More Play Testing.....

So another good play test – 4 people this time. 

The positive – the people new to version 4.0 felt that it zipped along at a much better speed, and the change to RongaRonga to allow you to flip one of your heads rewarded attacking a bit more.  And the quarry having a unique power did make it more of a focus – very attractive to the person with a 4 stone heads for example.  The combat seems to be working well – people trying to work out when to fight –and when to just take it.  Often looking at what is likely to be coming down the line.  The attacker winning mutual wipe outs does lead to a tendency for mutual wipe outs – since in a draw the attacker gets to flip there stone heads and play a RongaRonga.  That might need looking at…….

One good suggestion was a counter ‘totally taboo’ card – since currently the only counter is another ‘totally taboo card’.  Possible effects include allowing the original card to go ahead with a bonus – or blocking the player of the totally taboo card from playing any more cards……  Other funky cards that might be worth adding “remove enemy big man” and the flip “add your big man to a conflict”.  Not too sure about the ‘add a big man’ card as it actually saves you having to spend a food to put somebody on the board…..…  So it’s a two point swing plus.  It could just be remove a warrior a put a big man on the board.  This makes it less flexible but would still allow you to turn a wipe out into situation where you have got your big man left.  Which I think makes it more of a value with other cards (a two point swing in the right circumstances).

One oddity was that the game went on one turn longer than expected because at the end of one turn there were only three hexes with resources – so there a bit of an unexpected turn.  And I was the only person who realised that space to build in that final turn was the most precious resource in the game. Despite that it was still nicely tight – apart from for one player who was staggeringly far behind – in fact so far behind I wonder if they were not taking the VP’s when they placed there stone heads.

The interesting thing was that they went first for most of the game – and it is certainly why they think it’s why they did so badly. 

It’s certainly something I’ve been worried about – it’s why I hesitated about switching move order to being based of resource for so very long – so I’m inclined to believe them.  That said – I’m much happier with the secret VP’s and the flow of the game so it’s a case of making it work rather then going back to what we had.

Now at least part of that player doing so badly is based on decision they made.  They had first pick of the build cards – they could have taken the card that gave them a lot of Giant Stone Heads and hence VP’s but they chose not to.  That left them physically stronger but weak in VP’s which win you the game.  However while they controlled lots of space in the mid game when it has limited value – they lost it lost control of that space in the last turn when it was at its most valuable.

Another thing that happened was that the ‘steal a VP’ card only works on people with more resources then you (so higher in the turn order) – which meant he was always a target for that and could not use the card to claw back at all.  So easy fix there – allow that card to be used anywhere and hope the players us it to pick on what they consider the ‘correct’ opponent is.

This player did however manage to explain why going first is so disadvantageous – it’s because while you get slightly more cards and men then everybody else (and get a better fit to whatever you currently have so your discarding less cards) – when you go first your operating against every other player who is at full strength having just topped out on cards and men.  Even if you do nothing and defend (a dull option at best) then the player coming after you has one less player to worry about…

So some possible fixes…….

Give the player going first some sort of bonus in cards or men.  That’s basically the route the briefly lived shaman cards worked being powerful cards that the person picking first got.  Shaman cards are clumsy and I’m not sold on them – but just a general bonus “first person gets an extra two men, second person gets an extra man” could also work.  Still a bit clumsy in my opinion.

Make the build cards more diverse – at the moment the gap between the best card and the worst card is pretty narrow – widen that and the person going first has a significantly better choice.  A big problem with this (and also the first solution) is that the risk of a positive feedback linked to winning can develop.  I have more resources – so I have more men – so I have more resources…

Another option would be to radically change the game – so players take there build card, place giant stone heads but don’t get there cards and men until there actual turn.  Bit of a radical change – might work – would involve a lot of changes.

A fourth option would be to decouple the number of giant stone heads you get from the men/cards you get.  At the moment each build card has a budget – which works out how many men, cards and giant stone heads that card will have.  Well some cards have a slightly higher budget – a card with lots of giant stone heads will be weaker elsewhere to compensate.   However that link could be removed – either by allowing good all round cards or by making the number of giant stone heads not depend on the card but just on your turn position (so in a 4 player game you get 4 heads if you are going first).

Of them all – I quite like the idea of decoupling the value of giant stone heads.  So, for example,  there will be multiple cards that give you 4 men and 5 cards just with different amounts of stone heads on.  The actual difference in the number of cards and men can stay about the same – but with the existence of those if the person going first is not getting a lot of stone heads then it really is there own fault…..     

Another way of achieving this would be to just increase the budget of the build cards–while just making sure all the budget gets spent on giant stone heads.  I’ll hammer out values at some point – but I doubt I’ll have this ready for a trip to Coventry this weekend – which is where GSH got a lot of it’s early play testing.  Bless ‘em.