EmDo: Coalition update

 Since my last post, I've played EmDo: Coalition 4 more times, and I've been iterating on a few things. My main goal lately has been to reduce game length, because while it feels pretty good now, it still takes longer than I think it's worth.

Reducing Duration

My friend Steve had a lot of salient suggestions for reducing the games' duration. My first stab at it was to simply reduce the amount of stuff you need to do in order to finish the project. I lopped off a planet slot from each section of the sphere, and I reduced the initial resource slots from 3 per section to 2 per section. In addition to this, I made them resource-specific, because otherwise I think it's too obvious to go for [+1 Action/turn] first every time.

That worked a little, but not enough. My next attempt was to increase the frequency that you get benefits from the sphere. I divorced the technology slots from the resource slots, and where you get your pick of two role icons when you commit a particular pair of planets to the sphere, now you get the other one for committing the level 2 technology in that section. The abilities no longer require the tech, just the 2 specific resources. It occurred to me that to get the resources, you have to first flip planets, then produce, then trade... it takes a while, and it' not even engine-build-y (normally), so this seems like enough work to earn [+1 Hand Size] or [+1 Action per turn].

That's all I've done so far, the only trick I have left up my sleeve might be to use scenarios or something to jump start the players a little bit. But I'm pretty lazy, and that might be tough to design, so I'm kinda hoping I won't be need to do that *fingers crossed*

Endgame Tension

Something that's been a problem all along is that as you fill up the sphere slots with planets (for example), then Survey and Colonize become largely worthless. Similarly, as you fill up the tech slots, Research isn't really needed anymore. Near the end game you get to a point where there are a couple specific things that need to happen, and for several players, there's nothing relevant left to do. This is always disappointing; the game action needs to stay relevant the entire game!

I have two ideas to address that issue, and I'm torn as to which I think might be better for this kind of game:

Option 1. If you win, total everyone's personal Empire scores and refer to a chart to see how you did

Option 2. In order to win, require a minimum number of total Empire points (add everyone's personal Empire score for this)

One thing I like about option 1 is that players who struggle to finish the sphere in time could feel good about just accomplishing the task, and they don't have to worry about how "well" they did, while players who can consistently finish the sphere could still have a higher score to shoot for. Another thing is that you don't need to see the points as you play, which means you don't have to track people's level 2 tech buys so you know they have 2 "invisible" points.

A couple things I like about option 2 are that requiring the condition may keep players involved who prefer a pass/fail sort of game end, but are competent enough to easily complete the sphere. This can also be used as a difficulty tuning knob: for an easier game, use a smaller total score requirement; for a harder game, use a larger score requirement. In addition, this format could allow (or possibly even encourage) plays such as "you are set up to ship a lot, why don't you do that and rake in some points, while we concentrate on completing the planets and techs for the sphere". I don't know why, but that feels cooperative-y to me. On the down side, I feel like I'd want the Empire scores to be state-complete (you could walk up mid-game and count them), and having a level 2 tech in your deck complicates that... so I'd either live it not being state complete, or I'd not count the techs, which seems weird to me.

I really don't know which way to go here. But either way, I think this score reckoning will help keep the game action relevant, even as the sphere fills up. I'm open to other suggestions as well, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

Tension from Aliens

I think the alien tension is kind of OK, I don't intend to change it further - at least for now. I'll probably revisit once I get the duration down and the endgame tension fixed (see above).

Coalition Actions

In an effort to clean up the Coalition tiles, I removed "Action: RFG an alien Spy card from hand" and simply made that an action on the Spy cards themselves. So as an action, you can play a Spy from hand to get rid of it. That's the same thing, but it makes space on the Coalition tile for something more interesting - though I'm not sure what that should be.

I had made some other tweaks as well... with Basic Coalition, you can spend an action to EITHER Bolster OR Repair a card in the sphere. It then goes on to explain what BOLSTER and REPAIR mean, which is reasonable, but maybe another ability would be better (the rules could go into the rulebook). I do like a good player reference...

I tried a version where the tile let you spend an action to commit a card to the sphere. At that time you could commit for free when you obtain the card, or as an action later, as a way to allow players to use their cards for a while and then push them into the sphere. But we didn't waste actions on that, we just did it for free upon obtaining... so the latest rule is that once per turn you may commit one card to the sphere for free (does not cost an action). I think this works better, so it can probably come off the tiles as an action.  

With Improved Coalition, you can both Repair and Bolster in one action, and you can send a ship to defend a stack. I'm pretty happy with the usefulness of Improved Coalition but I'm worried that the Basic side isn't enough -- any thoughts on that would be appreciated!