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| Hi, I want to thank for this detailed preview, because by now I haven't any information on the game (I don't read newsgroups). Bye, Alex |
| by Alex @27.09.2003, 09:33 |
| Hallo Robert, ich kenne Zugzwang natürlich, allerdings spiele ich 18xx nur per f2f - obwohl ich auch andere Postspiele im KSK spiele.  18xx spiele ich regelmäßig in unserer Münchner Runde - mit z.B. Adam, Martin, Andreas, Helmut, Thomas, usw. Daher kenne ich natürlich auch den Zugzwang bzw. dessen Herausgeber. Ansonsten habe ich in der Runde auch vorher ca. dreimal 1844 in Zwischenversionen gespielt - jedesmal hat es mir recht gut gefallen  |
| by Günther @25.09.2003, 19:36 |
| Hallo Walter, >> wir WPG sind Typen, die Spaß am Spielen haben und einen Teil unserer Freude daran via Internet an die große Spielergemeinde geben wollen.<< Schön! Das möchte ich auch. >> Wir wollen Eindrücke und Informationen vermitteln, von den Spielen und von unserem Spielen. Für Leser, die ähnliche Ambitionen haben wie wir.<< Eben deswegen sind Meinungen zu Spielen um so wertvoller, je besser sie begründet sind. Ansonsten... >> Nicht für Ungläubige<< ... kann man als "gläubiger" Spieler gleich jedes Spiel kaufen, da man zu praktisch jedem Spiel auch eine positive Meinung im Internet findet. >> und nicht für Indifferente.<< Indifferent? Ist das Anbieten gut durchdachter Begründungen Indifferent? Wohl kaum. Ist Kritik indifferent? Wohl kaum. >> Unsere Seite enthält keine akribisch zusammengetragenen Doktorarbeiten. Die Informationen darin sind durchaus subjektiv. Jeder Autor schreibt individuell, aber jeder schreibt im Geiste des gesamten Spielkreises. Wenn Du absolute Offenbarungen suchst, dann mußt Du Dich an die Theologen wenden. Wir sind nur Spieler. Mit Leib und Seele.<< Gegen nicht akribische, subjektive, individuelle Beiträge auf einer Webseite für begeisterte Spieler ist nichts zu sagen. Nur hatte ich diesen Eindruck nicht gewonnen, als ich den recht detaillierten 1844-Beitrag mit dem Anspruch, für fortgeschrittene 18xx-Spieler zu sein, las. Ich meine jedenfalls, und das könnt ihr natürlich anders sehen, dass dem 18xx-Genre am besten gedient ist, wenn man nicht nur subjektiv, sondern auch objektiv, nicht nur unbegründet, sondern auch gut begründet Informationen anbietet. Wir alle wollen doch neue 18xx-Spieler begeistern, richtig? Ich finde, dass das leichter geht, wenn man die besonderen Vorteile von 18xx herausarbeitet, indem man eben über ein neues 18xx-Spiel nicht nur berichtet, wie man das über jedes andere neue Spiel tun könnte, sondern darüber hinaus aufzeigt, welche spielerische Tiefe in 18xx-Spielen steckt. *** Mal etwas Anderes: Da ihr 18xx-Spieler seid - kennt ihr die 18xx-Postspielzeitschrift Zugzwang? |
| by robert jasiek @24.09.2003, 20:21 |
| Hallo Robert, wir WPG sind Typen, die Spaß am Spielen haben und einen Teil unserer Freude daran via Internet an die große Spielergemeinde geben wollen. Wir wollen Eindrücke und Informationen vermitteln, von den Spielen und von unserem Spielen. Für Leser, die ähnliche Ambitionen haben wie wir. Nicht für Ungläubige und nicht für Indifferente. Unsere Seite enthält keine akribisch zusammengetragenen Doktorarbeiten. Die Informationen darin sind durchaus subjektiv. Jeder Autor schreibt individuell, aber jeder schreibt im Geiste des gesamten Spielkreises. Wenn Du absolute Offenbarungen suchst, dann mußt Du Dich an die Theologen wenden. Wir sind nur Spieler. Mit Leib und Seele. |
| by Walter Sorger @23.09.2003, 21:59 |
| Hello Aaron, > maybe its because you missed one little letter in my article: the letter P - as in Preview. That is an explanation. I see. I have really thought that it was meant to be a commentary, especially since it contains opinion that should be expressed only after being sure and not already after playing once. E.g., one should not judge about balance after just one game. Also a reader of a review does not know whether something that is called Preview is a) a commentary published before the official publication date or b) preliminary notes prior to having played the game seriously. > What I have written is a first impression of the game after having played it just once. Maybe it would have been clearer to me as a reader of your article if that would have been stated very clearly and if it would restrict itself to statements that do not require repetitive play. > Please keep in mind that until now nobody else has made the effort to write anything