QE (Quantitative Easing)

This sounds pretty neat, actually.
And possibly satirical.

We have a review of it coming on Thursday, so keep an eye out for that..

Real hyped for the Kickstarter to deliver on this one. It sounds like a mashup of Ponzi Scheme and High Society, which seems like a pretty great mashup imo.

This is an ok game which has some big fans here in the forum. Being able to just name a number is fun, though I don't think it's enough to make the game go beyond other "bid for VP tiles" games.

Personally, for me this will always be the game where people got upset at me for "distorting the game". Apparently bidding high should cause others to bid lower and I was wrong for thinking it would make bid higher. Oh well.

People bidding high should definitely push others to bid higher... You just need to spend $1 less than whoever spent the most, so you want to try to thread that needle (exactly like in High Society).

I see Legomancer playing this one quite a bit on the forum and social media... he has a few longer comments on it in the dark, murky depths of the boardgames played cursed thread.

It is a VERY simple auction game. Run through a bunch of closed bid auctions, and get points for various combinations of sets.

The twists are that the player who paid the most loses, and that the you can otherwise bid as much as you want. That's the game.

What makes it interesting is the group playing it. Different groups will have very different bidding patterns, and you have to play the people more than the game itself. The case mentioned above of one person "distorting" the game *IS* the game. Also the limited run versions are rough lasercut tiles, and a rather nice hand-oiled hardwood scoreboard. It is the best of Gavin's games, and he has been making these tiny runs of 50 for years now.

And yes. I have a copy. Like there was any doubt.

Also, I beat Dan Baden. By quite a bit.

I love the posts that bring moofrank out. Craft more wooden games, people! We need more moofrank!

I think I’m actually going to buy this. My gang is going to love it...I just wish it supported, like...8 players.

I was thinking about playing with my kids and then I realized every bid would be like a million billion dollars.

Which, actually, would be interesting on a meta-level of the point the game is sort of trying to make about monetary policy, based on what I've read in the rules.

Played 4 5p games of QE tonight, and it was pretty great. First couple games were tentative, feeling things out etc. Third game was good but pretty standard, bids getting to 3-400k and nothing totally nuts. The same player got the bonus 7vp for spending the least in the first three games, and announced their side game in the fourth game of not spending the least. Turns out. What he did (4th in turn order) was won the first auction with a bid of 10million, and raise each subsequent bid by a factor of 10. He won the first 6 tiles, and by the time anyone else decided they wanted some points it was too late. His first (at the time laughable!) bids of 1billion etc were basically rounding errors by the end of the game. The overall high bid in that game was 2.2 trillion. The player who won the first 6 scored 69 points to 2nd places 25, and also didn't spend even close to the most. Man that game is GREAT.

Ah_Pook wrote: Played 4 5p games of QE tonight,

DEATH TO ACRONYMS!

Sagrilarus wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: Played 4 5p games of QE tonight,

DEATH TO ACRONYMS!

It's an acronym but it's also what the game is called? It's short for Quantitative Easing, but the game is named Q.E.

Damn young people and their damn stupid game initials. If that football comes into my yard ONE MORE TIME I'm calling the cops.

I looked at "QE" and tried my best to figure it out on my own and couldn't. It wasn't until I got to your reference to "trillion" that I figured it out.

At times this thread is impenetrable, because I don't read it consistently. Someone will just pick up in the middle of the three or four conversations that are going on and say "I really like the way the scoring works" as if that's enough footing to understand what their talking about. I try to mention the name of the game at the top of each post when I'm responding to someone.

Moved the 3 comments above from the "What have you..." thread, to the Q.E. thread. Sagrilarus' comments are in reference regarding acronym and difficulty following discussions are in reference to the "What have you..." thread.

In general I agree that acronyms suck...but Sag complains about acronyms where the meaning of the acronym is literally in the post he's complaining about.

@lj1983

That comment was moved from another thread. See my note above.

It's significantly funnier in this thread without that context though

i kinda think my group broke QE. more details here, i wont rehash it in two places. id be curious if anyone can brain up a counter play that isn't just "well dont play QE then", as i think the game is clever and fun.

www.boardgamegeek.com/article/32449908

So what exactly is the WC in this game? I’m thinking it’s the person with the most purchases, but the single person that spent the most is disqualified. Is that correct?

each tile is inherently worth 1-4 points, and has a suit and a country. you get bonus points for sets of the same suit, and sets of different suits, and tiles that match your country. you also get up to 6 points per game for bidding zero (up to 3 times, once per round, 2 points per), and 7 points at the end if you spent the least total. most points at the end wins, unless you spent the most total in which case you are disqualified from the win.

The strategy you mention. on its own, ensures one of the players loses the game, while the others tie for a 0 point victory. Alternatively, someone wins a single tile and wins alone while the player using this tactic loses and the others lose for not having any points.

Note that one player making higher bids should also cause the other players to raise their bids. And note there's not any significant difference between bidding 1 Million, 10 Million and 100 Millions because bids are completely relative. A higher number just gives players more precision in their bids.

So why is this game called Quantitative Easing? It sounds like Russian Roulette would be as apt a title.

Sagrilarus wrote: So why is this game called Quantitative Easing? It sounds like Russian Roulette would be as apt a title.

Quantitative Easing is an economic policy. Basically, a central bank increases the money supply (that is, "prints more money") to buy financial assets and drive their values up. The idea is that the Goverment can use these purcharses to stimulate the economy when all other venues have failed.

The idea of the game is that you can limitlessly increase the money supply to give worth to a series of assets. This kind of resembles Quantitative easing, though technically speaking, QE is about financial assets, not industries or anything of the sort.