In finance an asset is anything that generates a cash-flow for the owner. In simpler terms, it’s anything that earns you money.

A lot of board games do not use any form of money, but the idea of an asset is still a useful one to understand certain elements. Let’s assess!

”Assets” in board games

As mentioned, in many board games we do not use money. Thus, the strict definition of a cash-flow (and thus an asset) isn’t particularly useful for board games.

However, one important quality of money (in the real world) is that it is a store of value. Money on its own is hardly useful. You could burn it to stay warm, maybe isolate your house with it or use it as (bad) coloring paper.

It’s only because money can be so easily exchanged for other stuff that it becomes valuable. As discussed in this post on value, in board games value can be expressed as anything that gets you closer to victory.

So even if we can’t easily speak of a “cash-flow”, we can speak of a “value-flow”: Anything that generates value (gets us closer to winning) over time. Alternatively we could speak of a “resource-flow” as just about anything in a board game is a resource (see this post on resources in board games for more info).

An example

In Catan I can buy development cards. Once and awhile I’ll be lucky and draw a “1 victory point” card. This card obviously is valuable (it gets me closer to winning), but it’s not an asset (in the way defined above): It doesn’t generate anything that is of value to us.

Compare this to a village in Catan. A village is also worth 1 victory point, but more importantly (for our current discussion), it generates resources (when the right numbers are rolled), which carry value. Thus, a village can be seen as an asset.

Return on investment

Not all assets give you victory points directly (like the village in Catan). Instead they create value through the “resource flow” they generate.

Let’s take a look at Dominion. For 3 money I can buy a “silver”, which is worth 2 money. So every time I go through my deck and draw that silver I’ll be gaining 2 money, while at the same time there is another card that I’m not drawing. Let’s assume for simplicity that if I don’t buy the silver I’ll draw a copper instead of that silver (this is of course wrong, but it helps in understanding).

So with this simplification I can say that every future time I go through my deck I’m ahead 1 money (drawing the silver worth 2, not drawing the copper worth 1 leaves a difference of 1).

So if I go through my deck 3 more times then I will have “earned back” the initial investment of 3 money. And thus unless the game is ending soon, this will be a worthwhile investment!

However, I have to take into account all the resources I’m using. In this case, I’m using up a “buy”. Especially in the beginning of the game this will hardly matter: If I’m using up the 3 money to buy the silver, I probably won’t have much left with which to buy anything else. Later in the game however buying that silver might mean I’m “wasting” additional money that won’t be used to buy anything with. And in that case it could be better to buy something more expensive, like perhaps a gold?

While it is hard to properly take into account all resources (what’s the value of a “buy”?) I can theoretically calculate how many turns it would take to “earn my investment back”. And if I can guess how long the game is going to last, I can calculate my total “return on investment”, the total amount of resources gained, minus the resources given up to get the asset.

Timing of buying assets

In the real world it generally doesn’t matter so much exactly when you buy an asset, as long as the price doesn’t change too much: Buy a bond today or buy a bond in a year’s time, you’ll be earning a nice amount in the coming years.

Board games however are relatively short in time (in-game time that is): There are few games that lasts a hundred turns and most are over in far fewer than that. Thus, you will need to earn your investment back in the time (turns!) left to play the game.

This makes buying an asset early in the game much more powerful than buying it late-game: You simply have more turns in which you will enjoy the resource-flow.

Yield

Another way of looking at assets it by comparing how much they produce with how much they cost to initially obtain.

The silver in Dominion generates an excess of about 1 money, while it costs 3. This means its “yield” is about 1/3 = 33% per time you go through your deck.

Or if I place a village at a “good” spot in Catan (say a 6, 9 and 10) then in a 4 player game it’ll generate on average 1.3 resources every round. It costs 4 resources, thus yield would be about 1.3 / 4 = 33% per round. (However, I should probably add in the cost of building two roads before I can build a village, which reduces the yield to 1.3 / 8 = 17%)

Compare this to real life: I’ve you’re earning 10% per year you’re doing very well indeed with your investments!

