Episode 167 AP Table Talk: Tug of War
AP Table Talk: Tug of War
Episode Summary:
In this episode of AP Table Talk, Brian and Dave dig into the tug-of-war mechanic, where a shared marker moves back and forth along a track toward opposing ends, creating a zero-sum struggle in which one player's gain is the other's loss. From minimalist gems like Hanamikoji to heavyweight political thrillers like Twilight Struggle and Watergate, to modern two-player favorites like 7 Wonders Duel, King of Tokyo: Duel, Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game, Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes, and Zenith, they unpack how the mechanic delivers immediate clarity of game state, mounting tension, and built-in take-that dynamics. Along the way, they explore tug-of-war's thematic strength in conflict and rivalry, its struggles with multiplayer scalability, the risk of zero-sum fatigue, and why it works best as a clean base that needs additional mechanics layered on top to truly shine.
Brian Eng:
Hello and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. As always, I'm your host, Brian, and joining me for some back and forth discussion, my co-host, Dave Eng.
Dave Eng:
I see what you did there, Bri. This is very thematic. The Tug-of-War.
Brian Eng:
Yes. The hints that are unnecessary because anyone listening can see the title of the episode.
Dave Eng:
That's right. Yeah. You probably got spoiled already because you saw the title. We are covering the Tug-of-War mechanic.
Brian Eng:
Tug-of-War mechanic, yes. As it applies to board games.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, exactly. I forget exactly what episode this is for us, Bri, but we've covered a lot of them.
Brian Eng:
16 around. I don't know, somewhere around there.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, this is 16, episode 16 for AP Table Talk. We've covered a lot of other board game mechanics before. Tug-of-War is no different. I enjoyed doing the research for this one, Bri, so I guess we'll see how we compared tonight, right?
Brian Eng:
Yeah. So the first thing I noticed when I started was that there weren't as many Tug-of-War games that I thought there were going to be. So then I thought I was going to have trouble kind of coming up with stuff, but then I realized I played a lot of the games even though there wasn't as many as some of the other mechanics we've looked at.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I remember-
Brian Eng:
We'll see how that goes.
Dave Eng:
When we were looking at that, a lot of the games on the list were like, we had already covered for other episodes-
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
... so we didn't replay them for this episode, but I have some notes about them and hopefully we'll get into it with this episode recording.
Brian Eng:
Okay. So we'll start off with our definitions.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. You want to do your personal definition for Tug-of-War?
Brian Eng:
All right. When I think of the Tug-of-War mechanic, I think of a game... So in my head, what qualifies as Tug-of-War has to be a game that has some sort of shared track or some shared value, and the players are pulling on that track towards one end or the other. And we might have some debate here on what qualifies exactly as Tug-of-War. So I was trying to come up with the points that qualify as Tug-of-War. And because if I'm thinking of just a track, that's really just, you could think of that almost as the race mechanic, but I think one of the things is that it needs to be a zero-sum, as in if there's something that's good for one player, it has to be bad for the other player.
I think that's a big part of what makes it Tug-of-War. And then I notice a lot of the Tug-of-War over games, the end of the track triggers something. Some games, it could be the end of the game, or there's something should be triggered by reaching the end of the track. So I mean, in actual Tug-of-War, you would win when you pull the flag of the rope over far enough. So those are my points that qualify it to be a Tug-of-War mechanic.
Dave Eng:
Tug-of-War definition?
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
All right. You sitting down for this, Bri?
Brian Eng:
All right.
Dave Eng:
This is the official definition of the Tug-of-War mechanic off of Board Game Geek, BGG. So it is quote, "A marker is moved up and back on a track towards or away from a neutral position." End quote.
Brian Eng:
Okay. That's it.
Dave Eng:
That's it.
Brian Eng:
Just the marker has to be turned.
Dave Eng:
That's it.
Brian Eng:
I mean, so that does incorporate zero-sum.
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Brian Eng:
They don't care about the... And again, I don't think the end trigger necessarily is required for a Tug-of-War mechanic, but I do think it's used a lot reaching the end triggering something.
Dave Eng:
Oh yeah.
Brian Eng:
I guess it's similar.
Dave Eng:
I've got thoughts about that as we go onto this episode.
Brian Eng:
Sure. Okay. So I have just an example that we could use. So I tried to pick a semi-popular one. So I was thinking a good example is King of Tokyo Duel, which we were playing on... I think we've talked about it in previous episodes. We were playing that on BGA and that one has two tracks, two Tug-of-Wars going on. I forget what they're... One's like popularity or fame or something like that, and the other one's like destruction, or whatever. And so essentially you're balancing out these two tracks and they have two win conditions. Either you pull one track all the way to the end, or they have these zones that are halfway to each side. And if you can get both markers into those zones on your side, you win as well, which is very simple, but I enjoy that game a lot.
Dave Eng:
And do you remember, Bri, we played King of Tokyo Duel for another episode, but I'm blanking on the mechanic.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. I was trying to remember what it was that we played it for too, but I know we talked about it because I commented about how much I liked it, even though I didn't really like... I don't really like regular King of Tokyo that much. And I was like, "Oh, King of Tokyo Duel's great. How would it be with more players?"
Dave Eng:
And then I said, because I remember reading the transcript, "It's like Speed 2, but on a bus."
Brian Eng:
Yes. I don't remember which episode it was, but yeah, we definitely talked about it before. All right. So yeah, we played quite a few on BGA actually. Some of them, after thinking about the definition, I'm not sure actually qualifies as Tug-of-War, but they were marked as Tug-of-War.
Dave Eng:
Right. Yeah. There's a bunch in there, but do you want to, Bri, go into ... Should we go into Major Examples?
Brian Eng:
Sure. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
All right. So if you're new to AP Table Talk and you're just joining us for the first time for this episode, what Brian and I like to do is our first section is major examples and we're going to cover our first Tug-of-War game, our favorite Tug-of-War game, and our most noteworthy/biggest, but we also have our D-12s and we're going to roll them at the same time. Whoever rolls-
Brian Eng:
D-20. D-20.
Dave Eng:
D-20. Sorry. I have the wrong die. I have the wrong die. Now that I have the correct die, we're going to rolling D-20s.
Brian Eng:
I will be winning if you're rolling a D-12, or at least on average.
