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Topics - Mike A.

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Tips, polls, updates / Most Wins
« on: 09/09/23, 06:49pm »
It would be nice to have a list of most wins by game for the site.

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Gold, Magic potion / Tips to get more gold
« on: 25/01/22, 08:10pm »
The obvious, easy way to get gold is to complete daily challenges. That's a smooth, painless method of getting a dozen+ a day.

Here's my tip to getting more that most of you probably aren't doing: When you win magic potion, use it to get two game win streaks in as many different games as possible. When the magic potion runs out, play the games with the two game win streaks. Every win will earn gold.

Another tip: Don't play games that you have active 3+ winning streaks when you have magic potion. You don't earn gold when you have magic potion, so don't play your streaks after they get to two games. If your magic potion is an hour or less, play and win games to get your food maxed out with the non-streak games. It's also a good time to play the solo games, training and tutorials because they normally cost food and you never gain food back by winning those, unlike the match games.

Happy playing, meeps!

Any other gold collecting tips?

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Happy Meeple community / Fun Screenshots
« on: 06/10/16, 03:53am »
Have something cool from a game? Post it here.

I have one--Nickel and Dimes. I have either 5 or 10 game winning streaks for all the games, but I can't figure out how to get the shot in here. It says the file in too big or something like that. When I get it to fit, it can't be seen. Any ideas?

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Happy Meeple community / Migrato Puzzle
« on: 24/09/16, 12:11pm »
I thought it might be fun to make a little puzzle for the community using Happy Meeple games. Hopefully someone will enjoy it. Maybe it will cause others to come up with puzzles, too. We might be able to learn a few things and have fun doing so. How well do you know Migrato? Let's see.

Bob was the first to get any birds to their destination in Migrato, and earned the minimum number of points for the Brent Geese. Adam's Teals arrived next, getting him three points on the scoreboard. Bob was the next player to successfully land birds, getting an odd number of points for his Black Kites. Adam got the lowest number of points possible when he landed his Black Kites. Bob received the minimum for his Black-Winged Stilts and several turns later scored three for his Teals. Adam got an even number of points for his Bee Eaters.

What was the outcome of the game?
A. Bob won.
B. Bob didn't win.

Please only post your answer with the letter so everyone can have fun. We'll open it up for the solution breakdown and comments in a couple weeks. Enjoy!

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Finito / Lucky duck
« on: 20/09/16, 07:28am »
If you like games of luck, this one's for you. A novice can play the best player in the world and have at least a 30% chance of winning. If you have someone who can't seem to win any game you play and or they get frustrated by that, play this. Also, if you only have three minutes, you can complete one game. Good luck. You'll need it. 

6
Here's an idea for a new achievement--
Current winning streaks for all games.

My suggestion probably isn't what you're thinking. It's not looking at a winning streak of all games and adding them up. For example, you win 2 Finito in a row, and then win 3 List Cities, making it 5. That would be kind of fun, but that's not what I'm suggesting.

There's a page that shows all your game ratings and current win streaks. If you get all current win streaks to 1, you get an award. If you get them to 2 you get an award. I would say you could give them up to 5 game winning streaks at least.

I think this would be great because it gives players incentives to play ALL the games.

Since it's a pretty difficult thing to accomplish, along with a badge a gold reward of 100 for each number might be appropriate. To be clear, I'm suggesting a gold reward of 100 for 1, an additional 200 for 2, an additional 300 for 3, and so on. These would be one time awards.

As a tangent, I think it would be very cool if there was a site achievement board that showed everyone's achievements over the last 24 hours. Meeples earned, new player bests for win streaks, the highest current win streaks for each game that have been earned in the last 24 hours (in other words, if someone has the highest streak but hasn't played it over the last 24 hours, it wouldn't count), and career achievements like the one I suggested.


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Siberia the card game / Siberia is one cool game
« on: 31/08/16, 02:24pm »
This game pleasantly surprised me when I learned how to play it months ago. I had never heard of it, but now I'm wishing I had a copy of it. It's a sweet blend of luck, planning and calculation.  Most turns have at least some level of angst, which is what I'm always looking for in a game. I also don't think there's a prescribed strategy one should employ; each game requires the ability to roll with the current state of affairs. I don't feel that's the case with Keltis Card, for example; I pretty much have a standard opening sequence for it, which lowers my appreciation for an otherwise good game.

