Eminent Domain: Escalation LIVE on Kickstarter!

Escalation, the expansion to my deck building card game Eminent Domain just went live on Kickstarter.
(Edit: now with more pictures!)

We're trying something a little bit new this time - a short (12 day) project! We hope that this "Quickstarter" format will do the necessary portion of what we need Kickstarter to do, without forcing everyone to slog through a month or two of tweets, FB statuses, updates, and all the other sorts of marketing that can accompany this type of fundraising endeavor.

Eminent Domain has an audience, and my theory is that the majority of the funding we gain will occur in the first couple of days, and at the last minute. Some projects do benefit from a longer format, especially if they're receiving backers each day from people just surfing Kicstarter.com... but we've got more projects to do, so we're trying this Quickstarter format to see if we can make the entire experience better for the backers, as well as reduce the total time spent pre-production (which means you'll get the games that much sooner!)

If you like Eminent Domain, then I'm sure you'll love Escalation. For those that haven't been following my blog, the expansion adds a bunch of new content including:

* 5 player support
* New tech
* New planets
* Scenarios
* Fleet (rules for the different ship models)

If you've never played EmDo, or if you've played and enjoyed it but don't own a copy, then you should also check out the Kickstarter project - there are reward levels which include the base game and the expansion at a hefty discount!

You can also help by spreading the word... use Twitter, FaceBook, Google+, or any other social media you are into and let people know about the project! If you'd like, here's an avatar image you can use...

If you hate EmDo, then by all means you should skip the Kickstarter project this time... but if that's the case I think it's unlikely you're reading this ;)

I'm excited this expansion is finally coming to light. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Enjoy!

Continued EmDice Thoughts

It occurred to me today that perhaps I've overlooked something for EmDice.

I had noticed that whenever possible, you want to Follow a role, get a little something, and re-roll the dice - but occasionally you might have only 1 Warfare symbol, but 3 Trade symbols, and you might opt to Dissent Warfare in order to re-roll the Trade symbols.

In the card game, you either get to Follow or Dissent. In the dice game you (currently) sort of get to do both. That's kinda lame. So my next game I think I'll try this...

* Whenever you use a die, you set it aside in a "used" pile, where it is out of play until further notice.
* Dissenting rules do not change, you may re-roll active dice of 1 type (+1 die for each "re-roll +1" power).
* During your Cleanup phase (at the end of your own turn), you may set aside as many of your remaining dice as you want, then re-roll all 'used' dice back into your Empire.

This might work a little better, and at the same time it might clean up the confusion that some players have had about which dice you need to re-roll and when.

Edit:
I did try this last night, and... well, the Jury's still out. In some ways it was better, but in some ways I'm not sure I liked it as much.

For those printing and playing EmDice, I would be very interested in your opinions after playing each of those ways. Which do you prefer (as a player), and why?

Thanks!

EmDice Print and Play! and a PSA to Designers, Prototyper, and PnP'ers

For those interested in printing and playing dice games, I am happy to present the prototype files for

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game (EmDice)

Since the tiles and tech board used my old prototype art and not art from the published game, I have also provided sticker files for making dice using consistent icons. Please excuse the difference between the prototype art and the published game art!

Also, please excuse the fact that the Produce role used to be called Harvest.

I'm VERY interested to hear if anybody tries this out and if so, what you think of it in the comments below! In case of emergency you can contact me directly with questions, but you'll have to be resourceful enough to figure out how (it should be very easy).

Public Service Announcement to all Game Designers, Prototypers, and PnP'ers

The entire prototype fits nicely into a small size USPS Flat Rate Box, which you can pick up for free at your local US Post Office. Heck, they'll even deliver packs of 10 or 25 to your home for free. I have found that many prototypes can be made to fit into this size box, which is very handy for transporting them, not to mention shipping them to potential playtesters or publishers.

Obviously games with large boards or many bits may not fit into such a small box, but when possible - do yourself (and others) a favor - size your prototype boards and bits to fit this box!

Thanks!

Gamesmiths - most productive session in ages!

