Version 4.mumble

So this was a three person play test and the first three person play test in a while.  

Overall - pretty damn good.  It's not perfect and as in a lot of 3 person war games two people fighting opens an opportunity for the 3rd person but I can live with 'works for 3 - better for 4'.  Came in at about two hours - which would be 90 minutes if you know what you are doing.  Which is good.

The feedback at the end of the game was positive (from one newbie and one person who played some time ago and thought it much improved) – and I agreed with them.  In particular the person who played before said it now felt like a good length - not dragging on a little like it had before. Much more like a finished game and a good one at that.

There was still a little bit of “not sure going first is worth it” – but a lot less - and the person who held that belief decided they might be wrong.  So the new build cards do what they are meant to - or at least in the right direction.    The actual values need to be determined a bit better.  But that might require some in depth play to decided. 

This rather neatly throws up just how interrelated everything is - there is no way of working out what the build card values should be unless the action cards are fixed.  But how good the action cards are depends heavily on everything else......  

There was also a request for some sort of combat track to help keep track of peoples strength – seems reasonable and easy to do.  We’ve been holding up hands recently to track - so it’s clearly needed these days. 

Four ideas for action cards to get the combat more invovled - thinking that these can replace the standard "one attack or one defence card" as they are a bit bland.

Remove enemy big man

Add your own big man

Draw 3(?) cards when attacked

Counter a taboo card and get some sort of bonus (cards?) for having done so. 

That is the change for this time round – test that and then hopefully fix the action card.  I've already decided that what is on the board is fixed – so then it’s just tweak the build card values to get them right.

It’s coming together I think – the regular Wednesday play tests are coming together - and as always if anybody is interested let me know.