Please read this very carefully and take your time to think about it before even reply-ing.

I have mentioned this before about one or two years ago and I'm returning to the subject

As I was playing with a group of inexperienced players they seemed to notice that the victory point count isn't right and is unbalanced.

Problem:
1. There's not enough competition, if in the end all players own only three 100+ cards and three 200+ cards, and for the rest all players own the same series of cheap cards, because their quantity in VP's just wins. There's just too little variation in this. Players purchasing higher cards aren't credited enough in VP's
2. Shorter games will end up in average equally scores.
4. If it pays to sacrifice a AST space for 5 cheap cards, it makes no sense, and takes away fun.
3. If only at the final round a city is worth as much as a card, a city is worth too much.

Currently
000-100 cards are worth 1 VP
100-200 cards are worth 2 VP
200-300 cards are worth 3VP

AST spaces are worth 5 VP's and Cities are worth 1 VP

Advances:
For the Advances, it strangely is more attractive to purchase all cheap ones in the end rather than purchasing the mid or higher ones. I think we should encourage player to purchase the mid and high-range cards during the mid and endgame. Not only does it make the game more attractive, it also creates a better division between the better players and the low-medium players.

AST:
Sometimes it more attractive to be held back a space, especially when you know the game doesn't finish, and purchase all cheap cards, rather than get the bonus of one expensive card and 5VPS on the AST. This should be fixed.

Cities:
It means a lot if a player has 7-9 cities all the time, so that player might actually get to win the game, and for the last round, all players start attacking his cities, and giving him all secondary calamity effects for the last turn and this player ends up with 2-4 cities. (I've seen this happen a lot of times). he would eventually recover, but since it's the last round there is no way, and it takes away 5 points, which is equally to 5 cheap cards or one AST-space. If attacking his cities means he cannot move on at the AST, it means 10 VP's lost which is way too many in my opinion if you regard that the ending scores differ 15 points from #1 to # last.
(stretching somewhere between 90 and 110, depending on the game)







I agree with these players that this system is unbalanced.

My solution:
Like mentioned, it should be more attractive all the time to purchase the higher cards. You might choose for the cheap ones first to build up credits, but in the mid and late game you should SCORE by using these credits to purchase the higher cards.

Compared to the city count, currently ONE city equals ONE advance, but ONE final superstition or Iconoclasm, equals ONE high advance. Regard that you currently only have three 200+ cards, this is an unbalanced system which we have gotten used to.

One step on the AST equals 5 cheap cards. Currently, if you manage to purchase cheap 6 cards in a turn without passing on the AST it gives you 6 points, otherwise it'll give you 5+3= 8, but you receive a whole less credits.

As mentioned, it brings in a lot more fun, if players are actually looking at attributes of the cards, and are bonussed if they purchase a high card, rather than looking for how many cheap cards to be bought in the late-game.
Also it will decrease game time because player will sooner meet the requirements, and players are less computing their most optimal purchases in a set of cheap cards, when spending 200-300 points in the late game.

I first thought of removing VP's for the cities, but it will result in players not caring about calamities during the final round, so we should leave it in. Nevertheless it shouldn't count this much as it currently does.



I suggest to do the following:

1.BE CLEAR
In the first place, the amount of VP's should be printed ON the cards, so it leaves no doubt.

2. ADVANCES VP'S
Change the advances VP count to either

000-100 cards are worth 1 VP
100-200 cards are worth 3 VP
200-300 cards are worth 5 VP

or otherwise:

000-100 cards are worth 1 VP
100-200 cards are worth 3 VP
200-300 cards are worth 4 VP

Now one high advance equal (almost) one step on the AST, and it makes players choose for this card and AST movement giving 10 points, rather than 5-6 cheap cards. Also it encourages players to purchase a 100-200 rather than two cheap ones during the mid game.

3. AST BONUS

Give a bonus for the higher steps on the AST.
I'm thinking to give the final space 10VP's and the previous one 7 points. It will encourage players to reach this space, and will credit the player actually making it.
A player who is advancing ALL the time, will now be the definite winner, and won;t be run over by players two spaces behind having all the cheap cards but no real high developments.

4. CITY COUNT
Then, for the city count. If you increase the advances VP's and AST VP's this way, a city is worth less, and this way that problem is solved as well.


If we change the VP count like this it'll certainly bring a lot more fun, and decrease game time as side effect.


Additional:
And only additionally, but not intentionally, we could add 10 points of credits for only the higher advances. If purchasing 'Provincial Empire' gives 20 civic credits instead of 10, all 200+ cards are interesting this way, rather than buying the cheap ones during the late game. In the end you'd get the early advances for free, or nearly free, which is realistic if you developed the higher advances. It wouldn't unbalance things, only moving focus from the cheap cards to the higher cards.

But first I'd like to play test the previous mentions.




Now, take your time to think about this, and give me your opinions.

Very interesting. I would prefer the 1-3-5 rule for the advances VP rather than 1-3-4 or 1-2-3. I think this is more VP/cost balanced, since having many credits the costs are relatively more like 0.5/1.5/2.5 than 1/2/3. Actually I think even 1-3-6 is an option. Yes, then a card can be more valuable than an A.S.T. square (unless we apply the 7-10 for the final spaces too), but in Advanced Civilization the >200 cards are worth at least two A.S.T. squares.

In the case the "leading" player gets his cities attacked and being hold back to 2-4 cities, when the final A.S.T. square (which he is about to reach) is 10 points worth losing that 5 cities still costs 15 VP (but yes, he already keeps his 7 VP advantage by reaching the pre-last square.) I believe the damage is much more since with having much fewer cards this player too is refrained from purchasing some cards.

I like your idea for more credits from the higher cards. Independent from this I have another idea encouraging >200 cards: Double the specific credits for all cards. So <100>200 card. I was aiming to wait with this statement until I have tested a strategy taking many expensice cards, but since now there is speaken of this problem anyway I speak about this.
And maybe I am overadjusting again, but I also think of having the midrange cards give 15 credits to the color. This should result in the following credits scheme:
Monocoloured <100 cards: 10 color, 5 other-color, 20 specific.
Duocoloured <100>200 cards: 20 color, 10 or 5+5 other-color.
Duocoloured >200 cards: 15(!) to both colors. (Should be 10 in Flo's proposal.)

Edit: Which bug causes to remove the following part of my credits scheme between the "0" and the ">" when posting?

Wonderful idea. I had been thinking about it, but really hadn't played enough to feel comfortable suggesting it.

1-3-5 sounds good, and spaces them evenly, 1-3-4 and 1-3-6 seem a little strange, but playtesting would give a better idea as to how it would change the popularity of cards.

The final squares should be more valuable. It makes "finishing" the AST more meaningful, and being "just behind" the leader worth more, too.

Since the high cards (>200) don't have specific credits, the +10 reward for purchasing them is reasonable. I think doubling is a little extreme, so I'd wait until a +10 playtest were finished first.

Also, I'm sorry Johannes, but I don't quite understand your chart in the last post.

I understand. So I try to explain it in words:
Monocoloured cards gives 5 + 5p credit tokens to its color, where p is the number of VP's the card currently gives. They give 5 credit tokens to another color unless it is a >200 card. Then it gives either 10 credits to a color, or 5 credits to two different colors.
Duocoloured cards just gives 5p credit tokens to both its colors.
Specific credits are just the double value of the specific credits currently (except for the credits which is part of the advance itself, like for Library.)

And 1-3-6 maybe looks strange, but it is not. These numbers are just the first three triangular numbers, and in many other games the triangular numbers are used. 1-3-4 looks strange for me too.