3 Eagles and 1 bear and winning by a hair. That's wild.

Very well played game by you. Goes to show that a great player making consecutively good choices can overcome a good, but luckier, opponent. Other than the losing blunder, I felt like it was death by a thousand paper cuts. I agree that Rescue is very swingy and the only real fix I can see that makes sense within the confines of the game would be to force the dig to be within reputation range, even then it’s only slightly narrowing the scope.

@NoWondersTV

4 ай бұрын

I liked another suggestion which was that you still had to meet the requirements to play the animal before you can dig it. Removes a few of the problem animals. It's a fun idea for a map, I just don't see how it can ever be as balanced as the other maps.

i thought i had that win locked in for sure, those scavenges were a gut punch to see

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Low Mountain Range coming back was the cherry on top. How unfortunate

How come you dug away the coati at 8:41? To prevent the opponent from getting america 5?

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Yep, the America tag and the rock icon (for my climbing park and their cable car)

Dang first opponent made a lot of mistakes and turns out their rating is around mine which makes a lot of sense 🙀

@NoWondersTV

4 ай бұрын

I have lost to enough 200 rated players to know to never underestimate anyone :)

I agree with the title completely. I've had 10+ games this season where both opponent and I agreed to abandom game due to this map. Regardless of the hand

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Not a bad idea! I’ll still play them out, just get angry when I lose!

With regards to supporting non-base conservation projects, I tend to have the mindset that if my opponent can easily support the same project, I'd rather not play it all. So like in the first game here, had I been your opponent, I probably wouldn't have played geological at all. What's your thoughts on contested projects like this?

@ricardorix73

5 ай бұрын

Very true, but depends upon whether there are multiple projects to support anyway.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, it depends what other projects you can do at the time. If Geological is the only project then go ahead. You’re still getting an advantage over your opponent. I wouldn’t avoid playing a project my opponent can leech off of (unless it’s better for them), I would just delay playing it as long as possible.

Can your next replay analysis be why HH should go before rescue station?

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Still don’t understand how your brain works at times

How would one errata this map to be more balanced? Maybe “dig and choose one icon”. Or if that is too weak, first dig choose up to 1 then up to 2 on second dig and 3 on third?

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

I like the 2nd idea, it feels too hard to keep track of in real life though. The issue is always going to be that it’s too easy to support projects in round 1. In same map matches that’s not necessarily a problem, against other maps I don’t know how you can balance that.

@ricardorix73

5 ай бұрын

Or, you have just have to fulfill the left-hand requirements of the card.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

I actually like that idea a lot@@ricardorix73

@bumblebuzzz

4 ай бұрын

What do you think of only being able to dig cards from your hand? You can still support projects on turn 1, but at least you have to snap the animal first before digging it. That's what we did in our playgroup, but we haven't played enough with rescue station to decide whether it's a good fix or not.

@NoWondersTV

4 ай бұрын

It removes a bit of the first player advantage. Still super annoying to face someone that starts with a Bison or whatever in their initial 8 cards.@@bumblebuzzz

Hello, I hope you will give Splendor Duel another try and share your thoughts with us. I never liked dumb Splendor 1, but Splendor Duel is a completely different story and perfectly balanced

@NoWondersTV

4 ай бұрын

I've learnt the rules and played a turn-based game of it already. Funny you mention that, I am not a huge fan of the original Splendor either. To me Splendor Duel felt very similar. I'll give it a few more tries before deciding if I like it or not

Just started playing a week ago first in person and now on BGA hopefully I'm good one day lol

@NoWondersTV

4 ай бұрын

Enjoy yourself first and foremost! It's such a fun game even after hundreds of plays

2 America, 1 Herbivore, all Flocking. It’s a complete joke. Ark Nova is my favorite game. Showed it to a good friend, he unfortunately played this map during his second game ever played. He concluded Ark is a dumb game of luck and he hasn’t played again since.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

That's unfortunate. It's a terrible map to introduce to new players because it plays so differently to every other map. It doesn't really feel like Ark Nova when you can get an Elephant's icons into your zoo in the 1st round when you'd normally play it in the 4th round on any other map. I hope they give Ark another go, without the expansion maps!

I think it's a little strange that you say your first game was unwinnable, and yet you won! Your opponent made some mistakes and you managed to win. That's exactly what your rating difference represents. Maybe the map needs to go, but I personally accept that there's randomness in this game, and sometimes you're going to get a good start. That said, I haven't played on this map much, so maybe it makes the luck factor too large. Either way, thanks for your videos!

@markanderson100

5 ай бұрын

It's amazing how someone could watch this video and yet make a comment like this..

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

It was a funny way or wording it. But basically I only won because I stumbled into that last round Sun Bear and the opponent made a huge mistake in their last turn. Without both of those things happening I lose. I’m also fine with some luck, there is always going to be luck when you’re drawing cards from a deck. I don’t like how this map amplifies the luck and makes first player advantage even stronger

I think Rescue Station should be banned from arena mode, but not entirely from BGA. It still a fun map to play even the the RNG factor is crazy. I had a really close game yesterday where I was behind on Rescue Station the whole game, lost CP reward uni and handshake and it was looking pretty bleak, but I played an elephant that gave me two good end games and ended up winning.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

I completely agree, people can have fun any way they please. Keep the beginner maps, keep Rescue Station. I am for sure only talking about arena mode

If you're both playing the same map, then I can't see the problem. It's only unbalanced against the rest of the maps.

@kaikulimu

5 ай бұрын

That’s not true. If there is one overpowered animal to dig (Bison in our replay), the player who goes first can simply dig it and gain a huge advantage. The second player wouldn’t have a chance to dig that overpowered animal.

@markanderson100

5 ай бұрын

Not exactly. It's also a problem when both playing the same map, because it amplifies the importance of turn order ever further.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Basically what those two said. First player has first crack at the display and there are many animals that give 2 or 3 icons for projects. Elephants, Crocodile, Cheetah, Bisons, Dugong, any bear, Mandrill

@ricardorix73

5 ай бұрын

It's very unlucky to get the exact animal that matches. 6 in how many cards? But you can also get a 2 icon animal in the 1-slot of any game. What's the odds of getting 3 animals that match 6 icons base conservation projects in your starting hand. There is luck in lots of different places. Top decking a bear and eagle. If this is particularly a rare case then fair enough. You can't judge your opponent just on rating. It feels like both players had their luck, and the winning margin was about right according to the play.

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

The main issue I have is that you can dig / "play" these animals from the first turn of the game. Like, on any other map a Bison is strong, but it requires the pre-reqs and money and an enclosure. Here it can snowball you into an early 2cp or even 5cp project when you fundamentally shouldn't be able to play these "late game" animals on turn 1. Realistically yes we're not talking about many games. You'll get Rescue Station 1/10th of the time, you'll be 2nd player 1/20th of the time, there will be a stupid animal to dig maybe 1/100th of the time. I can live with it, I'd just prefer not to@@ricardorix73

copium

@NoWondersTV

5 ай бұрын

Damn right