To tell you the truth, I'd been losing faith in our local little game design meetup: Gamesmiths. The last time I went I ended up sitting alone for 1.5 hours. Today however was a much different story!

Bomb Squad Robot by David Short and Dan Keltner
 I am a big fan of Antoine Bauza's Hanabi. At Gen Con last year I played that game for 12 hours straight! I've had a few ideas about using the mechanism of Hanabi to power a bigger game, but I've not really put that much thought into exactly how that would work. Well, David and Dan have come up with a game about programming a bomb squad robot to navigate a building, rescue hostages, and diffuse bombs.

We played a 6 player game of BSR, discussed some possible changes, then tried another game (5p this time) with some of those. The first game was a little shakey, with lots of great comments left and right from the outset. The second game however was really fun!

The basic idea is that you have cards which program the robot to move, open a door, rescue a hostage, or diffuse a bomb. Each of those categories has 3 levels (1/2/3) - so effectively you have 1-3 of 4 different suits. Like Hanabi, you don't get to see your hand. Your turn consists of playing a card, discarding a card, activating the robot, or giving someone a clue. But in this game, discarding doesn't give you a clue token (clues are not limited by tokens) - instead it regenerates the robot's batteries - which you'll need to do in order to succeed. Playing a card is less intense than Hanabi - when you play a card, you put it into one of the 'register slots' on the board, face down (you don't even get to look at it). When you fill the last register slot, the robot automatically activates - you pick up all the face down cards and arrange them in any order you like, then the robot carries out those instructions. The trick is that the robot must completely carry out each card, and if there's a mistake (like trying to open a door when there's no door to open), it uses up extra battery power. Activating the robot costs 2 battery power + 1 more per card, so to be efficient you want as many cards as possible per activation... but it's not trivial to remember all of the cards that have been played.

If you choose to activate the robot before all of the registers are full then it will cost you your turn, but you get an added benefit - the option to discard one of the cards. This will save you from accidental mistakes or changes in planning which would otherwise cost battery power. If you run out of battery power, then you lose the game!

That description includes some of the comments that came up after the first game. The biggest change between game 1 and game 2 though was the game clock. instead of clicking down a track every single player turn (which was tedious), Dan just started a timer on his phone. Every 10 minutes, the next bomb would explode (if we didn't disarm it first). This worked marvelously, and in production one would assume there would be a soundtrack like the one in Escape.

We discussed the scoring in the game, and I think in the end we found a score system that made sense - 1 point for each hostage still alive on the board, and face value (+1) for each hostage rescued and each bomb diffused. The face values are 1/2/3, and the higher the value, the harder it is to rescue/diffuse.

All in all, it was a fun game, and I would be happy to play it again.

Skyline: Landmarks by David Short
David also had with him an expansion to his dice game Skyline, which TMG published (as a stretch reward for Ground Floor). The expansion adds event cards, another type of die to help build buildings, and special building tiles (Landmarks) which you get by cashing in specific combinations of buildings.

We played a 3 player game of that, and I think the expansion does improve the game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game by Seth Jaffee
Finally, I got a chance to play a 3 player game of EmDice. Overall I'm very happy with that playtest. It flowed really well. David asked right away why a player can't re-roll any/all of their dice during cleanup, like in the card game where you can discard anything. I realized that I had no answer, so I decided to play that way this time and see how it went. I wasn't unhappy with the way it was working in the last few playtests, but I think it's safe to say I like this better. Seems like an obvious thing - not sure why that wasn't my first choice for the rule. I think maybe I was trying to make die manpulation powers more valuable.

David and Dan were not thrilled with the relative lack of control over what you roll, but I'm not sure that's really a problem in a dice game. David did make an interesting comment - that a fundamental dynamic of the card game (the deck learning) is completely missing. He would like to see a track for each role, where you'd advance your marker when taking the role, and every few advances on each track would give you an additional symbol for that role. It's not a bad idea at all, but I don't know if I like adding that to to the game. It's extra components and fiddliness, and I'm not sure it's really necessary.

