Totally agree with you there!!  Often it seems like these bonuses are pasted on to kinda “fix” some problem with the scoring.

The pasted on bonuses to FIX something are okay. Ticket to Ride has the most trips bonus, which makes the short East Coast routes somewhat viable.

I’m not sure what the longest route bonus in TTR does. Other games like Wikinger seem to use them just because there is an element in the game, and it has to have a bonus applied to it.

I must respectfully disagree with my learned colleague from Georgia.  Majority bonuses are just one more element in the game designer’s toolbox.  Like any other design technique, it’s good when used judiciously and bad when it isn’t, but I can’t think of too many instances of the latter.

Point 1:  Wikinger.  Why wouldn’t you want 3 more ways to score points?  It adds additional elements to the game that are perfectly in line with the main thrust of the design (getting the right kinds of tiles for your situation).  The game is simple enough that I find these added objectives welcome--at the very least, they’re non-objectionable.  There are a few games where there might be too many ways to score (El Principe, Wildlife, perhaps Caylus), but Wikinger isn’t one of them.

By the way, I’m pretty sure you meant to say Ys in your fifth paragraph, Frank, not Yspahan (which has no majority scoring at all).

I understand the concern about never being able to lock in a majority.  But what some would call chaotic, others would call dynamic.  I’ve been known to use both words, but I usually like the situation.  For example, in my last game of AoE, there was a very unsettled situation on the last turn due to one player’s large number of soldiers in the New World.  This led to a most interesting turn, full of “if I do this, he’ll do that“‘s.  It did take quite a while to complete, so a game full of that would have been a problem, but in this instance, it was quite fun.

As far as majorities games being cookie-cutter, my experience has been the exact opposite.  I think El Grande, San Marco, Capitol, and Ys have very different feels.  I think that’s because majority scoring is a basic, background objective (just as “first to finish, wins” is).  This leaves room for the more fundamental mechanics which distinguish these games (like the pie splitting rule in San Marco or the off-board building in Capitol).

To me, the best thing about majority scoring is that it’s interactive.  Instead of just saying you get X number of VPs per piece, it’s now a race, and the amount you have is irrelevant, as long as it’s more than anyone else.  This puts an automatic differentiator on the various elements which is usually quite healthy and guarantees the players will mix it up.  Those who prefer to play in their own sandboxes might not like it (and there are many games that work better with a sandbox approach), but I imagine most of us feel that the more interaction in a game, the better.

I agree that the majority bonuses in Wikinger seem a bit out of place, but I’m confused about your description of Yspahan. In fact, one of the reasons I like this game is that there are *no* area majority components or majority bonuses. Neighborhoods are filled or not. Caravan spaces score for placement, no majorities. And there are no end-game bonuses. Am I missing something?

On preview: What Larry said.

On Yspahan: when Sebastien showed me his prototype a couple of years ago, he admitted that an area majority game was what he originally had attached to his innovative dice mechanic.  Then, he thought about it some more and worked on developing something different so that it would not be placed in the “another area majority game” category.  I agree with Larry that I think it still can be done well, but I also agree with Frank and Sebastien that a designer can lazily attach it onto their one new mechanic to create a new game, without really trying something different. 

I believe it’s similar to what you, Larry, mentioned with the blind bidding mechanic--that can also be a “lazy design decision.” (Hmmm--perhaps a future “mechanic that needs to die,” Frank?)

Overall, I’m an optimist and believe that anything old can be new again, given the right inspiration (otherwise, a few of MY prototypes will also have to die).

You’re certainly correct that majority scoring can be a lazy design idea, Jeff.  I guess I’ve just found that to be the case less often than with blind-bidding.

It’s funny, because one of the reasons I responded to Frank’s article the way I did is that I’ve grown tired of the chorus of “not another area majority game!” when one comes out.  My feeling, as I mentioned above, is that these games can be very different from each other.  However, it’s hard to be too critical when I’m usually the one leading the chorus of “not another blind bidding game!” when one of THOSE is released!

