SpielByWeb

[hagin]

Sorry, posted this in the Comments and Feature Requests forum:

http://www.spielbyweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1857

but this is obviously Reef Encounter specific:

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I'd like to see a variant option for Reef Encounter to basically remove an end condition that I think makes the game worse: the game immediately ends when you run out of larva cubes of a particular colour. I've won with this rule (eg eating 1 cube then runnign the game out of cubes deliberatley) and lost to it. Win or lose I think Reef Encounter is worse for it so I'd like to see a variant that would involve:

1. Remoe action 6: Exchange a consumed polyp tile for a larva cube of the same colour;

2. Modify actions 2 & 3 so you could use a consumed polyp of the same colour tile to play tiles ie you could use:

- 1 consumed polyp plus 0+ consumed polyps and 0-4 polyps behind the screen; or

- 1 larva cube plus 0+ consumed polyps and 0-4 polyps behind the screen.

Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to do and honestly I think it'd be a better game for it.

[gische]

Interesting. I've played a lot of games of Reef Encounter, and never seen this happen. I didn't even realize it was an end-condition rule.

I don't really see any reason to change the game, as it plays fine the way it is designed. And I'll bring out the oft-repeated saw on SBW, that we'd rather the developers work on new games than make small unnecessary tweaks to the existing games. Bug fixes are important, this request just doesn't seem to be, imho.

[hagin]

http://www.spielbyweb.com/game.php?games_id=35357
http://www.spielbyweb.com/game.php?games_id=35356
http://www.spielbyweb.com/game.php?games_id=33646
http://www.spielbyweb.com/game.php?games_id=35091
http://www.spielbyweb.com/game.php?games_id=34748

Thats 5 of my last 12 games that have been ended by this end condition. In all but one of those, it was me ending it. I point this out to illustrate several things:

- This isn't sour grapes (a suggestion made on BGG when I commented negatively on this rule);

- It's not particularly rare. The only thing making it rare is that people don't seem to play to it. I guarantee you that if/when they do, it's going to make the RE gaming experience worse;

- In the first game on that list on the start of my last turn there was 7 of the 10 pink larva cubes in the supply. Explain to me how you can defend against that? (another argument on BGG and elsewhere is that you can defend against this and see it coming);

- It's also been suggested that this is hard to do. It isn't.

- What makes this particularly open to abuse is that, unlike the first two end conditions (locking last tile, eating last shrimp) noone else gets a chance to eat anything so you can eat a shrimp (actually winning this way doesn't even require eating a shrimp), arrange the corals how you want and then eating all the cubes.

[gische]

Okay, I begin to see your point.

I do think this is rare, though. Perhaps only because most people don't realize this can happen purposefully. Now that you have let the cat out of the bag, it's certainly possible that this occurs with greater frequency from now on and then more people will support your suggestion.

BTW, I think there is a simpler modification than the one you suggested that would take care of this situation. Restrict action #6 to only allow it to be performed once per color per turn.

[smlait]

[hagin]

How about an even simpler variant: you can't exchange a consumed polyp tile for a larva cube if you have one of those cubes already. That allows you to swap and play two if you need to without giving you an easy way to hoard them. Should be dead easy to code too.

[milksheikh]

As per hagin's other thread on this subject, I have implemented a rules change per Richard Breese's suggestion:

http://www.spielbyweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1925