Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Further Warmonger thoughts

A couple of things that came to mind which I'd like to get down before I forget them...

* There should probably be some VP for having your Dreadnaught mini in play - probably 2 or 3. I'll note that this could have an effect when you 'spend' a Dreadnaught to attack a planet (or for a Military Campaign) - if you never get it back, that 'costs' you some VP. However, if you do get it back later (since you can only have 1 Dreadnaught) then it doesn't cost VP.

Edit: I'm thinking 2vp for Dreadnaught, up that to 4vp on the Upgraded Fleet side - see below

* I could put an 'upgrade' cost listed at the bottom of the Fleet tile, then on the back I could have an upgraded Fleet tile on which it only costs only 2 Fighters to get a Destroyer and only 1 Destroyer to get a Dreadnaught. I like the sound of that. For a player who wants to use their Dreadnaught for things, they can upgrade their fleet instead of getting a Level 2 technology (The cost would be "5 Fighters / 5 Research" like the other level 2 Warfare tech, and you'd do this as a Research role - so it's just a tech card that everyone has access to). There wouldn't be any points on the back, except for those which apply when you have your Dreadnaught in play. Or maybe there could be 2vp simply for flipping your tile (like other L2 techs), and additional VP for getting your Dreadnaught. Either way.

Edit: As above, I'm thinking 0vp for flipping, but 2vp for Dreadnaught and 2 more vp for Flip + Dreadnaught

I think I could still have the Destroyer Tech and Dreadnaught Tech cards in the stacks, I think they're still interesting.

* The more I think about the expensive start planets the more I don't want to decrease their cost. I think instead I'll create 3 more with the opposite cost (6 Colonize/5Warfare) which are otherwise the same, and then say that during setup you get 1 random cheap planet and 1 random expensive planet, choose 1 for the game.

* The more I think about cheap Start planets with symbols the more I don't want them in the game. They defeat the entire purpose of early game surveying. I suppose I could add some cheap planets that are not a Type and therefore do not do research (maybe cheap Utopian planets, or cheap Prestige planets?) Would that be interesting?

* I COULD add something like Utopian Start Planets, which have a symbol but don't (by themselves) help with research, and potentially Prestige starting planets which are worth 3 or 4 vp but are otherwise useless.

3 comments:

Symgnostikos said...

I'm thinking these are some good ideas :)

Agile Open Northwest 2024 said...

Likes:

- 2 planets & pick 1. This was one of the suggestions of others in my group.

- 2-sided fleet cards (& VP's for Dreadnought). Dreadnought wasn't being utilized due to costs (and required number of actions) and this may streamline that, as well as give you the option of takinig more VPs.

Dislikes

- No symbols on starting planets! Even if it's Utopian, the symbols are too powerful in the beginning. Points don't matter. The boost that one player gets from a symbol early will weigh the game in one players favor, unless all the planets have the same symbol. Randomness screws someone in this case.


Other than that, it's coming together nicely.

Seth Jaffee said...

Paige: Thanks for your comment!

The "choose 1 of 2 Start planets" is how I've actually done it from the beginning, but more specifically I'm thinking it should be "choose between expensive and cheap Start planets"

As for cheap Start planets with symbols - I was thinking it could be good IF it meant that you couldn't do Research (which is what a Utopian planet does, and Utopian planets already exist, so I wouldn't have to invent a new type of planet). My latest updated set has changed those 6 planets with symbols into Utopian planets... and I'm thinking to keep the number down I might just not include Research, Colonize, or Warfare on those - that might be better.