by allstar64
byronczimmer wrote:
joshaubry wrote:
byronczimmer wrote:
Don't write off Exploration as 'only 1-2 times per game'.
There are definitely reasons to do it more often than that, but in my experience with newer players (this is not an advanced strategy thread), they are more often digging for better cards or trying to get capital for a card when they have better options.
My point is to not create heuristics that don't exist when giving advice to new players.
EVERY phase needs to be examined, and indicating 'don't play Explore a lot' doesn't help the cause.
This X10.
Often times new players explore a lot not because they are looking for a card but because they haven't set up a good engine and need to explore to get more cards.
Telling a new player that "new players make the mistake of exploring too much" is horribly misleading and a very bad thing to tell a new player. I played a game once where someone said this to the only new player and from that point on he never explored again. Instead he called tons of produces despite the fact that he was receiving less goods, lower quality goods and fewer benefits than every other player there hurting himself far more than if he had gotten 2 cards for himself and given 1 card to every other player.
The reason it's bad to tell that to a new player is because it creates a false correlation that Exploring Less -> Better Player and thus they begin to stop exploring at all.
In reality the correlation is that Better Player -> Exploring Less by which I mean as you become a better player you can set up an engine which doesn't rely on exploring.
A new player needs to learn how to do this and while they are in that process Exploring will often be their best move whether they want to do it or not.