I do have one big complaint about Siberia Card, though--if you go first you might get the benefit of having an extra turn. This could easily be avoided in a manner similar to Level X. If player 1 turns over the last card, both players could get two turns (or just one) to finish the game. If I had a hard copy, that's how I'd play.  The extra turn is unfair and often nudges the first player to a cheapened victory. That aside, it's a fabulous game. If it didn't cost so much food to play here, maybe more people would play it. Oh good; enough time has elapsed for me to give it another go. See you on the ice!

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Lost Cities / IMO the best quick game by far
« on: 24/08/16, 02:17pm »
Lost Cities became one of my favorite easy and quick games the very first time I played it. The angst with every play is awesome. Do you sacrifice a trek/color and play mid to high cards immediately or do you hold out hoping to win with one monster series? You don't have any reasonable play, so do you discard a multiplier that may cost you the game? The tough choices always seem to pile on in LC, which is why this game never gets old. The actual game gets an 8 out of 10 for me. The version here loses a little because it's only one hand instead of three, but it still is far and away the best quickie on the site. My meeple is always happy playing LC.

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Level X / Dice Fest
« on: 23/08/16, 12:20pm »
I liked Level X for quite awhile. As the game says, there are lots of ways to combine four dice, right? Well, kind of. Often times there really aren't choices and some times there literally aren't any.

Fairly recently I became convinced the game's outcome was determined largely due to simply who rolls the most pips. I decided to test my theory out by counting every number rolled for 30 games against Verboten and Botanist, the two better bots. I won 17 of the 30, which is pretty typical. The bots averaged 2 more pips than me per game, so that again is pretty close. Sadly, the individual game results supported my theory.

For games where the bot out rolled me by at least 20, I went 0-4. When I out rolled the bots by 20 or more, I went 5-0.

Looking at closer games, I went 6-7 when out rolled by less than 20, while going 6-2 when I out rolled the bot by less than 20. The greatest rolling deficit I overcame was 14, and my worst loss came with me out rolling the bot by 8.

Mind you, these results don't consider anything other than simply counting the total number of pips for all dice rolled. The player who manages to roll the largest generally wins. That's not exciting or rewarding at all.

Let me be clear about one thing, though--skill plays a large part in the outcome of Level X. A better player will win more games against an inferior player. The problem is that with similarly skilled opponents, I believe luck plays the biggest role in determining who wins, not strategy or tactics. That being the case, I give it a V out of X rating.

I will say, though, that I think one aspect of the game is great--both players always get the same number of turns. As a result, going second is actually slightly better than first. I can't think of any way to improve that implementation, which is not the case for all of the games at HM.  Kudos.

10
I don't know what the official name of the page is, but it would be nice to have our current ranking for each game next to the column that has our ratings. It's nice because that Meeple page gives a snapshot of all the games. However, it would be even better if it displayed the rankings, too.

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Migrato / One Dickens of a game
« on: 19/06/16, 08:06am »
It was the best of games, it was the worst of games, it was the play of wisdom, it was the play of foolishness, it was the moment of belief, it was the moment of bluff, it was the birds of Light, it was the birds of Dark.

A couple things make this a contender as the best game on Happy Meeple--being able to steal the opponent's cards and playing some face down. Those elements make Migrato unique and exciting. The downside about the thievery is that if you don't get a similar number of chances to steal, you're in trouble. I don't mind that too much, though; a bit of luck adds to casual games like this, in my opinion.

My sole issue with an otherwise great game are the teals, the birds that range from one to five and only need two to be played to score. These nuisance birds can destroy a game. If someone is fortunate to land the five and four quickly before their opponent gets a card that allows them to steal the five teal, the unlucky one is very likely doomed. What other game can be decided in two moves? If I owned the game, I'm pretty sure I'd play by house rules making them 12234 or 12334 instead of 12345.

On the neutral side of things is that discards are placed face up. I still can't figure out if that's a good thing or not. I think it's probably good because it reduces luck and rewards skill a bit. At any rate it is another unique facet of the game. House Rules Idea #2--If you have this in the real world and have opponents who are vastly different in ability, you might want to try letting the underdog place their discards face down. That should even things a bit.

What are your thoughts about Migrato?

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