Dave Eng:
Three, two, one, roll. Oh, I have a two.
Brian Eng:
I got 11.
Dave Eng:
All right. So Bri, you're going to lead off with Major Examples.
Brian Eng:
Okay. We're going to start with the first game you played. Okay. This is another episode where most of the games that I'm going to say in these Major Examples could fit almost into all of the categories. Whereas I really like all of them. Most of them are pretty noteworthy and I played a lot of them a long time ago. So it was hard for me to figure out which one I played first, but I believe the first Tug-of-War game, or at least the one I can remember as Tug-of-War game I played, is not the oldest one, but the one that I played first is Hanamikoji, which came out in 2013. And I just think it's a very simple game, but I think that's what I liked about it a lot. It's almost like a masterclass in minimalist design.
So that one is you're competing to win the favor of... The theme is like Geishas. So you're competing to win the favor of these seven Geishas, and you're fighting over the same set of items that each correspond to each of the Geishas. So it's almost like there's seven colors laid out and each of them have a certain number of cards and the number of cards that they have, so for example, there's three twos, the Geishas correspond to these numbers. There's three twos, two threes, a four and a five, and that also tells you how many of each card there are. So you shuffle the cards, you deal them out with each other, and you're playing them through these tokens where you're either keeping some for yourself or giving some cards to the other person. And then as you play them, they go into the corresponding color Geisha.
And basically, once all the cards are played, whoever has more cards on their side pulls a token onto your side and you're trying to get the favor of the most Geishas. So that's where the Tug-of-War comes in. And I don't know, it was just, I'm probably doing it no justice in my description here, but I do remember, I think we played it at PAX first, one of the PAX's, or at least I played it at PAX first. And I just really liked it.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I think I played on PAX's.
Brian Eng:
I tried looking for it, but I couldn't find it. I eventually got it by kick-starting their newer game, Geisha Road, which is kind of an evolution of Hanamikoji. But yeah, that was the first one that I could remember playing that was a Tug-of-War game.
Dave Eng:
So Hanamikoji, you said it was 2014?
Brian Eng:
It came out in 2013.
Dave Eng:
2013. Oh, wow. I didn't know it was that old. All right, onto me for first?
Brian Eng:
Yep.
Dave Eng:
All right. So for me, I had a lot of trouble because I was like, I've played games with the Tug-of-War mechanic, but I have no idea what was the very first game.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, yeah. I had the same issue.
Dave Eng:
I had to come up with like, okay, one; I really see this as like a critical element as part of the game, and I went up to go to us playing this, not on BGA Bri, but on the GMT website, I guess, Twilight Struggle. Remember when we first started-
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay.
Dave Eng:
... playing Twilight Struggle? So if you're listening, you haven't played Twilight Struggle before, Brian and I have discussed it on podcasts before, but the general overview is that it's a two player game, the theme is Cold War, USA versus Russia, 1945 to 1989 or 1990, whenever the Cold War ended.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
And I can't say that this is the first game where I heard of Tug-of-War, but it's the first game where I saw the Tug-of-War that was very thematic in the DEFCON track. Remember the DEFCON Bri?
Brian Eng:
Yes. Yes.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
And because it's a two-player game and it fits into a lot of what you talked about before, Brian, that there's a lot of zero-sum stuff. So there's a lot of... Remember there's proxy wars. We're both trying to influence different countries around the world. There's victory points operate on scoring different regions of the world. I think it was different continental scoring cards, like Europe scoring card, Africa scoring card, Asia scoring card. And I think that overall, like you're saying before, I think that it was very thematic with Twilight Struggle, to the point where we're just making constant Rocky 4 references as we play the game. And I remember if you're Russia, you're just Drago. And then if you're USA, you're Rocky and then you just have to keep yelling, "I must break you." I know I was yelling it at the computer the entire time. So I don't know if that is the first Tug-of-War game, but it's the most memorable for me.
Brian Eng:
Right. And so the DEFCON track is the obvious Tug-of-War, but also, if you think about the actual world map itself, is a series of tracks that are also Tug-of-War. Because each of them, you're pulling through those numbers, pulling the influence on each of the regions or whatever, right?
Dave Eng:
And that reminds me of another Tug-of-War game, but I don't want to bring it up because I feel like you-
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
... might talk about it in one of the choices.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. We'll keep it on the back burner and then we'll go through our major examples and then we can... Because I'll probably have some extra ones to talk about as well.
Dave Eng:
Okay, cool.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Okay. So those were our first games that we played. We'll move on to our favorite game?
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Brian Eng:
Okay. I actually put two in here and the reason is one of them is fairly new and I know I'm a little bit cult to the new, but to call it my favorite, I kind of want to give it some more time and plays. The original one I had on here is another one I know we both like, which is Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes.
And that is, what's the name of the... Paolo Mori, right? And I think I like a lot of his games, but that one, yeah, so that is another war game, but this is obviously World War II. And it basically takes World War II and distills the entire theater of war into several Tug-of-War tracks. I don't remember how many. And then you're drawing tiles out of a bag and placing them to move the markers in your favor across all the different fronts, right, like Africa or the Pacific or wherever. And it felt, even though it's just a bunch of Tug-of-War, it felt fast-paced, it felt like your moves were very high stakes to place the tiles and stuff. So that's one I really enjoyed. And a lot of these could go into favorite of my examples, but that's the one I chose to put in favorites. So I have my newer one. Do you want me to go to that one or do you want to do your favorite first?
Dave Eng:
So you're saying that Blitzkrieg! is your favorite one, but then you have a runner up?
Brian Eng:
I have a possible game that could dethrone it as my favorite Tug-of-War game.
Dave Eng:
Okay, go ahead with that one. I want to hear it.
Brian Eng:
Okay. So that's a newer one that's still trying to get a copy, which is Zenith.
So that is from last year, or sorry, 2025. That's another one, it almost seems like a lane battler. There are five Tug-of-Wars going on. I think the theme is there are five planets and you're vying for control over the five planets. Each of them is like a seven point, I think it's seven points, Tug-of-War, and you're playing cards and each of the cards moves each of the planets differently and gets you resources. And I don't know, I felt like it was very interesting that it had enough where you were constantly fighting to lead in everything. And if you did that, you spread yourself too thin. You had to pick your battles of where you wanted to fight. And some of the things I just kind of were thinking about is like, it almost feels like an evolution of Hanamikoji. It's got a little more meat to it, a little more strategy.
