It was just a game. One of QE, as in Quantitative Easing. (For those who might be unfamiliar with the term, that would be the increasing of money supply by introducing new units of currency into the economy so that it does not suffer from lack of said money supply, liquidity, etc. Increasing the quantity. The opposite of Quantitative Tightening.

It was just a game, a board game designed to resemble that process but in a fun way where it leads to absurd outbidding situations between players who have all the role of one central bank or another. Now, it's different than reality, it's supposed to be more fun and based on some reference to the real world and the real economy but not pretending to be accurate in any way. Because it's just a game.

Let me tell you more about it, first, before I get to the point where I play it a couple of days before New Year's Eve and, on my third game ever,

I make people rage quit, just distance themselves, or remain at the table, discussing the case with me for an hour or so without us reaching any agreement on some of the principles...

And so...

Your role in the game of QE

You're one of five central banks, that of the US, China (CN), Japan (JPN), the EU, or the UK.

You each have the ability to print as much as you want of your currency in order to bid for and pay for the Companies that would be offered during the game.

And each of your currencies are equivalent to all the rest. So, as per the rules of the game, 1 USD = 1 Euro = 1 Pound = 1 Yuan = 1 Yen. In the game, the difference is only nominal. Different currencies are there for flavor, otherwise you could be dealing in just one universal currency that each of you are able to print as much as you want of.

You score points

by accumulating companies that you won on auction. You got five types of companies and you score more for both accumulating more of the same type, or for diversifying by owning more of various types. You go wide or you go deep. Or a combination of both.

The turns

You have, in a game of all five players, 15 turns to reveal companies — one per turn. The lead player, who rotates each turn so that all 5 players have 3 turns each in which they are the lead player, reveals a company and places an open bid on it. Everybody sees the number written on a tab. It could be an arbitrary number, preferably we all play with integers for our own good. Then, the rest of the players make their secret bids. The lead player then secretly checks all the bids and announces the winner — the player who bid the most. But only the lead player ha the info at this point...about how large the bid was. If they themselves are the winning player, then, since the bid was open, everybody knows the sum, of course. Everybody is free to underbid, even type 0 and that brings some small benefits from time to time.

But, once per game — the whole game, each player can take a secret look at the winning bid after it has been confirmed by the leading player.

And nobody can reveal information that is, by rules, secret/confidential.

The Catch

The cost of bidding too much is only this — the player who spend the most during the whole game is then removed from the final standings. Or the players tied for the most if by any chance there is a tie. So, in order to win, you need to score the most points by acquiring the best combination of companies, but you also need to be no more than second in terms of money spent.

Then again, the player who spent the least during the whole game receives a bonus of 7 points at the end of the game. Or, again, if there is a tie, all the players tied for the least spending get 7 points each.

Some more rules before we get to the story

Each player starts with a secret company that adds to their combination of both monopoly and diversification. It brings no additional points. It's there just to be counted as another one piece of the Monopoly/Diversification bonus scoring grid.

The 15 tiles with companies that are auctioned during the game can be

Financial
Agricultural
Housing
Technological
Government related. (Don't ask. I don't want to know, either.)

Each company you acquire brings you between 2 and 4 points.
Once during each of the three rounds (a round is the sequence of all five players starting a bid each, i.e. the bids for five out of the fifteen total companies), each player may add 2 points to their account for bidding a 0 sum. Bidding 0 more than once in a round does nothing to your advantage.

Each company has national identity besides its type. The first three companies of your national identity that you acquire also bring you some extra points. Actually, they can't be more than 3, anyway, since 3 companies multiplied by 5 nations equals the total of 15 ;)

Yup, it's a cute bluffing and guessing game. Or an annoying one. Depending on your mindset.

Bidding games are supposed to be wacky, no? I see a problem in this game design but...let's see if you can find the same thing after I tell you...

My QE Story

On my First game, I basically got to know what's going on and how things are done around here.

On my Second game, I ended up in 2nd place. The player who got the First place made it amazingly just 1 Million short of getting a tie with the one who spent the most and got burned for it. That was 2 119 000 000 compared to 2 120 000 000. I had less than 2 000 000 000 spend and I had 34 points at the end of the game. The first place player had 35 points. So it was twice a close one for him.

In both games I played the UK role, which was irrelevant, safe for some role playing opportunities such as saying things in what passes for British accent or showing some disdain for all things EU.

Then, my Third game...

I missed the opportunity to take snapshots of the game templates, by the way, so I am using snapshots I just made of real EU and UK currency to illustrate the tale.

