by pschoel
I'd like to first make it clear where I stand. In the last year I've tried about 100 new games and Tzolk'in is my all-time favourite game.I've played about 25 times and taught the game to about 50 people. A typical game for me is scoring in the 80s using a build building strategy, a bit more in 2 player.
The part of playing games that I enjoy the most is learning how to play the game well, distilling it down to its essence and coming up with a playing strategy. That being said, when I'm learning a game I'll often do a quick search for relevant strategy guides or tips.
One of the characteristics of a great game is that you enjoy it more with a good strategy guide (e.g. chess).
For the top games, I'm a strong advocate for strategy guides for a number of reasons:
1. While it can be quite rewarding working everything out yourself, I don't always want to spend the time to do so. I also don't like reinventing the wheel and like the idea of getting a jump start on basic strategy and building on top of that.
2. Not all players can come up with winning strategies, but most will enjoy playing more if they play better.
3. Everyone wins when the level of play increases. The truly memorable games for me are the ones when you are pushed to play better in a closely fought game. I get very little satisfaction from beating players who have no concept of how to play well.
4. Hopefully strategy guides will promote interesting discussions that will be captured in improvements to the guide so that the level of play of advanced players will also improved.
In summary, A strategy Guide is not required to save Tsolk'in, Tsolk'in is a great game on its own, but it will make it more enjoyable. I started working on a guide part-time but have no idea when it will be ready for distribution. I'll see if I can come up with something shorter in the meantime to get some feedback... stay tuned ...