So Hanamikoji, the way that you pick your cards to play into the lanes is, I mean, we'll probably talk about it in a future episode, it's a I cut you choose type of thing, whereas this uses multi-use cards, which we both like. We've talked about that before. Where you can use the card either for the power on the card, you can use the card to go up, there's a tech tree that can make your cards more powerful. And then there's also just like when you're out of resources, you can use the cards to get more resources, that kind of thing. It adds engine building, which I like. And the tech tree also gives you some asymmetry in the players. So that's also interesting to me as well. So yeah, that one, I mean, I think I've got over 50 plays in it on BGA.
Dave Eng:
You've been playing Chris in Zenith?
Brian Eng:
No, I haven't introduced... I'm playing Arena actually.
Dave Eng:
Oh, I see.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, that one I've really been enjoying.
Dave Eng:
Nice.
Brian Eng:
And I kind of want to get a physical copy of that one.
Dave Eng:
So your number one is Blitzkrieg!, and your runner up is-
Brian Eng:
Dave Eng:
... Zenith?
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
Got it.
Brian Eng:
Zenith, Zenith.
Dave Eng:
Okay. Well, Bri, I'm really glad I didn't break the other game to you because-
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
... the runner up for Twilight Struggle for me was Blitzkrieg!, because it's just a bunch of Tug-of-Wars, but around-
Brian Eng:
Got you.
Dave Eng:
... the board and only 20 minutes.
Brian Eng:
I figured that would be on your list because I know you're also a big World War II fan.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. So should I go through my favorite?
Brian Eng:
Sure. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
All right. So this one, you mentioned cult of the new before. And I would say this is, it's not new anymore, but I would say it's kind of cult of the new-ish. And this is a game, Bri, I think both of us would really enjoy because we really like the IP. The game is Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game.
Brian Eng:
Have I played that one? No, I haven't.
Dave Eng:
We have not. We played a bunch of Star Wars games together.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I know. I don't think I've played that one. I think it's on my want to play still.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I mean, it's funny enough, I got a copy because it was cheap and then I gave that copy to my friend who's really into Star Wars and then it went on sale again and I bought another copy. So now it's my copy right now. But overall, I would say that it's great because it's completely Star Wars themed. It has really nice illustrations. It's the kind of game where it's illustrated Star Wars and not just screen caps. And it's all, at least my copy of the game is all like original trilogy Star Wars. The Tug-of-War mechanic, I mean, it is a deck building game. That's the core mechanic of the game, but the Tug-of-War in it is the force track. And like you said before, and we talked about it, it's kind of zero-sum, in that if you are two players, one player plays as the Empire, one player plays as the Rebels, and the force track indicates if the force is with you, the force track means that it's on your side of the board, like the marker.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
But if the force is not with you, it's because it's on the other side of the track, or it could just be neutral force. And depending on if the force is with you or not, your cards will do different things. So I think that is a very well thematic integration of Tug-of-War in the force track for the game.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
I would say that it is, compared to other deck builders that we've played together, it's not super innovative. It plays a lot like Star Realms, which I know we did play together.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Yes, yes.
Dave Eng:
But I do like, one, it's fun IP because we're both Star Wars fans. In fact, you got me into Star Wars when you were kids. And then two, I think that the one thing it does innovate, and I think that the Dice Tower did talk about this, is that I guess like Star Realms, you have a bass and each side is trying to attack the base-
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
... like your opponent's base, I think for the base game, you want to eliminate three or four of your opponent's bases in order to win. But when you eliminate a person's base, their next one doesn't come out right away, but they get to choose which one comes out and the basis of asymmetric powers. So one thing just to show you what the asymmetric powers is, is like if you're playing the empire, you can choose the Death Star as a base for your opponent to attack, but normally you have to use cards to attack your opponent. If you have the Death Star, you just need to spend money and you can just blow up other cards of your opponent.
Brian Eng:
Nice.
Dave Eng:
Like the laser from the Death Star. So not like innovative, but I know we would like playing it and we should play it next time we see each other.
Brian Eng:
For sure. Yes. Especially if you have a copy, definitely.
Dave Eng:
I just had so much fun playing it, even though I lost horribly because I got to the point where I had the Death Star and I just started shooting other capital ships by spending a ton of money.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Because I've seen that game around and I feel like the name of the game does it a disservice.
Dave Eng:
It just says what it is.
Brian Eng:
Especially when there's so many Star Wars games, right? It's just like, this is not standing out to me, but I see-
Dave Eng:
Or maybe that's their strategy.
Brian Eng:
Maybe.
Dave Eng:
Because there's so many other Star Wars games, this one it just has to say the IP and then the mechanic.
Brian Eng:
I feel like there's a few of them out like that now where it's like IP name, The Deckbuilding Game. Isn't there a Lord of the Rings: The Deck Builder Game too?
Dave Eng:
It's called-
Brian Eng:
Or something like that?
Dave Eng:
... The Lord of the Rings: The trick-taking game, or-
Brian Eng:
Or something.
Dave Eng:
... something like that? Yeah. The same idea. IP name, mechanics name.
Brian Eng:
Right, right.
Dave Eng:
Well, I mean, didn't they used to do that with original IP Games? It's like right now I think they have Halloween: The Board Game.
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay. I mean, I guess the board game is the same idea.
Dave Eng:
Or like the original-
Brian Eng:
Instead of saying board game
Dave Eng:
... Dune, right? The one from the '70s, it was just Dune: The Board Game, right?
Brian Eng:
I think it's just Dune.
Dave Eng:
Or just Dune.
Brian Eng:
I don't think the board game was in there.
Dave Eng:
Well, I mean, back then there was only like 12 board games a year released-
Brian Eng:
Yes. Yes.
Dave Eng:
So I was just like, oh, it's Dune’s, it's the board game.
Brian Eng:
And then there's the ones that really do it a disservice which I think this is kind of a tangent here, but Star Wars Risk. Nothing like Risk at all.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Isn't it just like the other?
