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The Classic Misadventures in Gaming #18
By Dan Bosley
August 27, 2006 (Originally Posted on August 23, 2003)
Editor’s Note: For those of you just tuning in, check out the first part of this story in The Classic Misadventures in Gaming #17.
The four of us sit down at Ted and Alice’s dining room table. As the Metro board and the pieces get placed onto the table, Alice says, “Oh yes, I do remember this game. It was fun last time. Did you win last time, though, Dan? I don’t remember.�
“I don’t remember, either. Ted says I did,� I tell her.
“Oh yessiree, you did,� confirms Ted. “I do recall that, yes indeedy, I most certainly do, do, do, yes indeedy.�
“Why are you talking like that, Ted?� asks Alice.
“Talking like what?� inquires Ted.
“Like an idiot,� comments Alice.
“I love you, too,� says Ted to Alice. Good thing they’re married. To each other.
I quickly go over the rules again, which takes only a minute or two at the most. That’s one thing about Metro, it’s VERY easy to explain how to play.
Diane is at my left, Alice is at my right, and Ted is sitting opposite me. Diane starts the game. She picks up a tile, looks at it for a moment, and then places it on the board, joining up with one of her trains.
I do the same. My track is heading straight out from one of my trains. No curves.
Alice places her tile.
Ted snickers and places his tile immediately beside the one that Alice just placed. Which conveniently starts and finishes one of my trains. It leaves the station, travels next door to Alice’s tile, and arrives home. I score 2 points, and am now down one train.
“Thanks, Ted.�
“You’re welcome,� Ted responds.
Diane places her tile. I place mine. Alice then also places her tile. Ted snickers again, and places his tile, once again starting and finishing another of my trains. I score another 2 points. Now I have 2 out of 8 trains finished, and it is only the completion of the 2nd round of turns.
“Thanks again, Ted,� I tell him.
“Hey, no problem. Glad to help!� Ted smiles.
O.K., I think to myself. Well, now. Do I start finishing Ted’s trains wherever I can, just because he’s doing it to me? You hit me, so I hit you, and then you hit me again, and then I hit you again, and then you hit me a little harder, so I give you a really good whack and on and on and on? What good will that do? Ted has already stated that he isn’t interested in winning the game himself - he’s just interested in ME not winning the game. He won’t care one little bit if I start finishing his trains for him. He’s not trying to win the game according to the game’s victory conditions. Ted is trying to win his own little game within the game.
Now granted, in some 2-player games, there are different victory conditions for the two players. They have different goals. In a classic game like Fox and Geese, each player has a different number of pieces and different winning conditions - one player is trying to achieve one specific goal, while the other is trying to prevent the first player from achieving that. So with 2-player games, what Ted is trying to do makes sense. If I’m playing Ted in a 2-player game, he wins if I lose. And I win if he loses.
But this isn’t a 2-player game.
This happens to be a FOUR-player game, not a two-player game. There are two other players involved! And they, unlike Ted, are both trying to win the game. Diane, Alice and I are each striving for the same victory condition - to get more points than any other player. You get those points by having the overall longest track segments for your 8 trains. The longer your routes, and the more track segments your trains have to travel along, the higher your score will be.
But good old Ted is the wild card. He is simply playing his tiles to hamper me. He’s not concerned with helping himself, only with hindering me. But, as much as I don’t like it, he IS playing within the rules. He is not making illegal moves. The game allows him to do what he’s doing. If a player wants to spend all his time in the game specifically going after another player, and not bother trying to win himself, there is nothing in the rules that prevents him from doing that.
I, of course, don’t like the fact that Ted is picking on me one little bit. But I’m a reasonable guy, I tell myself. And Ted, usually, is pretty reasonable too. I figure, O.K., Ted will have his little fun with my first couple of trains, and then he’ll settle down and start concentrating on extending his own tracks instead of just going after me.
And in turn 3, Ted DOESN’T finish one of my trains. Good, I think. Now we can get into the game properly. I can start concentrating on increasing the length of my tracks.