Scaling up

Early game assets can generate pretty good resource-flows over the course of the game. And thus they will generally “earn themselves back”. Building something late-game however can mean that you are investing more than you will ever be able to get out of it. There are two ways around this.

First, you can make late-game investments (even!) more lucrative. Catan does this with its cities. It takes a while before you get the required resources (especially that 3 ore tends to be difficult). But you’re rewarded with an even better yield! If you place your city where the village from the previous example was it will generate an excess 1.3 resources per round, while the investment is (only) 5. Thus the (extra) yield of a city (over that of the village it replaces) is 1.3 / 5 = 26%.

The second way is by making sure that an investment is always worthwhile by giving something immediately when it is built. Catan takes the simplest form here, with villages and cities being worth a victory point. Thus, even if the game will end this round, it will most certainly be a good idea to build that village!

Compare this to Dominion, where buying a silver or gold does absolutely nothing towards your final point total. And thus you will see that there is a clear shift in what players will buy when the game progresses: In the beginning you want a gold whenever you can get it. But at some point it becomes better to take a duchy instead, because that gold will simply not earn itself back.

Opportunity cost

There is one more important element to mention when talking about assets and investments: Opportunity cost.

Simply put, you can only spend your resources once. When you build a city in Catan you are not using those resources to trade, or to buy development cards with. Instead of a silver in Dominion I could be buying a village. Which is better?

This of course depends on the situation: If one more point will win you the game then build that city. But if you need two then perhaps two development cards will get you exactly what you need to finish that longest route or get the largest knight army.

These kinds of concerns however are generally only at the end of the game: In the beginning it almost always makes sense to go for what gives the highest return on investment over the course of the game: Taken over all future turns, what will give me the most resources?

Time value

Now there’s a snag even there: Something earlier is worth more than something later, exactly because I can invest it to generate more resources: Would you rather get 4 wood right now, or 5 wood 10 turns from now? If you’re a half-way decent player you’ll be able to turn those 4 wood into many more resources over 10 turns.

In other words, there is a time value component to these calculations as well.

What this means for us as designers

I can just imagine you thinking: “Wow, all of that is really complicated!”

And you’d be right. Which is a shame, because there are some really nice things you can do with all of this. For instance, doing proper calculations you would be able to determine the value of anything in your game and through that do perfect numerical balancing without ever having to do a single playtest!

Unfortunately, games very quickly get too complex to actually do that.

Which sucks. But it is also a very much a good thing!

Because this also means it is hard for players to do. And thus “assets” and other investments are a great source of interesting decisions: ”Should I invest and reap the rewards throughout the rest of the game, or should I go for the certain victory points?”

And even better, these assessments will shift throughout the game. Early game investments are well worth it (but which one do I select?!), while in the late game it’s not clear whether you should invest or not.

Different kinds of investment

We’re all well aware of buildings that generate wood and stone. But board games give the creator immense freedom: You can have a resource-flow for any resource!

What would happen if something were to generate extra workers, actions or turns with some regularity? It would be very strong of course, but you could set the cost high to make the yield still acceptable.

Can your game use something that gives out a combination of resources? Both cards and stone? Movement and victory points?

And what are the costs of an investment? Here as well you can ask for anything that is in your game. Give up a turn, move backwards, remove your discard pile. Or maybe still just one wood and one stone? 🙂

Closing thoughts

Assets and investments have been part of board game design since at least Monopoly and thus are certainly not new. What might be new though is the way of looking at them I presented here. Assets and investments are part of the in-game economy.

Assets create resources, allowing for engine building and for ramping up your game to a higher speed.

And while full calculations are hard to do, they can help to gain more insight: How many resources could an asset generate in a best-case scenario? How about a worst-case scenarios? And would it normally fall somewhere in between those two extremes?

I hope you feel this post is an asset to you!

Further reading

This post is part of a series on in-game economics.

One element that is used in this post is that resources are finite.

And assets allow for feedback loops.

The idea of opportunity cost is also discussed in this post on cost and value in board games.

About the author

Hi, I’m Bastiaan. The goal of this blog is to learn about game design. That’s hopefully for you as the reader, but just as much for me as the writer.

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