Brian Eng:
Just like, well, Risk is popular with board gamers and Star Wars is popular. So we just call it Risk Star Wars and it has nothing to do with Risk.
Dave Eng:
I told the Banditos, I wanted to create a Banditos board game called Banditos Gaming the Board Game, the Card Game, because it's a card game about Banditos Gaming the board game.
Brian Eng:
Oh my gosh.
Dave Eng:
I haven't designed it yet, but hopefully in the future it'll happen.
Brian Eng:
All right, I think I saw one of your plugs for Banditos Gaming on Facebook for Banditos merch.
Dave Eng:
Oh yeah. We have t-shirts and mugs.
Brian Eng:
You have merch? Is this new?
Dave Eng:
This is new. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Because I don't think I've seen before. Yeah, yeah. You should plug your merch, your site for merch. Maybe people want to buy a Banditos gaming t-shirt.
Dave Eng:
I think they would, but like when this airs, the sales are going to be closed off by then.
Brian Eng:
Oh yeah, that's right.
Dave Eng:
Maybe in the future. Well, this is the first run. We're doing our first run. If it's successful, we might have more merch available, but banditosgaming.com.
Brian Eng:
There you go.
Dave Eng:
That is the plug.
Brian Eng:
Keep your eyes peeled.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
All right. Okay. So that was our favorite Tug-of-War games. So we will move on to most noteworthy/biggest game in our opinion. This is another one where I put two in anticipation that one of us would have talked about one of them already. I think you might be able to guess which one I'm talking about. You want to take a guess?
Dave Eng:
I'm going to take a guess based on the past episodes in that you have to bring up Dune Imperium somewhere every episode.
Brian Eng:
I did that. I don't think Dune Imperium has Tug-o-War in it. Twilight Struggle is the biggest because I know it held number one on BGG for a long time and it was like the definitive Tug-of-War game for a long time. And I was going back and forth, but I ended up putting it there because I did look back in our stats and we played Hanamikoji before we played Twilight Struggle.
Dave Eng:
Oh, we did? Wow.
Brian Eng:
Yes. It was like around the same time. So I think we played Hanamikoji at PAX and then we were getting more into board games and we found the app for Twilight Struggle and we started playing it or whatever. So yeah, I still think I would consider that the most noteworthy. And the second one I put in here... I mean, I figured we talked about that already. I don't really have anything else to add to that. Second one I put in here, not because I think it is the biggest, but it's almost an iterative design of it, although I would say it's a simpler version, is Watergate. So that's a newer game. That was 2019. Twilight Struggle was like 2005, so that's definitely an older game.
So Watergate, again, it's like a political theme, so based on like the whole Nixon scandal. And the two sides in that, you're either Nixon or the press, which I thought was funny. And you have a single track where there's a bunch of evidence that start in the middle of the track and then a momentum marker and an-
Dave Eng:
Initiative marker.
Brian Eng:
... initiative marker. There's again, another bunch of multi-use cards and you're playing them, you're taking turns, playing them, moving the markers to your side of the track. And then when the round ends, whatever's on your side, if it's evidence... The board looks like a kind of a spiderweb of points from Nixon in the center out to a bunch of witnesses around the outside. So when the press wins a piece of evidence, there's three different colors, they can place it on corresponding colors and you're trying to form a continuous link of evidence from Nixon to two different witnesses, I believe. And then if you're Nixon, when the evidence lands on yours, you get to flip it upside down and block spaces off in the web.
So one win condition is for the press to get those two witnesses. Another condition is when you get the momentum token on your side, you add it to another tracker. And I think the press gets powers after it gets a certain number of them. But essentially, if Nixon can get five momentum tokens, Nixon wins the game. And then initiative is just who starts the round and they get an extra card because they go first and they go last. And that one I thought... I mean, I guess it's not really like Twilight Struggle other than the Tug-o-War, but it was kind of like that political thriller feel thematically that made me compare it to Twilight Struggle.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I think that there's a lot of overlap I think between Watergate and Twilight Struggle. Twilight Struggle, I think will still be much heavier. But when I was playing Watergate, I was like, "Oh, this is kind of like a streamlined version of Twilight Struggle. I get a lot of the same feeling."
Brian Eng:
Right. Yeah. It felt like kind of a simpler, a little easier to hit the table or like pick up for a new player and that kind of thing, but gives you kind of that same feel. Okay. So yeah, that was my most noteworthy.
Dave Eng:
All right.
Brian Eng:
You want to finish off with yours?
Dave Eng:
Sure. So this one, I had to cheat a little bit because I listed Twilight Struggle first, I don't want to do that again. So my cheat here is that I didn't list a single one individual game as the most noteworthy or biggest, but I would have to say, but my biggest noteworthy or biggest game that had Tug-o-War are the games that have the quote unquote, "duel variant". When they take a game and then they make it for exclusively two players.
And I think that Tug-of-War is really good because it lends itself to that format. It's very zero-sum and it's been incorporated in a lot of duel games. So the one that we mentioned before is King of Tokyo Duel. There's also 7 Wonders Duel that has the Tug-of-War mechanic. You talked about Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes, which is a series of Tug-o-War. We played Jekyll vs. Hyde Online-
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I like that one.
Dave Eng:
... and that's trick-taking with a Tug-o-War in the middle. I was about to say, I should explain how the game works, but I just explained how the game works, which is it's a trick-taking game. You play a trick-taking game with a Tug-o-War in the middle. You talked about Zenith, which is, again, a series of several Tug-o-Wars across the board, but one game we haven't talked about yet is, and it's on Board Game Arena. Have you played Riftforce?
Brian Eng:
No. I remember when they got it, I remember seeing the banner, but I don't think I've played it.
Dave Eng:
It is another two-player game, and this one I would say is like a lane battler. You're trying to control different lanes. And I don't know if we'll talk about this later. I don't know if a lane battler counts as Tug-o-Wars.
Brian Eng:
Okay. So going back to when we were defining it, I think there's a lot of crossover. I think a lane battler can also be Tug-o-Wars, as long as those lanes are battled with zero-sum. So Zenith’s a lane battler that is also Tug-o-Wars. One of the games I was thinking about that I think we both liked as well, Air, Land & Sea.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Simple card game, another one where you have those three lanes, Air, Land and Sea, they're each a Tug-of-War, those lanes are for those theaters, I guess. So yeah, I think it can be, but I don't think it necessarily has to be.