In my defense, I think that majority scoring is part of the foundation of a game, while blind bidding is usually the central activity when it’s used.  Consequently, blind bidding games seem to be more affected by blind bidding than majority games are by majority scoring.  Now that may just be my bias talking, but that’s my story and I’m going to stick to it!

I think Frank briefly touched on one of the key aspects of majority scoring, the meta-game of who should be picked on at any given time.  That is far more out of control for players than worrying about the result of dice.

Some fun games have majority scoring: Wallenstein, El Grande, AoE3, etc… I enjoy all of them (although Wallenstein is pretty long, and I like El Grande mostly for the fun little tower thingy...)

I used to not mind blind bidding, but over the past couple years started to realize I enjoy them more the “less blind” the bidding is.  (ie. if I can semi-accurately predict what my opponents will bid, then I don’t mind blind bidding, when its too hard to predict - there are too many options - then I don’t enjoy it as much.)

I will say that area majority games by their nature are far more interaction-oriented as points are taken or left alone depending on the whims of your opponents.  Gamers who dislike disruptive (or even “take that") aspects of games will tend to dislike the area majority games because of that nature.

Phew - when I first read the title to this article, I was worried that Jim down at Custom Auto Shoppe was going to bite it.

:D

Oh come on, you all thought it.  Right?

pk

Patrick: We have a really nice set of Toyota mechanics. We’d rather keep them.

On Yspahan: I was thinking about Yspahan, but totally mis-remembered the bonus scoring. Substitute Ys.

El Grande and San Marco are great games.

San Marco in particular relies on the idea that you have to analyze the other players positions as you are allocating resources to the other players.

The thing is in San Marco, (as well as majority games) the possibility for analysis is terrifying. You have to look at each serious competitor for your regions and figure out what their likely move is.

The better majority games (San Marco) again put serious restrictions on what you can do. Age of Empires III probably inspired the article--its extremely open-ended take on majorities means that you can agonize over what to do forever, but the end result too often seems to come down to whether another player goes for a or b.

Thankfully, Matt, the metagaming “who shall I attack now?” issue is rarely a problem for my group.  Oh sure, there’s the expected whining from the attackee, but that’s easily ignored and we tend to trust our opponents to do the right thing and go after the leaders and not the trailing players (at least, when they have a choice).  It’s actually fairly predictable and therefore less chaotic than it might be for other groups.

I do agree with the distinction you made for blind bidding.  Like you, I find it much easier to take when the information I have allows me to predict with some accuracy what my opponents will bid.  Games like Aladdin’s Dragons and Ys are ones in which I’d say the blind bidding works (even Dragon Delta succeeds to a certain extent).  But games where it’s a flip of a coin for what someone will bid, or which rely on “tells” or psychological guesswork, do nothing for me.

As for Patrick, I’m just a little bit worried about you, boy!  :-)

Agreed about San Marco, Frank, it’s one of our favorites.  And most of us can get inside of an opponent’s head while splitting the cards reasonably quickly, so that we can manuever things so that we’ll get the items we really want (of course, this is MUCH easier when splitting for two in a four player game than when splitting for three).  There are few things as satisfying in gaming as when your chooser has to take a long time to decide between your choices--that’s when you know you’ve done it right!

On the other hand, I’ve played SM with players who can’t manage this without taking forever.  You either see it or you don’t and those who don’t probably shouldn’t play it; the choices are just too agonizing for them.

Even though I did like that heavy analysis last turn in my AoE game, I think in general I agree with your comment about open-ended changes in the majorities.  It WOULD be very easy to try to analyze forever and the final result could very easily come down to what appears to be an arbitrary decision by an opponent.  If that sort of thing happened regularly, it would definitely diminish the game in my eyes.

I think you’re confusing Yspahan with Mykerinos.  Which I hated for exactly that reason, it’s nothing but majority scoring in N different ways.

I don’t mind it too much in Vikings, though.  It’s not the main point of the game, just an extra thing to keep in mind, sort of like Longest Road/Largest Army in Settlers of Catan (but with friendly ties).  Maybe it could have had a mechanism where you get points per completed island, points per unused boatman, and points for each island size (e.g. if you have any N-tile islands, you get an f(N)-point bonus).  Seems like that might be a little too fiddly, though.