Version 3.00 playtest....

....was greeted by somebody going "you've changed a lot since last time."  Which was a rather fair comment.

Broadly the changes worked.  The new resource cards worked - and were much quicker and easier then fiddling things out - but they were felt to be quite samey and needed work.  Which is something I expected - good idea not sure about the values was the feedback.  The death spiral also seemed much less dramatic - one person got hammered down but soon bounced back.  Also need tie breakers for when people have the same values.

Also the board got covered in stone heads - which was a dramatic improvement in terms of name and theme-  and by the end of the game it did feel like you'd messed the island up since there was nothing but stone heads.  Space became a vital resource.

One complaint was that once again there seemed no point to violence if you were at the top of the tree - yes you could do stuff but it would be undone by those going after you.  Stopping your opponent getting VP's  and playing RongoRongo cards did not seem to a viable position.  People seem to be very defensive (not me then I'm playing like I think it should be played). 

The movement cards need sorting - to make them more viable and/or easy to see when there worth using.

A RongoRongo card that activates just for winning a fight might be useful - no bonus VP - just the steal affect to give people an incentive for attacking the wining player.

Renown - originally a reward for violence is now fiddly and adds little. 
Villages and the pool of warriors - not sure they now do much.....  Also at 1 strength they seemed to get burned down a lot - and two they seemed to be pretty much left alone.
The work out resources then work out turn order is fiddly.  And because taking top slot means going first just having more resources is not seen as that useful a thing.

Two good suggestions....

1) Defenders need something to make combat risky because once your out of defensive cards (or perceived to be out) you can be torn apart quickly.....
2) At the moment it's all about building stone heads - there needs to be more point to holding them.  Possibly not through the game - but at the end of the game. 

One other crazy idea I had well typing this - to help balance out the turn order thing - everybody declares there "grudge" for that turn and that's the only person you can attack......  That feels thematic and also funny.  Might make players get cut off if players there are not able to attack seal them in.....

Need to work out what happens next - basically - Stabcon is coming up in a week and I need to take something to play.  Do I bounce another version out the door or do I play test this one another time?  I kind of want to play test this one again......