Another suggestion, one I will implement for the next playtest, is to combine the first tech in each track. So the first time you research, you have to have any 1 planet, and pay 3 Research icons of course. From there you can move up any track, so long as you have the appropriate planet in play. The only real difference here is that this way you can only get the Re-roll: +1 die once.

The game length seemed OK. I'm still using 30 tokens in the supply (that's how many blank tiles I happened to have with the planet tiles), and by the time the game end triggered we each had about 4 planets face up, about 2 traded resources, and a few tech upgrades. I'm not sure how many tokens I should have in the supply, but I'm more and more convinced that the mechanism will be fine.

All in all a great night of playtesting!

EmDice: Zeroing in...

I played another game of EmDice last night. Still just 2 player, this time with Mike (not John), and this time with a strict game end timer: When the supply of Resource/Fighter/VP chits runs out, game over.

Game End Timer

I'll clarify, this is the initial end trigger I had expected to use, but I was very hesitant (and still am) to have the game timer affected by both produce and Warfare roles, and with Fighters coming out of the supply and then going back in as well, I thought that might be weird. I am a little worried that Fighter hoarding will cause some kind of problem, and mostly I'm worried about the wildly variable game length that I expect from this trigger...

However, it's very possible that I've gotten all worked up about nothing. The timer seemed to work well enough last night - very well in fact. In the 2p games with John, neither of us were ever able to get to the top of any of the tech tracks, but we finished with 12+ planets in play (too many, I think). In last night's game (2p with Mike), Mike got to the top of a tech track (concerted effort - he specifically took 2 planets with Research symbols on them, and got a 3rd on his way up the Advanced track). We ended the game with about 6 planets each - a much better number I think.

Now, there were some differences in the game setups that could account for some of this... John and I never really used a game end trigger, we just played for a while and then stopped. We went on much longer than we would have if the token supply trigger existed. So we had lots of planets and lots of trading points, but oddly still didn't manage to top out a Research track. Also, in the game vs. Mike I had added some Dice Manipulation to the 1st level of each track, and Mike got that right away. I used too powerful an effect as well - so he was dissenting at the end of his turn each turn (choosing a set of dice to re-roll, AFTER rolling the dice he'd used).

So I think I've decided to embrace that game end trigger that I've been fearing, and see if it proves to be a problem or not. I'll just add enough tokens to the supply to make sure the game lasts long enough. Who knows, maybe it's perfect.

On the down side, there's no guarantee the game will ever end that way. I think it's unlikely to go on forever, because producing and trading is quite lucrative, but if you don't do it, then the trigger could theoretically never happen. I could try adding backup/fail-safe game end triggers, such as "Top of each Tech track is reached" or "Planet supply is exhausted," but there's no real guarantee that either of those things will happen. One nice thing about the card game was that the stacks were the game end trigger, and each player takes a card from the stacks each turn no matter what.

Tech updates:

We tried allowing multiple tech buys if you could afford it, but I don't think I liked that too much. I'll probably go back down to 1 tech buy per turn.

After the last game I have made the following updates to the tech board...

1. Specialization/Genetic Engineering give you +1vp each time you LEAD Trade/Produce roles, not just participate in them. Just seems more correct.
2. Clarification: Adaptability ("Research icons are wild") refers to icons on DICE, not on planets or from Data Network.
3. "At the end of your turn: Dissent" was too strong, and I didn't like how you had to roll your dice first, then think about what to re-roll. Instead I want to use "Re-roll: +1 die" - meaning "When you are re-rolling dice (from using them or dissenting), you may pick up 1 additional die and re-roll it as well." That will also be the effect of the planets with the "+1 Hand Size" icons.

I think that last one will give a fair amount of dice manipulation, and won't be too good if you manage to get it 2 or 3 times. I thought about "Set 1 die to any face" but I don't like the sound of that, especially when you can get it 3 times. Setting 1/2 your dice makes it no longer much of a dice game!

