September 06, 2023

Balance, Pt. 1 (What We Talk About)

51 minutes

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games.

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Episode 137 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Balance, Part One

There are no rules on the Interdecisional Spaceship. We break from tradition and declare that "What We Talk About" episodes can be two parters. Today, we deliver the first part of our topical episode on balance in board games. We attempt to define balances versus fairness; we discuss assymetric balance and strategic balance; and we ask for whom thy balance tolls for. It's a robust and, at times, unhinged conversation that we hope you join us for!

Pre-Planners

Santa Monica, Torres, Food Chain Magnate, and social deduction games et. al are coming up in the relatively near future!

Timestamps (Spoilers)

Intro - 0:00

Defining Balance and Fairness - 4:23

Asymetric Balance and Player Order - 14:30

Who Is This Game Balanced For? - 21:09

Strategic Balance - 22:04

Azul - 22:33

Guards of Atlantis II - 27:32

Keyflower - 31:45

The Unstoppable Board Position (Come Back Mechanism) - 32:40

Bruges - 35:12

Variable Set Up and Variance - 39:11

Catan - 39:41

Innovation and Imhotep - 42:56

How Often Should the Better Player Win - 45:32

Next Week on Decision Space! - 49:12

Patreon Plug (Join the Crew!) - 49:57

Music and Sound Credits

Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s

You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.

Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA

Rules Overview Music:

Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060 Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way... Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI

Contact

We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at [email protected].

This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com.

Byeee!

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By Jacob Frydman, Brendan Hansen

4.8

132132 ratings