by mdp4828
StormKnight wrote:
Marshal, you've posted some interesting analysis here. I'm not sure it's all correct though. In this example, for instance, you assign 8 points to the active player and 8 points to another player. But it seems very unlikely to me that the same player will take both of those spots you skipped. So in practice, wouldn't you be more likely gaining 8 points while giving 4 points (on average) to two different opponents? That sounds like a good trade!
Yes, of course to simplify things I wasn't worried about the number of players. My general point is that a game with two features:
1) unequal number of turns
2) relatively uniform expected points per turn
both of which Tokaido posses, will favor the player who gets the most turns. Correct strategy, therefore, is to get the most turns. In Tokaido this strategy is accomplished by not skipping spots -- generally.
Of course one can construct scenarios where it's best to skip a spot. But if we're talking long term playability of the game, where things revert to their average, then I think Tokaido suffers in the number of meaningful/interesting decisions per game department.