Stock Ticker is not the only game that relies principally on luck. There are other such games that have received far more attention, and are even less deserving. One of these includes Risk, the game of global domination. Known by the general public as THE war strategy game, Risk features battle between vast armies for the domination of the globe. Needless to say, these games can be intense. There are only two main problems to this game.
The first is the huge emphasis on luck. There's really not much strategy to Risk. You simply gather up a bucketful of armies and launch attacks, hoping for the best. With luck, you might be able to get a Risk set, thereby dumping more armies on the board. There's no strategy here. You just go straight in, and sometimes get hurt. Secondly, Risk does not end. The game goes on forever, and continually goes back and forth until players get fed up and quit. Conquering the world requires more patience than skill.
This finally brings me to the topic of this quote. If Risk is the game of global domination, then Junta should be considered the game of global corruption. Although I shun to even compare the two, since Junta so obviously stands on top. In this game, the players take roles in a third world banana-republic. Each person assumes a role in that country's government. The goal of the game is to syphon as much foreign aid money as possible into your Swiss Bank Account. This foreign aid money is sent to El Presidente, who is elected by the other members of the government. El President then forms a budget and passes out the money to his 'loyal' ministers, usually keeping a large portion for himself. In truth, loyalty is both rare and expensive in the game of Junta. Underpaid ministers will often attempt to assassinate each other or even El Presidente, or may even start a coup. There are political cards to help with these tasks, such as assassins and student protesters. In the case of a coup, it's always fun to see a mob of unarmed protesters charge a tank. Of course, the best political card is the one stating that students pass around a protest petition. Naturally, this card does absolutely nothing. It's so true that it's funny. Needless to say, having played this game, I can testify that it is much more gripping than risk. It requires a great deal of plotting and skill, not to mention paranoia, to win. I rather liked the job of El Presidente, in which I was able to embezzle vast sums of money without anyone being the wiser. Clearly a great game.
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I've had several quotes dealing with noteworthy boardgames in the past. Some of these include Clue, and Stock Ticker. I definitely believe the latter of those two often does not receive the respect it deserves. I can't even describe the amount skill needed to win a game of Stock Ticker, or at least to avoid going bankrupt. Of course, this is because no skill is really required. In fact, the game is just about luck. As far I can tell, this makes it quite accurate to the real market. No one really understands the economy. Sure, economists* supposedly spend their lives studying it. But they really spend most of their time disagreeing with each other and trying to measure the utiles they gain from doing so. For those unaware, a utile is a fictional measuring unit of pleasure. Those who didn't know this weren't really missing out on anything, since utility is basically a code word for common sense. In any case, I've thought of several ways to improve the game of Stock Ticker. I propose a Special Celebrity Edition, that would be endorsed by someone like Sean Connery. It would feature several new types of stocks, such as sheep, Scotland and Tech Stocks. New rules would ensure that the value of Scotland would go up every turn, whereas Tech Stocks would drop like rocks. This would clearly be a shmokey premise for a game.
*Note that I am not attempting to offend economists with these comments. Of course, these people would probably measure the marginal utility of reading this page and decide against it anyway. So it really doesn't matter.
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