This channel is focused on John Cooper's board game Homeworlds, published by Looney Labs. Videos feature gameplay, commentary, strategy advice, and community announcements. "Homeworlds" should not be confused with "Homeworld," the series of real-time strategy video games.
8:11 --> Thanks for deciding to increase the volume! I've watched your latest videos with my speakers set to max, which causes trouble when I forget to turn the volume back down and start watch anything else... 😅 What a cool game! And nice catch at 19:02! I'm not used to SimonNaar missing opportunities.
Good game, lots of excitement! I think at around 14:55 Simon could have sacrificed Y3@Snaiad to move in R2+R1@Teufel - Catastrophe Red @ Fiendmonger and Y3@Teufel into Fiend's home to complete the invasion. With the R3 @ Urth I believe that would have been enough.
Don’t say red stars are out or it pushes me to do it. I rarely pick blue/red or blue/yellow simply because that’s what everyone else does. Maybe it’s just my personality to be contradictive, I don’t know. lol (SenetMaster)
YaiHar here: I think this paticular Homeworld (b1-r2) can perhaps work against the red onslaught, but it has to belong to the first player, and that player has to immediately build yellows and use them to discover all the r3s. This same tactic can be used with an r2-b2 homeworld. I may be wrong, of course.
At minute 32:30 the point was made about viewing the streamlining of game rules in terms of programming and using that lens to identify rule contradictions and complexities. It’s also useful to pair that mindset with how a game’s computational search spaces are shaped and grow in relation to its goals and mechanics. The combination of these two complimentary mindsets helps push rulesets towards simplicity, elegance, and emergence… a holy trifecta for designers and certainly attributes that describe Homeworlds. Thank you for this interview!
Also I do have a 4 player chess board. On-line u can play 2 vs 2. Rotate who is your team mate for the next game. Or free for all. I think it works. 2 players will always be great.
Dear John Cooper, thank you so much for creating my favorite game of all time! Dear Babamots, thanks again for bringing my favorite game to my attention and creating the BGA version that enabled me to find other players and a wonderful Discord community.
26:35 Wait what? Can the game even work if trigerring a catastrophe take an entire turn? Doesn't it mean that overpopulation is extremely hard to achieve and that slow invasions and yellow birds (fleet catastrophes at home) are virtually impossible? Well, I mean, of course the game still works, but wow, that would be really different.
I think brnbb made two mistakes: 1) The setup: brnbb should have responded with y3-g3 r3 and invaded on their second turn with their r3. 2) as you mentioned, brnbb should have gone with the invasion at 4:10. The red overpopulation that Stevie would have triggered would enable brnbb to invade with their r1 from home and win.
Humbling game with some lessons that will be hard to apply 😅 at least I'm glad you didn't see any major blunders on my part, but as Stevie pointed out, careful thought about what homeworld setup to take as p2 can lead to very quick death for p1 here
I (YaiHar) think of jaim1e as the Beth Harmon (Queen's Gambit) of Homeoworlds. Their improvement curve in the few games they have played so far is jaw dropping. I believe they have a really good chance of winning the ongoing Great Homeworlds Tournament.
jaim1e is a strong player. I consider myself (mstain) to be overestimated. I'm capable of taking advantage of mistakes but really quite erratic otherwise. The little catastrophe exchanges worked out in my favor. It was a fun game.
Hi, Babamots. I think you should consider invading colonies with your mothership more often (or maybe you did and dismissed it?). Look at 7:02 for example and at 8:00
Good game, wil is an entertaining player and good show from ktblu! Somewhere around 26:33 I think ktblu should have sacrificed their y1 in wil's home to invade with the y3. Seems like that would have made the y2 sacrifice at bleb to send a y1 home much less helpful.
so many missed opportunities. I was shocked at how many slow builds were happening towards the end when roger could have been using their factory! Like at 27:27
I'd say the y3 build is about the same goodness. Crit sacrifices y1 to move y2 out of their home and there are no good overpopulation opportunities. In the game, the material was Crti's large + medium vs ktblu's large + small (ktblu on move). The y3 build leads to 2x large + 2x medium vs 2x large + medium + small (ktblu on move). I don't think either is obviously better.
@@Babamots Maybe you're right, but two more things to consider are, 1) a single medium to a small advantage is much more pronounced when there are fewer ships in the game, and 2) Crit having just the one mothership at home with no green and that mothership being the color of one of Crit's stars while KT has three yellows in play seems very advantageous for KT, no?
Fork is so cool (spoilers below) My invasion was a failure, but in my defense, I couldn't just capture Fork's red as you suggested, because Fork would have blown up my only colony with almost everything I had via a g2/g1 sacrifice. :)
I say that any colony with both green and blue "has gone online" or "is online", in the sense of bringing a system online, because production can now ensue in earnest
YaiHar is not only leading the current arena but was the last arena's victor and the current all time #1! I am grateful for their sharing of these ideas; as mentioned, it is exciting to witness.
I'm afraid this same strategy worked against SimonNaar twice, and only the first time was a surprise for him. I would also hate to see red-blue non-gemini Homeworlds gone, so I wish someone finds a way to counter this. And by the way, I've found the results to be quite similar when the blue-yellow player goes second. If anyone is interested in a friendly game to test this out, please let me know (YaiHar).
Cool strategy! I don't think anything can be ruled out (or in) 100%. Like in chess, no two games ever work out exactly the same. Good analysis, very interesting. :r3u: :y2u: :g3s:/ :g3u: :r2u: :b3s: are common red star choices for me. Don't worry, I'll be around to make crazy homeworlds :) (SenetMaster).
Spoilers below Ouch! I find it very exciting to be witnessing these opening developments On the topic of red stars except maybe bankers being no longer viable, banker or Goldilocks as Sente (p1) would fall into the Yaihar Trap anyway, right? so maybe Sente Fortress is the only one left in the running? what about red Gemini systems; do they still fall into this? I should probably take this to the Discord, lol
I totally agree with your analysis at 13:30 (Will missed a win), but at 11:48 I think you missed the fact that Amnykon could respond to a double green invasion with an r2 sacrifice and take both greens, right?
Good game with unusual set ups. The "sacrificial red" lesson always hurts but seems to stick. It's the equivalent of touching a hot stove for homeworlds. I also enjoyed the sneak peek for the next episode at the end.
Looks like Senet could have sacrificed y2 to move in r3 from Betelgeuse first (5:28). Next looked like a y3 sacrifice to move r1 from Betelgeuse to Sam's home, catastrophe red, and then invade with r3 from Electra (12:20). Is that what you were seeing?
I don't see anything you are missing either. I think around 12:15 SimnNaar might have been able to move two reds in to destroy Amnykon's only large and win.
Abstract Play love! :D The Homeworld's game was cool, too While I don't think the AP visualization of HWs is perfect, I think it gets a lot of things right that no other site heretofore has, and for that I very much appreciate Perlkönig's willingness to step in some respects outside of trodden ground in displaying HWs
I think burnb could have left some yellow ships at medium stars, instead of moving them up. After elimination of Roundabouts blue star they would have been adjacent anyway.
