I want to share with you my solo rules for playing one of my new favorite games, Splendor. You should be familiar with the rules of Splendor before reading this post so if you are not please read them here (Splendor rules) then head back when you are ready.
The concept for solo play is to remove 1 token from the game every time you perform an actions. There are 4 levels of solo play, easy, medium, hard, and insane with 2 potential ending goals giving you options on how to play the best fits for you. Below is a description on all the steps to follow.
Setup
- Setup the game as normal 3 levels of cards with 4 cards each
- Set out the tokens based on the level of play you want to try at
- Easy : 6 of each color and all joker (yellow) tokens
- Medium : 5 of each color and all joker (yellow) tokens
- Hard : 4 of each color and all joker (yellow) tokens
- Insane : 3 of each color and all joker (yellow) tokens
- Put out 2 Nobles at random
- Perform 1 of the 4 normal actions
- Take 3 gem tokens of different colors from the stock
- Take 2 gem tokens of the same color if there are 4 or more of that color in the stock
- Reserve 1 development card and take 1 gold token (joker).
- Purchase 1 face-up development card from the middle of the table or a previously reserved one.
- If you have more than 10 tokens return tokens to the stock till you are down to 10
- Remove 1 token from the game using the following order
- If you have a token in the stock remove 1 of those back to the box
- If no tokens are in the stock then discard one of yours to the box.
- If there are no tokens the game ends or you must obtain all cards with the cards you have depending on the variation you decided to play.
Option 1. Get to 15 points before all tokens are out
Option 2. Be able to obtain all cards by building up cards while you have tokens then having enough cards to obtain everything else available. You can stop once you have 7 of each color as there are no cards that require more tokens than 7.
I hope you enjoy the post and if anyone has any comments or improvements please let me know I would like to implement them myself.
So after I do my regular action, I am supposed to remove 1 gem token of my choice (any color) from the game?
ReplyDeleteAs for the winning conditions, I am confused... Do I have to get to 15 points before I run out of gem tokens AND have the ability to afford all of the 12 remaining face-up cards?
Correct after performing any one of your 4 actions you remove 1 token from the stock (The place you get tokens from) unless you don't have any there then you remove it from your hand. If there are no more tokens at all in the game you look to the "How to win" section to see how you want to proceed.
DeleteOn the how to win those are the 2 options on how to win. You can choose which one you shoot for. I suggest the getting 15 points before tokens run out but I also played attempting to get all cards and 15 points before tokens run out to make it even harder and have to think out how to get cards after I have no more tokens.
Now that you changed your initial post, it makes sense, but it makes my first comment seem silly. Thanks.
DeleteThanks for the questions, it allowed me to clear up some stuff on my original post. Hope you enjoy :)
DeleteIs it even remotely possible to beat the insane level by getting to 15 points? I beat the others but this level? :-(
DeleteI have beaten insane 1 time but I got all the right cards at all the right times. I typically play on hard and my record right now is 18 turns on hard.
DeleteThanks for the solo variant! I gave it a try tonight and it seems pretty solid! I played with a slight adjustment in order to get a score so that I could gauge my performance in the game and have a goal to shoot for. All the rules were the same, except I didn't play to 15 points. I played until each color had 7 or 8 cards. I played that you could only build an 8th card in a color if you could not build any other cards of a color with <7 (this is an attempt to offset poor luck a bit by not getting the card colors you need when you already have 7 of a color). Then you total up your score and subtract the number of gem tokens you started with (-30, -25, -20, or -15 for easy, medium, hard, or insane levels respectively) and then subtract 1 point per card less than 7 you have in any given color. My first game I played medium and scored 48 points with all colors at 7 gems resulting in a total score of 23. My second game I didn't do quite as well I ended up with a score of 9 because I wasn't able to finish two colors before bad luck left me with only cards I already had 8 of or couldn't afford. But it seems like a great way to figure out your score!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like fun, I will give it a shot. Thanks for sharing your variation.
DeleteIn the variant I supplied above I wanted to keep it as close as I could to the original game scoring so i could try to find some good strategic techniques when I play others as well. This means my techniques used in solo increase my multi-player game play.
The strategies are still much the same. If you can get to 15 points you'll likely be able to build just about any card. I've played now 2 games each on Medium, Hard, and Insane. Medium I managed both times to score more than 0 using the above scoring methods (23 and 9 - the first game I was able to get to 7 cards in all colors, the second game I was short in 2 colors). Hard level I lost the first game (couldn't build anything and had well under 0 points when I got stuck) and scored a whopping 49 points the second game! Insane level I lost the first game even more miserably than my first Hard game. The second game I scored a respectable 35 points.
DeleteAfter playing a few times I've noticed that you really can't play this the same way you would play against other people. Reserving cards is almost pointless, so that means the first 5 turns you're just getting rid of the gold coins. Also, in a standard game gem token availability tends to actually increase in the latter part of the game since players are relying on their engines more and tokens less. So I don't really find this solo variant to be a good practice against other players. But it's an excellent puzzle on its own and presents its own challenges. I'm definitely enjoying it!
One change I made to my above suggestion to make scoring more even from game to game is if you always play to 8 cards per color (instead of just 7 with a max of 8). This allows you to grab a couple of level 3 cards in your last round to bump up your score a little and makes sure that all games end with the same number of cards (40 cards) unless you were unable to get to at least 7 of something for some reason. That way you're not penalized in your final score if you are able to get to 7 of everything. The rule still holds though that you can't buy your 8th card of a color unless you can't buy any color that you have < 7 of. If I had played with this adjustment in my first Medium game I might have scored another 25-30 points...
Anyway, thanks again for coming up with this variant! I'm really enjoying it!
Great solo variant. I did have one question. Do you also remove the yellow/joker tokens or just the regular colors? I played a few games last night and played as if you couldn't use yellow/joker tokens for the removal phase and the game ended when I ran out of the normal color tokens.
ReplyDeleteI do add in the yellow tokens but really in the end this is up to you. I might try it without them and see how well I do.
DeleteThank you. I have been playing where you can not discard the yellow tokens. On the easy and medium lvl I can still win a good % of the time, but I have yet to be able to beat the game on the hard lvl.
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