It’s your turn.
You have three possible moves.
Each move nets you a single resource, none of which is inherently better than the others.
You consider each move carefully.
You’re about to make a move…
...but the person after you already has one of the resources.
And the person before you also has a different resource.
None of the available goals align with any of these spots.
You reach for your pawn
But you stop.
Where to go?
You look at the board again.
You consider.
Then you consider again.
Oh no. Thomas has his phone out.
Mandy is sighing.
Brenda asks if anyone needs a drink refill.
And you’re still holding your player pawn with no clear path in front of you.
You’ve hit analysis paralysis.
What is Analysis Paralysis?
Analysis paralysis isn’t exclusively a board gaming problem. For some people, it’s about the sheer number of decisions they have in front of them. For others, it’s the perceived consequences of making a bad decision. And sometimes, you just don’t want to look stupid in front of your friends.
ANALYSIS PARALYSIS
noun
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The inability to make a decision because every possible move has been analyzed, re-analyzed, and compared to 17 hypothetical future turns.
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The condition in which everyone else at the table has already ordered food while you are still deciding whether moving one cube is “optimal.”
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See also: “Wait, let me think.”
Thinking, evaluating your options, and then making a decision – that’s normal.
Thinking, evaluating your options, considering everyone else’s moves, consulting a decision tree, re-evaluating your options, second-guessing your math, forgetting what you were doing…
That’s analysis paralysis.
Why Board Games are So Good at Causing AP
Board games are elaborate systems designed for you to make decisions.
Some decisions are very simple. In Carcassonne – take a tile, place a tile, maybe put a meeple down. Done.
Some board games pose far more challenging decision trees. One of my favorites, Great Western Trail, involves choosing how far to move, which actions to take, which path to walk along, whether to discard or not, and how quickly you want to make it to Kansas City.
And that’s not even one of the hardest games in our collection.
And some games have extremely long-term consequences. Everdell, despite being a cute-looking game with small anthropomorphic animals living their lives in the forest, is one of those games where if you mess up during the spring, you’ll face consequences for the rest of the seasons.
Good board games are often good at causing analysis paralysis because the hidden information, randomness of cards or resources, and variable end-game triggers means there is no single optimal move.
Because the best move now isn’t the best move later, and the best move later may turn out to be the worst move the turn after that.
So instead of all your decisions looking equally good, they actually look equally bad.
So what’ll it be?
The Six Stages of Analysis Paralysis
Stage 1: “Oh, clearly…”
There’s one optimal move,
Your hand stretches out with your player marker.
You notice, out of the corner your eye, that Michael cracks a smile.
Stage 2: “What does he know?”
Just what exactly caused you to make that face, Michael?
What do you know that I don’t?
Stage 3: “There it is”
Oh.
If I go there, Michael plans to go there, and he’ll complete an objective.
But that spot doesn’t help me, unless…
Stage 4: “Re-optimize the plan”
I could go over there to take that goal the following turn.
So now I need to go here.
Stage 5: “But what if…”
What if it gets taken because I abandoned my initial move?
What if Michael decides to abandon his strategy and take my original strategy?
Stage 6: Despair.
Three choices, where once there was one.
And from that first move, three more paths.
And from there…
You started with a decision tree.
You have created a decision forest.
And you are lost in that forest. And it’s getting dark.
Someone asks “hey, is it still your turn?”
You can barely hear them over the sounds of the woods.
Game Styles Especially Prone to Analysis Paralysis
Worker placement: You aren’t just choosing where to place your worker, you’re also setting up roadblocks on your opponent’s paths to victory.
Engine Building: Where one cog can power a machine, or spin uselessly off to the side. Will you create an unstoppable pile of victory points, or two pounds of coal and a single coin?
Action Selection: This is all about optimizing your timing. Is now the best time? Probably not. Or is it next turn? Could be. The turn after that? Maybe.
Resource Conversion: Is this a collection? No. It’s a mad race to build the greatest optimization puzzle of all time, in which results start to show up fifteen turns from now.
Area Control: Moving one piece can disrupt the plans of everyone else. That’s good. But every piece they move can disrupt every move you make. Let us consider the consequences of every outcome...
When Good Strategy Becomes Overthinking
At the end of the day, analysis paralysis is influenced by every element of game night – from the game, to the mechanics, to how it was taught.
But game night isn’t always about winning. It’s about joy.
Analysis Paralysis can be the arch enemy of joy, if you let it. Not only for you, but for the others at your table.
Make a good move. You don’t need to make the absolute optimal move. You just need to make a good move. And a good move is good enough.
Enough good moves? You might even get a win.
And if a “good move” turns out to be bad? That’s the kind of moment that memories are made of.
Remember that time you ended the game with ten red resources, but no greens?
And all you needed was just one green.
That’s a great moment that your game group will remember forever. In the moment, it might feel like it was made at your expense. Actually, it was made because you were there.
You were the most valuable part of the experience.
Remember: There is no perfect move. There is only the move you eventually make after everyone at the table has aged several years.
Playing with someone who has AP
If you play with someone who has a bit of analysis paralysis, how can you handle this?
Do:
- Teach games by consistently pointing to the reference card – they might not remember that the list of options is right in front of them.
- Give them space and time to think.
- Celebrate the mistakes.
- Be a gracious loser.
- Praise their quick turns, even if they’re rare.
Don’t:
- Rush them. Panic makes the decision making process slower.
- Play their turns for them. Nobody likes a quarterback.
- Make fun of a slow turn. They’ll just become more self-conscious.
- Leave the table. If they do make their move…finally…now it’s you who is holding up the game.
And if you've decided that analysis paralysis isn't a problem to be solved but a personality trait to be proudly displayed...
Well, we have a shirt for that.
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