about 1844 Do you read the mailing list 18xx? There I wrote preliminary notes around a year ago! > - not even the trivial aspects you are finding in my article. It was especially about the trivial aspects:) > And please keep in mind that the general tone of the preview is very positive. A judgement, whether positive or negative, on some game that one cannot judge seriously about yet I criticise strongly. Such "judgements" spread a low average quality of judgements since they might be correct or wrong. A judgement ought to be always correct! (Correct within a commentator's declared preferences, of course.) If somebody wants to write an opinion article, then of course he can do so but it should be declared as such. Everybody is entitled to have an opinion but it should not be possible to be confused with a commentary from the view of the reader. > Its nice that you raise your voice in favour of 1844 Does it matter? The reader wants to build his own opinion. For that it is immaterial whether a preview / review / commentary / opinion article is or is not in favour of the game. When the expressed opinion is justified carefully, then every reader has a good chance to build his own opinion fairly. > but I am not amused about your bashing on me. My criticism is not meant personally but factually. I consider it in the interest of the readers of the website if they get fair and clear information. If the website is for non-critical comments only, then sorry for my wrong expectation. *** If you do not know where IMO your comments are badly justified, here is another example: You call the mechanism for handling the priority deal (PD) a big improvement over 1830 since it eliminated many manipulation possibilities. Needless to say, I agree since the new PD rule is derived from Crisis' (or Ur's?) concepts of turns, so it is natural that I like 1844's concept. However, your given attempt of a justification is not a reason for two reasons: 1) It depends on each player's personal preferences whether he likes it that the 1830 PD creates (many?) manipulations possibilities. 2) The 1844 turn order rules introduce many (and many more than in 1830) new manipulation possibilities. Good reasons for replacing the 1830 PD by a flexible turn order of Crisis style, Ur style, 1844 style, or something similar are as follows: 1) With the 1830 PD a player is not guaranteed the PD even if he is the only player that opts for it strategically. 2) Arbitrarily the initial 1830-like seating order gives and fixes advantages or disadvantages due to the players' playing styles during the entire game. 3) The 1830 PD pretends that a stock round's turns two, three, etc. would be worth nothing while they can be worth a lot (e.g., if there are only two or three new available companies for opening). 4) The 1830 PD pretends that the PD is worth the same in all stock rounds while in fact it is worth much more in some stock rounds. The player with also the luck to get the PD in an important stock round has an undeserved advantage in a game that is supposed to be essentially without luck. 5) The 1830 PD pretends that the PD would be worth not very much while playing with an 1844 style turn order has shown that the PD can be worth as much as keeping ca. $500 rest money. So even if your article is just a preview, it could have offered good reasons for your opinions. Criticising that they are (almost) missing is not bashing but meant as an encouragement to offer good reasons in future articles! Best wishes, -- robert jasiek |
| by Robert Jasiek @23.09.2003, 09:43 |
| Robert, maybe its because you missed one little letter in my article: the letter P - as in Preview. What I have written is a first impression of the game after having played it just once. Just that. I hope you agree when I say that what you find missing in my article is something which can only be written by someone having played the game a lot of times. Hence, that's why I have called it preview - it's NOT a full blown review at all. Please keep in mind that until now nobody else has made the effort to write anything about 1844 - not even the trivial aspects you are finding in my article. And please keep in mind that the general tone of the preview is very positive. Its nice that you raise your voice in favour of 1844 but I am not amused about your bashing on me. Aaron |
| by Aaron @22.09.2003, 20:53 |
