In Defense of Heat (sort of)

Now, I know, this game is critically acclaimed, won awards, hugely popular, a LOT of people love it. However I've seen a couple common critiques I'd like to address in a decently rambly stream of consciousness. Now, do note I am far from desiring to judge someone's game preferences. Everyone has different tastes, and that's good! I just think in this specific case, some of the things people seem to dislike I just don't believe are actually real problems with the game. 

Problem 1: Too simplistic of decisions

On it's face, I understand how people could think this. You gauge the distance to the next corner and try to park in front of it, or if you're within range push through the corner as close to the speed limit as possible. For experienced gamers this is pretty easy to get the hang of, you just look at your hand and gear and try to do that math to hit your target. Repeat for the whole race, game ends, meh. 

However, once the players improve there's actually a LOT of subtle strategy. Placing the car with what you have is (hopefully) easy enough, but the choice of where exactly to put it to optimize FUTURE turns is where things get dense. For example; as you approach a corner, you may have the choice to use your speed to get to right in front of the corner, but what if you could save a low speed card by instead slipstreaming off of someone you think will land a space in front of the ideal spot? Then you can hold the speed 2 card which you likely need for the corner, and therefore reduce your luck of the draw. Maybe you want to pull back on the corner and not be in the lead, to allow you to slipstream off of somebody else as you go round and gain two free space. Can you finesse your hand to stay in gear 3 as you go around to avoid paying a heat to shift from gear 2 to 4? Is that worth it vs cooling a card from your hand in gear 2? Mathematically they even out, but depending on where you are on the track or your hand this decision could change; do you need to clear a heat out of your hand to cycle your deck faster, or do you hold it and cool the next corner to actually put a usable heat back into your engine? If it would require one or two heat to get around the corner guaranteed, do you take the risk of potentially missing it but saving heat by going right in front of the corner and bet on nailing a slipstream? How likely is this based on other cars position and heat usage? And in addition, you have to try to avoid being easy slipstream targets for other cars; do you slow down unexpectedly to avoid giving a slipstream and free two spaces to the next place racer? How does that impact your ability to make the next corner in one turn vs theirs? Do they have superior straightline upgrades to you and therefore force you to make your gains on the corners where others may be weaker (or vice versa)? 

There are also bigger strategic considerations to make that force you to judge the track correctly. How damaging is it if I fall behind a bit to cool in corner X vs corner Y? Where do I NEED to be with the pack vs where are positions easily recoverable? Is there advantage to actually not leading in certain spots, can I do something unexpected to throw everyone else off? Do I want to bet I can cycle to a certain card by a certain location to set up a specific play? How much risk do I need to take to catch up? Eg, you usually need to burn heat to keep up on the slow speed corners, but high speed ones may not be quite as necessary to make at the same time depending on the straightaway following. If you make the wrong decision your race may be screwed. 

All these seemingly minor decisions compound throughout the race to give certain cars an edge (and we haven't even talked about stress card usage!). If you can eek out being one heat more efficient every other corner, eventually that'll allow you to burn it to jump out unexpectedly on a future corner, boost an additional time on a straightaway while they need to reserve it for cornering, etc.  

And this leads to the next major complaint... Nothing matters until the end. This is sort of true, but if you feel like the end is random, it could be because you are LETTING it be random. The last half of the last lap, you need to start thinking how to shift gears to maximize the heat in your hand vs when to spend it to gain spaces. Spending one heat to go one over a speed limit isn't usually great, but if it gives me a chance to nail a slipstream saving me one additional heat going through the final corner, which in turn ensures I can boost, then it's what you want to do. Can you reserve enough heat and save enough low cards from the second straightaway of the lap to stay up in gear three at the end to make upshifting easy? Is it advantageous for me to drop to gear one and lose a place two corners before because the extra cooling lets me be safe making corners vs having to rely on the luck of an opponent being where I need them to be to slipstream? How early do I start holding speed 3 and 4 cards in my hand to play on the final straight; how badly do I need to cycle to avoid spinning out accidentally if I hold the cards? The tricky part is that if you have any heat left in your engine as you cross the finish line, you (very likely) haven't maximized your final speed. Which means the whole final sector every car is usually riding a knife's edge of heat deficit all the way to the end. Cars that mismanaged their hand or heat will falter as they cross the final corner, tossing a couple 2's and a 3 and praying their final boost is enough to pass someone; those that were able to hold the right cards and stay in the right gears will launch ahead. There's nothing more satisfying than deploying your carefully held triple 4's as you slam into gear four after the final turn, having managed your final corner exit to perfection. Now, yes, at the very end you will usually have a couple cars that pass others through the final boost. However, this doesn't feel too bad considering you had an entire two laps to gain meaningful separation and didn't, so letting it come down to a bit of luck is fine; plus it creates those excitingly tense moments of elation or despair that makes board games fun and memorable. Also, these kind of even out in a way, in that if you have all your 4's in hand to play you naturally can't pull one on your last boost, while there's a better chance of doing so if you don't have any in hand, and you also could perhaps have made decisions on what to dump from your hand to try to influence this once you made your last shuffle a couple turns prior. 

Then you add in the championship series of races, and now there's an even DEEPER overall strategy to consider. How hard you push in a race may depend on where you and the other cars are in the championship. Of course you want to win every race, but the aggressiveness of risks may change based on your standings. There are also the sponsorship cards; whether you deploy them this race or save them for the next is something to consider all throughout. One time a player near the back spent a ton of heat and lost a place to nab a couple extra sponsorship cards which lead to them landing a podium the next race, because the sponsors are almost all among the best cards in the game overall. But that's a risk because every point matters and I've seen being in 5th vs 6th for one race determine who was on the season podium vs not. This is why seasons are easily the best way to play Heat (and I love single races), because it makes the whole field have something to fight for regardless of where you are. In one race, get 4th vs 5th, eh whatever it's more about winning. But in race 1 of a season that could make all the difference in the future, and every overtake you make feels significant. In a way, passing someone at the flag to nab the last spot in the points has nearly as much of an emotional effect as going from 2nd to 1st! 

Finally a quick word on the common complaints regarding the expansions. The amazing thing about Heat is how many different situations can occur and what a huge range of decisions need to be made. Every track has it's own nuances, which are further modified every race by weather effects and the season race effect.  Often those can combine in unique ways that totally turn the usual strategy for a section on its head and require some intense problem solving to beat out your opponents. One track has some new element, and the other is more "classic" but still feels unique and different, so if you aren't feeling the water/tunnels/gravel there still is something new there; I’m glad they do this, it’s a great sign when designers can create interesting new experiences without adding on a new mechanic. Upgrades and the draft of course add a ton too, and influence your cycling and overall management significantly to try to maximize them, and cause players to make unique decisions from the "stock" outlook and have to guess how each other will react. This is why I don't have much of an issue with the way the expansions work. The game itself, as I've said a lot obviously, has quite a lot of strategic depth already. I feel no real need to add any complexity to it; but the VARIETY is simply enchanting. A new track, new type of upgrade symbol to sprinkle in, and new championship season adds more than enough to make them all worth it to me. Just give me more things to tinker with and learn to handle instead of adding something new to the game as a whole, so every race feels different.

To sum this all up, I think there is SIGNIFICANTLY more strategy than some reviews seem to pick up on. Every turn influences every turn after it in some way or another, and seemingly very minor decisions in play stack up throughout the game and can be decisive. As I said at the start, if it's not your type of game, no problem! I just felt like explaining some of the decision space in depth that others may have missed.