I'll re-post the current rules below:

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game
V1.3

Components
28 Role Symbol Dice (6/player + 1/player for Oversight Committee)
36 Planet tiles (12 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
+/- 36 Fighter / Resource / VPs tokens
Draw bag
Tech board
16 Tech markers (4 in each player color)

Setup
* Set the tech board in the center of the table and put all the Tech markers on or near it.
* Place 1 die per player on or near the Oversight Committee tech space.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag. Draw 5 planet tiles and place them FACE UP above the Survey slots on the Tech board.
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random and places it FACE DOWN in their Empire. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.
Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Settle or Attack them, Produce and Trade resources, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire with symbols matching the role symbol to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The player also gets a Leader Bonus of +1 Role Symbol (+2 Role Symbols for Survey).

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until the supply of Fighter/Resource/VP tokens is exhausted. When the game is over, Influence is counted and a winner is determined. Count 1 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology (the tech board currently reads the total influence you get, so you don't add the levels below your marker). The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol (2 for Survey) as a Leader bonus.
Survey  
Above the Tech board there is a display of face up planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a draw bag (or a face down draw stack). Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the bag (or stack) to fill the missing slot. The planets are refreshed after each planet is taken.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon OR Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Attack a planet when following!

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must spend as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Settle a planet when following!

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply. (Actually, they're never taken FROM the supply, so no sneaky triggering the game end when you cannot hold the resource!)

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile. Each of these tokens will be worth 1 Influence at the end of the game.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the planet prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, Metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd and 4th spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 5th space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* Re-roll: +1 Die (When you're about to re-roll dice, you may pick up 1 additional die and reroll it as well).
* +1 Die (Take a 7th die from the Oversight Committee tech space).
* +1 Role Symbol.
* Colonize die faces = Produce die faces.
* +1 Influence when you lead Trade.
* +1 Influence when you lead Produce.
* -1 to all Warfare costs.
* Research icons on dice can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, dissent again.
* After your role, attack a planet.
* Trade Fighters like resources.
* You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

EmDice Prototype Progress

One of my faithful readers was nice enough to create and send me a jpg that could be printed out on full sheet labels to create stickers to make EmDo dice. Thanks for that! Pretty soon I'll be creating a print and play package for EmDice which includes that sheet as well as my tech board and planet tiles.

In the meantime, I stickered up 2 players worth of dice last night. It was a little more work than it should have been, because - well - nothing ever works like it's supposed to, and I always seem to have to do things the hard way :/ But anyway, I now have pretty dice - which are strictly speaking not necessary - I could have continued to use numbers - but eventually I'll want this to help get people to play with me.

I also updated my Tech board. Turns out I was wrong in my last post about some of the techs - I had already did things like replace Dissension with "Colonize die faces = Produce die faces" (a much stronger ability, befitting level 3) for example. At any rate, I made some of the modifications I had talked about, and of course was unable to make a PDF out of it. Apparently I do not have a PDF printer thingy, I'll have to go online and download one, if my old-ass computer can handle that :/

Sorry to rant. The point of this post is that I have updated some stuff, and if it tests well (and I can figure out how), I'll provide print and play files for people to try the game out!

... I still need a game end trigger though. I will probably start with some Resource limit (though higher than the 24 in the card game, as it's easier to produce and trade in this version). Too bad, because I was looking forward to using th same tokens for both Fighters and resources.

EmDice - the adventure continues...

The other day, after posting about Eminent Domain: the Dice Game, I put together a draft of the tech board, added costs to the planet tiles*, and gave the game another spin with my roommate. Of course, there's still no end game trigger, but I got to see how well the tech board idea (and the new Survey system) would work. And frankly, they worked pretty well.

* A loooong time ago I had considered making Eminent Domain more of a board game, where you would have an array of face down tiles with the planets on the fronts. You would move your ship among them and use Survey roles to see what's underneath. Or something. Of course, that's not the way I decided to go with EmDo (thank goodness), but the up-side is that I had made tiles with planets on them. They have the prototype planet image as well as an icon for a role symbol (or a +1 vp or +1 hand size). Since i started thinking of a dice game version of EmDo, I felt like tiles might be more appropriate than cards for the planets, and when I went to make a prototype of EmDice to try, I was happy to still have these tiles lying around. Serendipitous!