| Aaron's commentary does not do 1844 justice and a similar review would not do any game justice. Of course, a game consists of playing material, might be set with a historical map (Switzerland), and might or might not fit its historical theme to some extent. A game can have new concepts. Considering that many games are copies of other games and do not even have new concepts, it tells us some minimal quality if a game has new concepts at all. OTOH, a concept need not be taken over from another game just because that uses the same or a similar concept. Instead some concepts are so natural that different designers invent them independently. While listing a game's concepts may give a hint for its feeling during play, that says nothing about strategy or tactics yet. Aaron's commentary concentrates on describing trivial aspects like visual surface or rules concepts of the game. Do I buy a book because it has a colourful cover and a lengthy structure of contents? I do not. I buy it because of the quality of its contents. Likewise, I do not play a game because of its playing material or rules concepts but I play it if the concepts work well together so that strategy and tactics are demanding. Therefore every game commentary ought to concentrate on how interesting strategic and tactical planning becomes in playing practice. Aaron's commentary does not give more than a few short remarks on these central topics. Even worse, most of his remarks there have no or wrong reasoning to support his opinion. E.g., there is not a linear dependency between the number of companies in a game and its strategic complexity. So how do we do justice to 1844? Like every 18xx, 1844 consists of two designs parts that interact: income generation and stock trading. Is there an emphasis on either? Income is generated by network contruction and trains. It is not particularly hard to finance trains because companies mostly do not really suffer from too little money and it is rather easy to construct track because the companies have the same home towns in each game and most of the mountains do not move from game to game. So it is not particularly tough to generate income for a company. - Quite a lot of the companies have a big director certificate and few other certificates. Therefore coinvesting does not often involve too great risks. Instead the players try to concentrate on managing their own companies well by shifting assets among them suitably and on getting good shares when the opponents are made to believe that they would be rather doubtful. So trading with shares is neither particularly demanding nor particularly trivial. - Summarizing, 1844 lets both basic parts of the game be roughly equally interesting. Players preferring pure construction a la 1853, 1829, or 1825 won't like 1844, as little as players requiring very tough trading as in Crisis or the frequently depleted companies of Crisis, 1841, or 1830. On the contrary, one can conclude that 1844 is a game that favours all kinds of players with at least some tolerance towards both construction and trading. I.e. 1844 is a good candidate to be liked by many 18xx players. Actually, the conclusions so far also do not do sufficient justice to 1844. No 18xx game should be praised or criticized after analysing just one design aspect. What about balance? Do the game's concepts work well together (they do) and is it possible to use very different strategies and playing styles in a serious attempt to win? 1844 allows strategies with high, with low, or with mixed stock prices, with or without late trains, with, without, or with mixed high early revenues, with calm or with ruthless intentions, etc. If in one game players choose pretty opposing strategies, then the game has still turned out to be exciting until the end. - What about strategic topics on a high level? They are not found easily even by experienced players. Of course, there is high level strategy, however, none appears so prominently that it would become a game topic on a purely strategic level, like one can see, e.g., in Go with its topics of warfare. This can be seen as a weak point of 1844. - If we leave it here, then one can call 1844 a game with a reasonably good basic design of playing mechanics but without any advanced art of strategic game design. If you do not demand exceptionally brilliant design, then 1844 should provide you with sufficient potential for a few hundreds of enjoyable games. (The author has been one of the testers of 1844.) |
| by Robert Jasiek @22.09.2003, 17:16 |
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