In turn 4, Ted finishes another one of my trains. I now have a grand total of 6 points. Three of my eight trains have now arrived in their ending stations, each having taken the shortest route possible - giving me 2 points for each train.
“There you go,� says Ted.
“Thanks, Ted,� I say.
“Look at you, now,� says Ted. “You said earlier that I shouldn’t concern myself with previous games. Fine. I’m not, anymore. But look at this game, will you? Look at THIS game! YOU are winning! YOU are the leader! We have to stop YOU from winning.�
“I’m not the leader,� I protest.
“Yes, you are,� says Ted. “You have six points. Everybody else still only has zero. You are six points ahead of everybody. So you are the leader.�
“But I only have five trains left, and everybody else still has all eight.�
“You have six points, everybody else has zero. You are the leader.�
“Well, maybe technically on the scoreboard I’m the leader, but that’s ignoring the scoring potential everyone else still has on the board,� I make my case.
“How do you win this game? How do you determine the winner of Metro?� Ted inquires.
“Whoever has the highest score at the end of the game is the winner.�
“And who has the highest score in the game right now?� Ted poses the question.
“Me,� I say. “Courtesy of you.�
“So, right now, that means you are winning more than the rest of us,� Ted argues. “And since you have the highest score, we have to keep you from getting any more.� And Ted sits back in his chair and crosses his arms and gives me a friendly smile.
“But you can’t just look at the score in isolation at this stage of the game! Especially since we really only just started. You have to examine the overall game situation to attempt to determine who the real leader is. The situation is fluid and changes as the game goes on,� I state.
“Methinks thou dost protest too much,� sayeth Ted.
We carry on.
In Turn 5, Ted finishes my 4th train. AGAIN, I score 2 points. But at least it isn’t 8 to nothing to nothing to nothing anymore. Both Diane and Alice have also scored. Diane has scored 6 points with one train, and Alice has 2 points. Ted still has zero.
We manage to play a couple more rounds or so without Ted finishing any of my four remaining trains. Finally, I think. He’s given up, after scoring half of my trains for me. Maybe he’s starting to become more involved in working on his own tracks, and he’ll leave me alone the rest of the game.
Maybe not.
Ted finishes my 5th train for me, giving me 6 more points, the same amount I had scored with all my first four trains all together. I now have 14 points.
“Whoa,� Ted says, “that one was getting just way too long. Far too dangerous. Far too dangerous. Good thing I stopped you,� Ted comments.
Ted has scored all 5 of my trains for me so far. I have yet to finish any of my own trains.
“Thanks, Ted,� says Diane.
Ted looks at Diane. Diane is looking rather cheery.
“Thanks for what?� asks Ted. “For stopping Dan?�
“Well, that too, I guess. But really for helping me.� And Diane points at the track that Ted had just placed. The track that he placed to stop me because my track was getting far too dangerous. Her finger traces the route.
Diane’s track is not yet finished, so it’s not ready to score yet. Before Ted placed that particular tile, Diane’s track in question was sitting at a worth of 6 points. However, thanks to Ted’s placement, he has created a very meandering track for Diane. Her track length has doubled. That track is now sitting at 12 points. And of course, when she finally does finish that track and score it, it will be worth even more than that, with whatever extra tiles get placed.
So not only has Ted stopped my track at 6 points, in doing so, he has ADDED 6 points to Diane’s track!
Ted studies the board. “Hmmmm,� he says. “I guess I didn’t see that. I guess that was kind of dumb, helping you like that,� he tells Diane.
“You can do that anytime, Ted. I didn’t mind that at all,� Diane says.
Ted actually looks a little embarrassed. His sole focus on minimizing my score has blinded him to what Diane and Alice were doing with their tracks.
And now Ted DOES leave me alone. I have 3 trains left, and Ted doesn’t bother me anymore. I work on trying to maximize whatever score I can get now. I know that either Diane or Alice will win. I’m pretty sure that I can’t score enough with just my 3 remaining trains to take the victory.