Dave Eng:
Right. Well, how would you count the neutral space? Because I think that most of the Tug-of-War games we've talked about so far, there is a neutral starting space in the middle. And if something did go... Well, I don't know. Now that I think about it's like at the very beginning it's a neutral space, but in the future, it is still zero-sum because you're moving the token away from the-
Brian Eng:
Yeah, you're still pulling away from the other player, right?
Dave Eng:
Right, right.
Brian Eng:
And you did mention 7 Wonders Duel, which that's another game I enjoy a lot. So that one, the duel is... Or sorry, the Tug-of-War is specifically the conflict pawn on the military track. So when you gain military strength, you pull the pond towards... Or no, sorry, you push the pond towards the opponent because it's representing the army, I think, and if it reaches the end, you instantly win. So they have an end of the track mechanic there or event. So that's the Tug-of-War. I thought it was interesting because the iteration to that game, Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth, is not a Tug-of-War game because they replaced the military track with what they call it the Quest for the Ring. And that is instead it's two one-way races and it's a really neat little... I don't know if you've seen it. Have you played that yet?
Dave Eng:
You talked about this because you have 7 Wonders Duel and-
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
... you thought that this would replace it?
Brian Eng:
Oh no, no. I was thinking about getting 7 Wonders Duel, and then I was like, "Oh, I don't need two 7 Wonders games." And then when Lord of the Rings Duel came out, I'm like, "Sweet, I can get it. And it's a different theme."
Dave Eng:
Oh yes, you did talk about this, I remember. I'm thinking about Lord Do the Rings: The Fate of the Fellowship, which is a bigger board game.
Brian Eng:
Right. Yeah, that uses the pandemic system.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
So yeah, this one has two races. They set it up interesting, so it kind of hides the fact that it's two races, and that's one where I actually think it gives you a little... So Tug-of-War's good at creating tension in the game, I think, but specifically in Lord of the Rings Duel, I actually think it improves that because of the fact they're one-way races, so that as the game progresses, when a player moves along their quest to the ring track, they're always getting closer to ending the game instantly.
Whereas when playing 7 Wonders Duel, if either both players ignore the military track or you kind of even, and it's in middle near the third age, it's kind of a non-threat then because the chance of them pulling it all the way isn't really likely. Whereas I find in Lord of the Rings Duel, the players are going to be near that end of the track. One of them is going to be near the end in the last age. So it's always this threat that the game could just end because they're going to get the ring or catch Frodo. And I think it actually improves the tension in that game, but it's no longer Tug-of-War.
Dave Eng:
I got to play this now. We haven't played it yet.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, we should. I have it. So the next time we can put that on the list as well. I'll let you keep track of all the games we need to play.
Dave Eng:
Will do. It's already on the list.
Brian Eng:
But yeah, I'm glad I did pick up that one because I actually think all in all, it kind of replaces 7 Wonders Duel. Because 7 Wonders Duel also had a bunch of expansions and then when I buy a game, I have to buy all of it, so it ends of being-
Dave Eng:
The completion list.
Brian Eng:
Yes, yes. Whereas this is like... I think there has been an expansion for Lower the Rings Duel, but they're small micro expansions. So at least so far. But I guess if it's popular, I'm sure there'll be more expansions.
Dave Eng:
Right.
Brian Eng:
All right. So yeah, I think that wraps up our Major Examples. Unless you had anything you wanted to add?
Dave Eng:
No. We're going to Beyond the Basics now?
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
All right.
Brian Eng:
So we'll do our role for initiative again?
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Brian and I are rolling to determine who's going to start off this next section on Beyond the Basics, and I have rolled a 12.
Brian Eng:
I got a seven.
Dave Eng:
All right. So I'm going to lead off on this one.
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
So we are going to discuss three likes and three dislikes we have about the mechanic for this episode, which is Tug-of-War. And remind me, Brian, I'm going to do my first like, you'll do your first like, and trade off?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I think we just trade off. One to one.
Dave Eng:
So my first like, and I don't think this is going to come as any surprise to you, Bri, or any of the listeners, is that I really like Tug-of-War because I feel like it provides immediate clarity for the game state. Who's winning, by how much. There's nothing hidden. Once you look at the token on the track, you know like, "I'm winning by this amount, I'm losing by this amount," or anything else. So I just like how it's immediately clear when you look at it.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. I actually, I have that as well. I said it was very easy to understand and clear goal. Everyone kind of understands what a Tug-of-War is, and essentially it boils down to you pull more and you win.
Dave Eng:
Pull harder.
Brian Eng:
Yes. So yeah, I had that one, so I'll give another one.
Dave Eng:
Okay.
Brian Eng:
So I actually mentioned this already. The mechanic is very good at creating tension in the game. When you're close to the end, you just have that feeling of like eminent doom. So it gives you that panic if you're on the losing side or just that, "Oh, I just need to get that last point just to finish them off" kind of feeling. And when it is clearly visible, I'm going to use Zenith again because you have your five tracks and it's clearly visible where the token is on all five of the tracks, it creates a psychological pressure seeing it as well. So that's something I really like about Tug-of-War.
Dave Eng:
Nice. Could I lead with my second like now?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
Okay.
Brian Eng:
I mean, I guess I did two because I shared one with you.
Dave Eng:
Right, right. All right. So my second like is I think unlike a lot of other mechanics we've covered for AP Table Talk in the past, I think that Tug-of-War is actually really strong thematically. We've talked about it a lot with a lot of the different games. It's centered on conflict, politics like Watergate, war like Star Wars, Blitzkrieg!, Twilight Struggle. Rivalry, control, influence. I think that if any of those things are your theme for your game, like Tug-of-War just makes a really strong mechanic that will fit directly into that theme.
Brian Eng:
Right. Okay. So my last one actually here is, for me, it's that Tug-of-War has a built-in take that mechanic. Because by my definition, it's zero-sum, which means that me doing good means the other person is doing bad. And since I like take that mechanic so much, that is a positive for me.
Dave Eng:
So it is naturally, take that if it isn't Tug-of-War.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Naturally antagonistic, I guess. Adversarial is a probably a better word.
