by ghorsche
Secret VP chips help people who are prone to AP to avoid trying to make decisions based on the exact score. I can be such a person myself when I'm trying to be maximally competitive (like back during the height of my 2-player Dominion obsession), so I appreciate hidden VP systems and try not to go out of my way to count points exactly in games that use them. SmallWorld's another great example, and one where it's even more important to a typical group trying to have a fun (but not too serious!) play session that nobody should be able to easily know the exact score.If you want to be maximally competitive, sure, you should be tracking the score. If you play with other folks who all want to be maximally competitive with each other, there's nothing stopping you from playing a variant with open VP chips, and you should definitely do that if you think it will be more fun for your group :) Personally I think that would make Troyes a little less fun for me.