I do score quite big with one train, connecting it to one of the central train terminals on the board, which doubles the score for that track.
Although I make a valiant comeback, it’s just not enough. I just lost too many points at the beginning of the game, and simply can’t catch up. With one tile remaining to be placed, the scores are: Diane - 56, Alice - 53, Me - 47, and Ted - 31.
Diane, Alice, and I have each scored all 8 of our trains. Only Ted has one train left. The only question left to decide is what will Ted’s final score be.
Looking at the board, it is pretty apparent that almost any tile that Ted puts in the sole remaining vacant space left on the board will score him 10 points or less for his one remaining train. Which means he would score 41 or less points for the game. Which means he would finish last. Which means it would be some sort of semi-sweet quasi-victory for me, since that would mean I would finish ahead of him even though he hammered me for the first 5/8ths of the game. Good, I think. That will teach him!
But.
But there is ONE possible track connection - IF the very last tile has the right orientation of track segments - that will create a huge snake of a track connecting Ted’s track to one of the central stations and doubling that track’s score.
In Metro, placing the last tile is a no-brainer. You simply put it down so that the small arrow on the tile matches the direction of the arrow on the space on the board. There is nothing to think about. Just put it down.
Ted places the tile.
And my eyes almost pop out of my head. “I don’t believe it.� I say.
“What?� asks Ted.
“You just won,� I tell him.
“Get out of here,� Ted retorts.
“No, you did,� I tell him.
“How?� Ted asks.
My finger traces the sinuous twisting and turning path from his start station to the finishing station in the middle of the board.
“That’s 14 track segments,� I tell him. “And because you ended up at a station in the middle, that doubles your score. You just scored 28 points. That gives you 59 points total. You win.�
“Hey, that’s pretty good, isn’t it?� Ted exclaims. “How about that? I won. See, it pays to go after you. I guess I’ll always have to do that. I guess that’s the way to victory,� Ted proclaims. “Remember that, ladies. To win at Metro, just go after all Dan’s trains. Boy, think how much I would have won by if I hadn’t let up on you earlier! Boy, I would have walked away with the game in that case.� Ted is quite proud of himself.
Ted stands up and stretches. “So, tell me again, what were the final scores?�
“Just look at the scoretrack, Ted,� Diane tells him. “You got 59, I got 56, Alice got 53, and Dan got 47.�
“Well, I guess we know who the new king of Metro is,� says Ted.
“I don’t know if king is the right word,� I mutter.
“What?� Ted inquires.
“Nothing,� I say.
“Let’s play another game of it,� suggests Diane.
“Sounds good,� I say. “I guess we’ll all have to go after Ted now, since he’s the king of Metro.�
“What?� Ted exclaims. “No, no, we have to go after you.�
“But you just won this game, Ted. That means, at least according to what you said before we started the first game, that we should go after the guy who always wins. And tonight, so far, that’s you. So I guess the 3 of us will go after you in this next game.�
“I don’t feel like playing anymore. This game is too easy. Let’s play something else,� Ted suggests. “I’ll go get Yahtzee.�
And he’s gone.
“Maybe we can go after Ted in Yahtzee,� suggests Alice.
“How? Take away his dice?� I ask.
“I don’t know,� responds Alice. “Can you do that in Yahtzee?�
“No,� I tell her.
“Then why did you suggest it?� Alice asks.
Ted returns with Yahtzee. “O.K.,� he says. “Let’s play this instead.�
“I liked Metro,� Alice tells Ted.
“Me, too,� says Diane.
“Me three,� I say.
“Let’s play Metro again,� says Alice. “We can play Yahtzee afterwards.�
Diane and I nod in agreement.
Ted looks at us.
“All right, have it your way. Prepare to be skunked. I guess I’m going to have to finish the trains for all three of you,� Ted announces.
And so we play Metro again.
To be continued.....
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Aug 27, 2006 at 11:50 PM in Special Features, Misadventures in Gaming / 1059
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