Dave Eng:
And that actually, your third like, Bri, fits in with my third like, which is, I think it's a great fit for two player games because like we talked about with duels, like Tug-of-War, since it's zero-sum, creates a really good duel structure.
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
So I feel like if you have a really strong theme and it fits into the zero-sum structure and it's a two-player game, Tug-of-way kind of sounds like a given.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, yeah.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I did my three, so if you've got any more?
Dave Eng:
Nope, those are my three likes.
Brian Eng:
Okay, perfect. So we'll move on to our dislikes then?
Dave Eng:
Should I lead off with three dislikes?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, sure.
Dave Eng:
Okay. So you brought this up, Bri, because it is a antagonistic game with zero-sum, I think you could get zero-sum fatigue because your game is always going to be someone else's loss and your loss is going to be someone else's gain.
Brian Eng:
That's why it's great.
Dave Eng:
And I think that can feel kind of exhausting. Well, that can feel kind of exhausting. I think that if you don't like two player games and you don't like take that, then this probably is not a good mechanic for you.
Brian Eng:
Trying to come up with dislikes, I had a much harder time because I think I do like Tug-of-War a lot. So some of these are kind of hypothetical dislikes. Relating to what you just said, I stated it a little differently. It can feel like there's a lack of progress in the game because you can have this complicated plan and you push a marker almost to the end and then your opponent has one good turn and bring it right back to natural and undoes everything you did, and it can feel like everything you just did doesn't matter.
We mostly talk about when we talk about dislikes, I think it can be mitigated in design. So one of the things with, I'm using Zenith, which is why I think it's becoming one of my favorite Tug-of-War games. When you play a card on your side in Zenith to pull a specific color and then it does whatever its power is, it also gives you a discount for every future card you play on that color. And I thought that was a really interesting mechanic. So even if I played three cards, moved the orange token almost to my side and the opponent plays one that just moves it right back to the middle, I still have a three coin discount to playing orange cards in the future. It's a good way of kind of mitigating that like demoralizing feeling of having your work kind of erased.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I like that aspect of Zenith too. I like Zenith’s overall design and I think the fact that like it's not a wasted move, right?
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
Because you're getting a future discount-
Brian Eng:
You're getting something-
Dave Eng:
... on one of those cards.
Brian Eng:
... out of it even though... There's definitely ways to get rid of that, but it's more than just like, "Oh, they just had a good play and it just erased everything." They have to sacrifice a lot more to erase your work in that game.
Dave Eng:
Right, right. So that was your first dislike part?
Brian Eng:
That was my first dislike. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
Okay. You want to go on with your second dislike?
Brian Eng:
Oh, sure. Okay. So my second one, it actually relates... So you're saying one of your likes is that it works really well with two player games. So again, thinking creatively from a design point of view, I think it's very difficult to make Tug-of-War work with more than two players. I was actually trying to think of games that had more than two-player Tug-of-War, and I'm not talking about like Zenith, they call it a four-player game because you can play in 2V2, but like having more than two teams, I'll call it then, right? Because I think it leads itself inherently to two sides of the Tug-of-War. So I did find a few games, but I've never played any of them. I think the biggest one on this was Brian Boru.
Dave Eng:
Yep, I played Brian Boru.
Brian Eng:
So you've played that. I have not played it, but apparently there are multiple tracks and winning a trick in that game pulls influence away from the other people. So I could see that in... In my mind, I think of, you know when you're doing character creators in video games and they have like weight, muscle and something else, and it's like a triangle?
Dave Eng:
Oh, and you have to-
Brian Eng:
And you can kind of move the dot somewhere in that triangle to make your character? I think of that almost as like a three-way Tug-of-War, right?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I could see that.
Brian Eng:
In conceptually, but I think the best alternative mechanic that I could think of to multiple player Tug-of-War is like an area control game. When you take a territory, you remove that territory from the other people, but it's not quite Tug-of-War, but I think that's the closest analogy I could think of.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I'd say so.
Brian Eng:
But again, not really a dislike of the mechanic, just like something that is a challenge from a design standpoint of being limited almost to two player.
Dave Eng:
And I'm glad you said that, Bri, because that was actually my second dislike.
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay.
Dave Eng:
You said that it has reduced multiplayer scalability. It works really great at two players, but more than two players, you're going to have to adapt to it, like you said, with area control, Brian Boru, although it's been years since I played Brian Boru, I don't completely remember how those different tracks work. But I remember it was area control paired with trick-taking, which was the first game I played with those two things mashed together, so I had not seen it before. But I did have one more dislike.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
And my other dislike was repetitive gameplay loop. So I feel like Tug-of-War games can get very samey if it's not layered with additional mechanics. And we've talked about this with other AP Table Talk episodes before where aside from some outliers, a lot of mechanics need to kind of be paired with something else in order to be interesting. And I would say that out of all the games we've discussed for this episode, the one that I felt was most samey, not saying it's bad, was Jekyll vs. Hyde.
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay.
Dave Eng:
Because it's a Tug-of-War track, it's trick-taking. And I think that if you've never played it before, it's trick-taking two players, but they do have these tokens that indicate they give you something special based on the suit of the card you played, and if it didn't have the token-
Brian Eng:
Oh, against the trump cards. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, against the trump cards. And if it didn't have that token that allow you to rearrange what is the most powerful suit, I feel like I would get tired of that game very quickly.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
But out of everything, I don't think we played any bad Tug-of-War games, but out of all of them, that is the one that felt the most samey to me after playing multiple games.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that because the game that I had as my first Tug-of-War game, Hanamikoji, Violet, thinks that that one is repetitive. She feels like she's playing the same game, because I do think that one becomes... It's such a quick game that it becomes like you're playing the opponent, it's the meta. So that one, there are four ways that you distribute the cards each time. And again, we talked about how it's like a, I cut, you choose. One of them is you pick three of your cards, you display them, the other person picks one, you get the other two. One of them is you group four cards in two groups of two, the other player picks one, you get one group, they get the other group. And it really comes down to what cards get kind of dealt out. And the way, again, from a design standpoint that they tried to mitigate that is in the version I got, they have, I think, six more sets of those tokens, so that the way that you distribute the cards can be different, can give you some variety.