On my Third game, I got the EU role, which was, again, functionally irrelevant. And I got to be the third player to open a bid. meaning, there would be two more bids before it was my turn to set the starting price. Kind of unfortunate. Since I wanted to jump big from the start.

I wanted to play at least in the Billions. But the first player placed a bid of just 1 000 000 of his currency (just reminding you that the game rules say all currencies are equal and it is the numbers that matter).

I wanted to score the Company tile and knowing I intend to go much higher on my turn, I was quite ready to outrageously outbid the secret bids of anybody else. But how was I to know?

I just guessed that most players would go about double the original bid or sometimes a bit more but generally, not that far from the starting price. So, I went 20x, bidding 20 000 000, winning and getting a WoW reaction by the one player who could actually see my bid. Next player to open put a starting price of I don't remember how much but something like 1.5 Million or 2.5 Million. I went for 50 000 000 just to be sure and I did win once more. This time, somebody used their once-per-game scouting ability to learn the price I paid.

Then on my turn...

I opened with 3 500 000 000, i.e. 3.5 Billion, rendering my previously paid prices obsolete. Now, if I wanted to play safe and still have a great start with two free company tiles, escalating but not outrageously so, I could have gone for anything more than my 70 000 000 total so far. Let's say, 100 000 000. But I wanted to make the game fun and go big for everybody. Knowing quite well what the risk was.

They could decide not to bite the big bait. All of them. And, to make things worse, one of the players decided to remind the others that if they let me win and never go near my level, I was about to get burned at the end of the game, basically suggesting they do so and not playing with large numbers. Being quite behind me by that point, that would have some appeal to them all.

I could have announced my counterpoint that should they decide to do so, they would not see much play, either, since I could just keep paying huge numbers and claiming all the trophies. I would be out of the game at the end but they would all have achieved nothing else. Perhaps, if I wanted to win, I should have stated that out loud and clear. Instead, I decided to just reveal these consequences turn by turn. Until something changed or until they wanted us to start a new game.

So, they all decided to let me win the bid and lose the game. At that point, I had no choice but to continue bidding the big numbers. I had all these freakin' money printed already, after all. And nothing but the fear of being the greatest spender, thus losing, was stopping anybody else from printing as much as they liked.

After all, less than a Billion is kind of weak for a top 15 global company, is it not? But let's not get too realistic too soon. Most people are not comfortable with such big numbers for some reason. And that's what I wanted to challenge.

On turn 4 I bid 1 000 000 000 to a starting price of under 10 000 000 and I won.

On turn 5 I did the same.

On turn 6 or 7, somebody finally decided to act and outbid me 1 000 000 001 to 1 000 000 000. I had become complacent and easily predictable. Now, that person had a chance to win the game. I hoped the others would react and do try something themselves. I was basically waiting for that during the whole time. Curious as to when things change even though it was probably late for a decent gaming experience for all.

There was another kind of experience to be gained and lessons to be learned.

On my turn, again, I placed an open for everybody to see price of 6 000 000 000, doubling my total spendings thus far. Were anybody to decide and outbid me, the game would be different, I would be also quite sure to win because by that point, which was turn 8, the very middle of the game, I had 6 tiles out of 15 total, aiming for the 7th one.

But they all let me have it. No fun.

On turn 9, the player next to me decided to put a large-ish price, something like 1 000 000 000 or 2 000 000 000, perhaps and it was his turn to check the bids and see mine.

Well, I decided to go ape**** and bid a casual Trillion. Of the 1 000 000 000 000 variety. Now that player who had the intel decided to publicly announce it was not fun anymore. Instead of trying to calm him down, I provoked him by saying he could just quit if he found it so. And he said he surely was going to. And did.

Awkward...

I am not going to describe everything said after that, because it was only me and two close friends remaining on the table, discussing what was this and what was that...After I got up and went to apologies to the quitter guy and the only lady (from our table). But I returned and started a discussion, mostly with the dude who suggested they make me lose at turn 3. And it was mostly about me not having any choice that a reasonable AI would make after that point.

I am going to leave it to your imagination and I hope for your comments.

An alternate discussion on the same topic, so to speak. Come on, have at me. Let's talk.

If I were to make anything different and if I am to agree with a certain thing my friend said during our discussion, it would be that people do need a more step-by-step approach. The slowly boiled frog. I could have secured victory by taking it and I would not have caused any conflict, actually, in that case.

But the thing that makes me disagree, still, is that to me, it was more important to learn things and to see how others react than to just win and make it another unmemorable game.

Peace!

Manol