Also, it is not like BGS is taking away customers from you app (since it doesn't exist yet), so it is not clear to me what type of financial damage are you currently sustaining because of this (or any other kind of damage, as a matter of fact). You want them to remove GP from their playable games once your app is out? Ok, I can see the logic behind it. But doing it know, in the middle of a global pandemic that is preventing people from playing in person? This is the only thing that is keeping a community of players alive, and you need a community of players if you hope to sell your app to someone once it's finally out.
Besides, since it doesn't look like the app is coming anytime soon, I really don't see the problem in people keeping playing GP while you work on development. I mean, we'd be doing exactly the same thing with our physical copies of the game, if the situation allowed us to.

Hi everybody!

Thanks Ariallito for all the work you're putting into organizing this.

I just wanted to say, to three misterious people I'll be playing the first game with, I won't be able to play much the coming weekend. But don't worry! I'm normally very present on BGS so we'll make up for the lost time, starting from monday.

Also, I'm in for organizing sessions of live play, if the others in my group are willing to do that.

Good luck to everyone!

I'd be very careful about altering the factions. There are several things in that BGG topic I most definitely don't agree with.

Hi, just wanted to say that I agree with TheK6 about the stats, that would be super interesting.

Not necessarily players' stats, but it would be interesting to see how the different factions fare over a huge number of games. Obviously games where players have dropped should be somehow excluded from the calculations.

I realize of course that you already have plenty to and this looks somewhat superfluous... but still. Maybe for the future.

At any rate, thanks for the great job you guys are doing here.

Hi! Thanks, this is great. The ELO system sounds particularly promising :)

Can I ask how you plan to implementi it?
Will it be based only on net number of victories per games played, or will there be other parameters such as average final position, average final score, and the like?

Also, how will it interact with games where players have dropped? Because I guess these should not be factored, but at the same time, this might induce even more people to drop out of games voluntarily if the game is not going well for them. Which brings us back to the problem of how to discourage people from dropping... :-/

PS: looking forward to the new graphics!

This is very interesting, I was hoping for some stats to come out.

I run statistics on the games me and my friends have played in the last two years, and results are similar, as far as best and worse factions are concerned. I agree that Itars in particular are a very good faction but they do not overperfom (unlike the Taklons that, contrary to the opinion of many, really are one of the top factions in GP).

I find the "in between" factions more puzzling, I'm really surprised at seeing Bescods performing better thatn Hadschallas, Xenos and Baltaks, which I've always considered to be good factions (maybe not top-tier, but able to put up some good games). Also, Nevlas have a very high winning rate here, while they have average performances at best in my gaming group.

(All of the above is referred to 4p games, which I think are the most representative).

I agree with Babbuc, however, that a filter is needed. Games where players have dropped should not be factored. Also, it would proabably be better to take out every game where someone scored below 110. Based on my experience over hundreds of games, I'd say that's the lowest possible score for somebody who has experience with Gaia Project (again, in 4p games at least). Lower scores could be the result of non-experienced players joining the game, and this could bias the statistics.

Ariallito's point is also worth considering (to an extent: I think there's no denying that lantids and gleens really are in need of some help).

[EDIT] sorry, I just figured out that you've probably already taken out games where people have dropped

I agree with riverhorse that the new colours are really harsh.

I like the way the new buildings look on the map and on the faction tiles, but the turn boosters, power/ciq actions and tech tiles do actually make one's eyes sore.

(though I agree on the fact that having graphic rather than textual cues on the boosters and techs is an improvement... it only needs some restyling imho).

Tbh this is one of the (many) reasons why I deeply dislike auctions. People tend to throw in terrible factions planning on somebody else to pick them, turning the whole process into a desperate competition to the last point for the three remaining factions. This basically adds another meta-layer to the game, which has nothing to do with Gaia Project and much to do with... poker, I guess? Which is perfectly ok but I mean, if somebody likes bidding games they should stick to them and probably avoid gaia-like games.

Oooooor.... we could just stop using auctions altogether.

I still need to read a convincing motivation for the implementation of auctions. Any pro-auction player willing to explain that to me?

But if the problem is that certain factions are better and certain factions are worse in absolute terms, and the game needs to be homeruled to make lantids or gleens playable, then why auctions? Auctions create a huge amount of problems because:

1. either all players know exactly what they're doing, and how good every faction is able to perform in a given setup, or the game is going to be fucked up from the start because certain factions will be over/under priced (and i think that it's everybody's experience here on BG that you almost never end up in a game with 4 skilled players)
2. auctions create another meta-layer, a game within the game, that has nothing to do with gaia project. Apart from the fact that some players willingly pick factions that are awful in a given scenario, the whole balancing of the game at that point relays on every player's attitute towards risk-assessing. Which is a very interesting mechanism that several games use, but not gaia project. Anyone who like bidding games is free to go playing them, but I really don't see the need to spoil a game that depends on totally different dynamics by adding other variables that are totally alien to it.

So as I was saying, if the games needs to be homeruled to be perfectly balanced, auctions are one of the worse ways to do this that I can think of. Slightly buffing the underpowered factions would make way more sense.