I don't mind it so much in that game because the game is so quick that I'm okay with it being simple and whatnot. But I know she commented when we played that game that it felt like she was just doing the same thing each time.
Dave Eng:
Have you taught it to either of the girls yet?
Brian Eng:
Not yet.
Dave Eng:
Did they play that one?
Brian Eng:
I do think that's one they could play. Right now we've been playing... I got my older daughter, Maxine, into Mint Works, which is a game we've played quite many games in those early PAX, we played that online. And I'm trying to get her to understand the worker placement mechanic. So she likes that one. She actually beat me in one of our early games.
Dave Eng:
Oh, nice.
Brian Eng:
But I have not let it happen again.
Dave Eng:
Yet. It'll happen again.
Brian Eng:
Everybody likes Magical Athlete, which is-
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Brian Eng:
We've been playing nonstop and there's been meltdowns about who gets to be huge baby and-
Dave Eng:
Huge baby.
Brian Eng:
... stuff like that.
Dave Eng:
As long as I can still play as party animal.
Brian Eng:
Party animal, yes.
Dave Eng:
My go to character.
Brian Eng:
Yes. I kind of like mouth.
Dave Eng:
Mouth is the one where you can't get-
Brian Eng:
Mouth is the player elimination character.
Dave Eng:
If you land on the same space as mouth, or if he lands on the same space as you.
Brian Eng:
If mouth lands on the same space as a racer by themself, they're eliminated from the race. It's the least fun character.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
But the biggest threat. I don't actually think they're my favorite. They're my favorite from a concept standpoint. I do like Party Animal as well. Flip-flop is very take that.
Dave Eng:
What does Flip-Flop do?
Brian Eng:
Instead of rolling, I can just trade places with someone.
Dave Eng:
Oh yeah. That's the one where you're like, you don't want to get too far.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, exactly. Or Flip-flop is coming for you. But yeah, I think that game, it just works because of the sheer number of characters they put into it, which I don't think... I know we talked about it in a previous episode.
Dave Eng:
I talked about it with asymmetric powers, I think.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
It's the game I wanted to talk more about, but I didn't get-
Brian Eng:
I'm sure we'll-
Dave Eng:
... the opportunity to do so.
Brian Eng:
... get it in another... Oh, I guess it is very much a race game. Yeah. It must have been ...
Dave Eng:
It's a race game.
Brian Eng:
But I didn't realize that Richard Garfield was the designer that did the character powers.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. And I think that he was the catalyst to bring it back because I think it was published before.
Brian Eng:
I'm sure, yeah. Right, right. And so to those who don't know, Richard Garfield is the creator of Magic: The Gathering.
Dave Eng:
And King of Tokyo.
Brian Eng:
And many other deck builders... Or not deck builders, CCG or TCGs or CCGs or whatever.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Many other games as well.
Dave Eng:
He's got a lot of design across.
Brian Eng:
I think generally people think of Magic: The Gathering when they hear his name.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
So I didn't realize that he was a designer in that game, but yeah, it's a good fun game and I thought I would get tired of it faster, but the races move so quick that it's just kind of a fun... I mean, it's almost an activity more than a game almost.
Dave Eng:
Well, there's a game, we haven't covered it yet, but it's a rolling move, but with asymmetric powers, that's also a race game.
Brian Eng:
Yes. Yes.
Dave Eng:
Right?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, yeah. True.
Dave Eng:
All those base mechanics just combined together for fun.
Brian Eng:
All right. So that was a bit of a... I think I actually done my dislikes.
Dave Eng:
Okay. Should we go into Bonus Round now?
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Really the only thing, again, when I was thinking about defining Tug-of-War, I was just kind of thinking about how it's very close to other mechanics. Again, it's very close to race mechanic. It's very close to lane battlers. One that I almost had on the list and that I realized it was not a Tug-of-War, even though it's very similar to Hanamikoji or Air, Land & Sea, was Schotten Totten or Battle Line, I guess.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, that's a Battle Line.
Brian Eng:
I don't know which one came first, Battle Line or Schotten Totten. I like Schotten Totten.
Dave Eng:
I think Battle Line came first.
Brian Eng:
But that one, again, it feels like it's a Tug-of-War, but it's actually more of a race because there's no zero-sum in that one. You're just taking points.
Dave Eng:
And there's the deductive aspect to try to determine what cards are out.
Brian Eng:
Which I think it shares with Air, Land & Sea. But I do think that's almost a whole subgenre of lane battlers, these where you have the cards for each one because a newer one that, again, is not Tug-of-War that I really enjoyed and I had to go search out with COMPILE.
Dave Eng:
Oh yeah. We played that at PAX over lunch.
Brian Eng:
That one's fantastic game, but definitely more complex. And I think the only real downside to that one is if one player knows the decks and against a new player, they're going to have a significant advantage. But there's so many decks in that one that you could combine that it'll keep it interesting to just casual play. Do you have anything else?
Dave Eng:
For Bonus Round?
Brian Eng:
For Bonus Round that you want to talk about? I know you mentioned there were some other games you wanted to talk about.
Dave Eng:
No, I think we got most of them in. I'll look at my list one more time, but I had a few points for Bonus Round. One; I think that Tug-of-War is probably one of the cleanest mechanics we've talked about because it's just so very much basic. Zero-sum on a track, my gain is your loss, your loss is my gain, et cetera. I think though that Tug-of-War on its own, I don't really see being the entree for a game. If I have to use a cooking analogy, I would say that Tug-of-War is a really good broth, but you got to add some stuff to the broth to iterate on that game, make it something cool and something unique.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
So I think if you're creating a two-player game and you don't really know what mechanic to use, I'd say start with Tug-of-War because it is just a very good base that is very easy to read in, very easy to look at, and then you can kind of grow from there.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. I think that's why it kind of falls in line with something like race mechanic, right? Again, a very simple core, everybody understands what that mechanic is, but a pure just race, which I think would be a role and move or something like that with nothing else would be boring. But a game like Magical Athlete where they throw in a bunch of crazy characters and suddenly its super fun.
Dave Eng:
Right. Additional games on my list that I had for Tug-of-War that we didn't talk about is, you know the game Tacocat Spelled Backwards?
