannot calculate complex probabilities in a few seconds.
I'm not sure he "forgets" that. I think, to the contrary, he's counting
on it. It seems a central design element in many of his games:
specifically building the game around the fact that people can't
compute in a timely fashion much that in principle is publicly known.
David desJardins
Mark Johnson
David desJardins <da...@desjardins.org> wrote:
>
> I think, to the contrary, [Knizia's] counting on it.
> It seems a central design element in many of his games:
> specifically building the game around the fact that people can't
> compute in a timely fashion much that in principle is publicly known.
I think you're right, David. And as much as I enjoy most of Knizia's games, it
means they can break down when there is a real disparity of computational or
card-counting skill among the players.
-MJ
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Bruno Faidutti
> >
> > I think, to the contrary, [Knizia's] counting on it.
> > It seems a central design element in many of his games:
> > specifically building the game around the fact that people can't
> > compute in a timely fashion much that in principle is publicly known.
Of course, you're right. I just wanted to tell that he's gone too far with
money, because the computation are so complex that it destroys all
strategy and makes the game chaotic... The best Knizia game ought to be
backgammon, or various stud poker games.
Well, in fact I love Mole Hill (which is not a typical Knizia) and Euphrat
and Tigris (which is). But I find most other Knizia designs rather boring
and untasteful.
David desJardins
> Of course, you're right. I just wanted to tell that he's gone too far
> with money, because the computation are so complex that it destroys
> all strategy and makes the game chaotic... The best Knizia game ought
> to be backgammon, or various stud poker games.
Can you explain more clearly what you mean by this last comment? Some
backgammon players do a *lot* of complex calculations in tournament play
(e.g., using match equity tables to compute gammon prices and doubling
windows). Take a look at _How to Play Tournament Backgammon_, by Kit
Woolsey!
David desJardins
Bruno Faidutti
desJardins <da...@desjardins.org> wrote (écrivait) :
I meant exactly this. Backgammon and stud poker are games which are based
mainly on chance calculations, like Knizia games.
David desJardins
>>> The best Knizia game ought
>>> to be backgammon, or various stud poker games.
>
> mainly on chance calculations, like Knizia games.
I thought your criticism of Knizia's games was that they (or some of
them) involve too much calculation. Now you say that his games are best
when they are similar to backgammon or stud poker---games which, when
played seriously, involve lots of calculation. These statements seem
contradictory to me. It's entirely possible that I don't grasp your
meaning.
David desJardins
Bruno Faidutti
desJardins <da...@desjardins.org> wrote (écrivait) :
> Bruno Faidutti <faid...@imaginet.fr> writes:
Let's make it clear. The fact is that Knizia's games involev lots of
calculation, and sometimes calculation involving very different elements.
I think that when these games keep simple mechanisms and calculation
simple enough to let you grasp what is the aim of the game, they can be
very good (ie Medici or Euphrat and Tigris). When there are too many
elements and/or the recknoning becomes too complex, and especailly when
the victory conditions are too esoteric, the games aren't tactical any
more and become totally chaotic and unpredictable to any normal player
without a pentium III in his brain. That's the case with Money, with
Circus Flohcati, and even with Samurai. These three games have good
mechanisms, but when you don't know what you're trying to do, you cannot
play any more.
tedd...@earthlink.net
filler of 15 minutes, it is a fine little game. Initial rating is a 6
or 7 for me. The bidding/trade swap idea is unique enough to make you
squirm over what you are willing to get rid of and how much you need
what is on the board. I am not sure of the repeated play value over
time.
It appears the optimal strategy is to collect a full set of currency of
which everyone is trying to do....so holding what your opponents need
vs. bidding enough to get what you need will prove either interesting or
just plain dull over time. This one is still on my want list at the
moment.
Kevin J. Maroney
>The bidding/trade swap idea is unique enough to make you
>squirm over what you are willing to get rid of and how much you need
>what is on the board. I am not sure of the repeated play value over
>time.
I played _Money_ last night, and while I enjoyed it, I didn't think
that it was innovative in the slightest. It's strongly reminiscent of
Sid Sackson's _Osmosis_ (from _A Gamut of Games_) and Robert Abbot's
_Auction_ (from _Abbott's New Card Games_), both of which involve
"buying" cards with other cards to assemble winning sets.
It was a pleasant enough game that I might play it again, but I am in
no rush to own my own copy.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | kmar...@crossover.com
Games are my entire waking life.
David desJardins
>>>>> The best Knizia game ought
>>>>> to be backgammon, or various stud poker games.
>
> the games aren't tactical any more and become totally chaotic and
> unpredictable to any normal player without a pentium III in his brain.
I'm still not clear whether you are saying that backgammon and stud
poker are too esoteric and difficult in their calculations, or if you
are saying that they are good examples of games that involve quite a bit
of computation but are not so difficult to play.
In one sense, backgammon and poker are not particularly "chaotic".
Backgammon at the most basic level is a race game (and its victory
conditions are certainly simple enough). If you don't know what to do,
keep moving your men along and hope you win the race. But it's also the
case that backgammon can produce a lot of complex situations where the
moves that superficially work toward that race goal are actually
counterproductive. Not to mention cube decisions, especially in match
play, which can be quite computationally intensive. So in terms of the
computational difficulty of making "good" moves, as opposed to just any
moves, it seems similar to (actually more complex than) Knizia games
like Money.
I definitely agree that obscure or convoluted victory conditions can
make a game chaotic, unpredictable, and unsatisfying. But the victory
conditions for Money are actually very simple: you have more points than
anyone else, and points are computed in a simple way. What seems
complex about Money (and I haven't played the game) is that it's hard to
tell in the middle of the game whether you have a good position or a bad
one. What is the value of having partly completed sets compared to the
value of having lots of high unmatched bills to bid with, and so on?
But it seems like that difficulty in assessing a "good position" is
typical to what makes many games good. Backgammon is a good example.
One of the few weaknesses of computer backgammon players for a long time
was not understanding certain positions, to the extent that they would
think they were winning comfortably when the opponent was actually doing
better. Back in the realm of "German games", other games which have
both an auction element and a separate play element, such as Elfenroads
and Lowenherz, seem to offer similar challenges to Money. How do you
balance the value of progress made on the main board against the value
of cash in hand with which to pursue future progress? It's difficult,
because the value of money changes over time and with the circumstances.
Assessing this is much of what those games are all about.
David desJardins