Reply: Age of Innovation:: Variants:: Re: Discussion about snake and standard drafts

by Gerkins

I appreciate everyones responses. This is the discussion I was looking to have and has given me a lot to consider.

I also disagree on how you are drafts usually go: I don’t agree first picks are always faction or palace, I believe in many situations your first pick should be colour or even bonus tile, I don’t believe that most of the times you are making “obvious” combos that your opponents will see and disrupt and I don’t think the first pick is uninteresting on the contrarietà probably the toughest decison in the game.

When I said uninteresting, I didn't mean easy, it often feels like a nebulous pick because its so difficult. There are too many picks proceeding you to really know whats going to happen, so as P1 you pick something generically good to give you a decent start. With standard draft (as P1/P2) I can reasonably map out how the draft is going to go based on my picks and can run through regressions of the best options to start with. As P3/P4 I can pick knowing the bonus tile I'm likely to secure allowing me a good start as well.

I think some of my perspective is skewed due to our game groups familiarity with each other. We've played together for a very long time and because AOI is a game of complete information you can very easily predict opponents plays. We also know who the stronger players are so they get counter picked. This (maybe incorrectly) pushes many players to defer a terrain choice. I do believe we undervalue bonus tile picks in snake draft more than we should. The earliest they've ever been drafted is pick4/5 in snake.

I don’t agree first picks are always faction or palace, I believe in many situations your first pick should be colour or even bonus tile

In other words, regardless of the strategy adopted, the 4th-pick player will be at a disadvantage

I'd like to pull @moonsea and @Babbuc49 into a conversation regarding the balance of FS and BS. You both are very adamant about snake draft however I find the disconnect between FS and BS to be worth understanding. Based on @moonsea's data and perspective they seem to place a very high value on pick1 (presumably being a high power faction or palace). They chose BS to shift pick1's power imbalance to P4 (since p4/pick5 is weaker as outlined). This perspective is very different than @Babbuc49 statement regarding "bonus tiles or terrain" being a legitimate pick1.

theoretically and practically, the competitiveness, strategic depth, and entertainment value of BS and FS's drafting are higher than that of standard draft.

How does snake vs standard bring more competitiveness? Competitiveness in FS was rather poor given your data. BS and Standard Draft were very close in win percentage.

I don't agree with the premise of increased strategic depth There are two key differences between the two drafts. Snake has a larger initial drafting pool and longer periods between drafting. Larger initial drafting pool requires more strategy, longer periods between drafts requires less strategy. This often lends itself to early picks being generic power picks because there is no reasonable way to know whats going to make it back to you and late double picks being two things that work well together because the power picks are gone and you can't reasonably assume anything is coming back to you. I personally find this drafting method to be very boring at the ends of the draft (P1/P4). If I could guarantee being in P2/P3 in snake draft I'd be much more willing to adopt the format however being pick1 (and sometimes pick4) lacks so much interaction it feels helpless.