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
It's by, what's the name of the company? They also did, is it Exploding Kittens?
Brian Eng:
Exploding Kittens was-
Dave Eng:
Yeah, it's Exploding Kittens, same board game.
Brian Eng:
Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry. I'm thinking of... I wasn't thinking of Tacocat Spelled Backwards. I was thinking of that other one, Taco Cat, I don't know, it's like five words.
Dave Eng:
Oh, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza?
Brian Eng:
Yes, yes. I was thinking of that. But Tacocat Spelled Backwards, that's another the Matthew Inman, the Oatmeal guy.
Dave Eng:
This is basically just like-
Brian Eng:
Or Oatmeal [inaudible 00:48:48].
Dave Eng:
... card play with Tug-of-War, but all the other tricks for the card play doesn't matter until the last trick because that's when the token actually moves. I remember getting a copy of it at Marshalls because it was like $2 or something. Very simple game, but also this is probably another one of those examples where I feel like it is just mostly the Tug-of-War track and because of that, I don't think it's a lot of staying power, at least compared to other games. We also played Tacta online, which I didn't really see the Tug-of-War aspect too, but you did, Bri?
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Tacta. So it's the same idea where it's kind of these lanes. I think it was because it was kind of mixed with the... Not engine building. Tableau building-
Dave Eng:
Area building?
Brian Eng:
... I guess.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. It was kind of mixed with the tableau building. So it's kind of a borderline one. So that part of it, which you think is going to be the Tug-of-War was not the Tug-of-War. The Tug-of-War was when you get those tokens for getting, what is it? Three, five, or seven of the thing in the lane. That was the Tug-of-War.
Dave Eng:
Wait, wait, Tacta?
Brian Eng:
Am I thinking of the right game?
Dave Eng:
No, I think you're thinking about maybe either Pacifica or Arctic. Tacta was the one where you're playing-
Brian Eng:
Arctic, I didn't understand.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that was a tough one.
Brian Eng:
Hold on. Let me look at Tacta.
Dave Eng:
Tacta was the one-
Brian Eng:
Oh, sorry. Tacta. Yeah, right, right, right. Tacta, the Tug-of-War comes when you are... So that's where you're getting points for all the dots on your cards that are showing, and the Tug-of-War comes that you can cover the dots of the other player. Sorry, I was thinking of, that must have been Pacifica, maybe?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, Pacifica and Arctic didn't really-
Brian Eng:
Arctic. Again, I didn't understand Arctic. I think I was burnt out on learning to war games at that point. Pacifica, I think I would like it in person, but again, we played that one near the end. So I was getting a little burnt out on learning Tug-of-War games that all were looking like lane builders.
Dave Eng:
Right. Now that I think about it though with Tacta, because Tacta is a more than two player game that says it has Tug-of-War in it. I would think though then that the last player has advantage because they have many more places to play cards. If you're playing first, then you're most likely to get your card covered if other players have cards that they can play, right?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I'm sure there's some strategy to knowing if you're first and last, and what you leave open, things like that. But yeah, there probably is a last player advantage in that maybe. I don't know if they mitigate it somehow. I didn't really pay that much... I mean, it's a pretty simple game though, so I wouldn't expect it to go too deep into that.
Dave Eng:
It's not perfectly balanced.
Brian Eng:
Yes. It's one of those ones where I like it on BGA, but I wonder if I would be frustrated playing in real life because knowing exactly how the cards need to line up, because there's sometimes on BGA where they just have just the tiniest little bit of red where it's overlapping. I'm like, in person, you'd probably just let that go.
Dave Eng:
I'd probably let that go.
Brian Eng:
And maybe that's part of the game.
Dave Eng:
I do like though how Tacta is, you're limited to your actual table. Your table is the boundary.
Brian Eng:
Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah. That's a neat incorporation of just like, yeah, well, that's the rule.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah. That's all I've got for Bonus Round, Bri.
Brian Eng:
The only other one I can think of, I know we differed in opinion was the COIN game, A Gest of Robin Hood.
Dave Eng:
Oh yeah, that one I was completely lost on.
Brian Eng:
Okay. I didn't know if you didn't like it or you just didn't fully understand, because I actually think I liked it a lot and it got me interested into looking... Because I think it's considered an easier COIN game. So I was like, oh, maybe I should look into COIN games, but that one's probably already about where I would like it for weight. So I played a few more games of that just against randos and I got just demolished every single time.
Dave Eng:
I'm guessing these players have high ELOs? Like, they played-
Brian Eng:
Yeah, because as soon as I get into where I can play arena, I play arena. And then I just prefer it. I feel like people play faster, play their turns faster when they're playing arena. But I did like it and I think it would be a game I'd like against an evenly... I mean, I don't mind losing, but I just felt like there was maybe so deep of a strategy in that game, especially I think that playing Robin Hood is more complex. I definitely haven't played enough to say whether it's unbalanced, but I do think the Robin Hood side is harder to learn. So if I was playing the Robin Hood side against a higher rank, I didn't even stand a chance. I think my only games that I won against randos were if I was-
Dave Eng:
The sheriff?
Brian Eng:
The sheriff. Yeah. But I enjoyed it, but I think I played my fill on BGA. So maybe I don't like COIN games as much, but I did find it interesting. I thought the choices were interesting the way they did the event deck as a action that changes every round that you can take.
Dave Eng:
I like the choice architecture for that game because my choices seem very straightforward to me. I just didn't really know the ramifications of choosing all of them because then I'm like, then it gives up initiative, then I'll go next.
Brian Eng:
There's a lot of gears in that game, for sure.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
But yeah, I enjoyed that one a lot actually. All right. I don't think I have anything else in my notes.
Dave Eng:
No, I am good.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Well, I guess that wraps up our Tug-of-War episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects, and other information about us at www.universityxp.com.
Dave Eng:
Thanks for joining us. We'd also love it if you took some time to rate the show. We live to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could benefit. Until next time, game on!
Brian Eng:
Game on!
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Cite this Episode (Audio):
Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2026, June 28). AP Table Talk: Tug of War. (No. 167) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/167
Cite this Episode (Video):
Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2026, July 5). AP Table Talk: Tug of War. (No. 167) [Video]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/video/167
Internal Ref: UXP45XG8LWR9