Planet Tiles

As I just mentioned, there are Planet tiles with planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic) and Cost on the back and type, ability (and a small indicator of the cost) on the front. The costs for these tiles range from 4 to 6, and unlike the card game, most planets specifically cost Warfare or Colonize. The breakdown is something like this:

Adv - T: 3C
Adv - T: 3W
Adv - T: 4C/W
Adv - R: 4C
Adv - R: 4W
Adv - R: 5C/W
Adv - VP: 5C
Adv - VP: 5W
Adv - VP: 6C/W

Fert - P: 3C
Fert - P: 3W
Fert - P: 4C/W
Fert - C: 4C
Fert - C: 4W
Fert - C: 5C/W
Fert - VP: 5C
Fert - VP: 5W
Fert - VP: 6C/W

Met - S: 3C
Met - S: 3W
Met - S: 4C/W
Met - W: 4C
Met - W: 4W
Met - W: 5C/W
Met - VP: 5C
Met - VP: 5W
Met - VP: 6C/W

The idea being that the better effects cost more, and you either must Settle or Attack a planet, or if you get to choose, it costs a little more. I believe each planet will be worth either 1vp or 2vp, with the "VP" planets being worth 1 additional VP.

Tech Board

Across the top of the tech board I put 5 slots with Survey costs (2/3/4/5/6). Above these will be a row of planet tiles - FACE UP so you can see exactly what you'll get (and you can see the cost as well). When taking a Survey role, you can choose the planet in the slot corresponding to the number of Survey symbols you have, or anything cheaper than that. The chosen planet goes FACE DOWN in your Empire, and the planet display is replenished Stone Age style (slide everything to the left and add a new tile from the draw bag to the most expensive slot). Each player of course may Follow and take a planet of their choice that they can afford.

Unlike other roles, I believe I want the Leader to get +2 symbols when choosing Survey instead of the normal +1. This is so that the minimum cost can remain 2 (opponents need to have 2 Survey symbols to Follow and take a planet), while still allowing a player with 0 Survey symbols to call the role and take the 1st planet. I think this maintains the dynamic where the leader basically has a +2 bonus over opponents from the card game. I've always liked that dynamic.

The rest of the tech board contains 4 columns of tech advances - one for each planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic), and one for Diverse (requiring 1 of each planet type). There will be Diverse tech in Escalation and Exotica, by the way. The way this tech board works is that you advance up each track, buying the techs in order. You can have a marker on each track if you like, but you cannot jump straight to a 5-cost Level 2 tech.

My first draft was OK, but needed improvement. It looked like this:
Advanced:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Trade: +Trade symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Data Network: +Research symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Specialization: +1vp per Trade role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Adaptability: Research symbols are wild.

Fertile:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Production: +Produce symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Fertile Ground: +Colonize symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Genetic Engineering: +1vp per Produce role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Dissension: When Dissenting, Dissent twice

Metallic:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Survey: +Survey Symbol
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Imperialism: +Warfare symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Survey Team: When leading Survey, draw a planet out of the bag as well.
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Scorched Earth Policy: -1 to your Warfare costs
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Mobilization: After your Role, Attack 1 planet

Diverse:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Streamlining: At the end of your turn, you may Dissent
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): I don't remember offhand!
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Oversight Committee: +1 Die
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Well Oiled Machine: You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

I tried to model the techs after those in the card game, and I tried to sort them properly by what part of the game they'd be useful in. It turns out that Researcha nd Colonize are the best symbols, so I made them more expensive, later game techs. By comparison, Survey and Warfare are generally weaker, so I made those both L1 techs. After playing though, it appears that in this version Survey symbols are a bit stronger than in the card game!

I have blank tech spaces on some of the tracks, like the first space on that bottom Favor track in Caylus - it's sort of an investment. You have to research twice before getting to use some cool ability. However, I don't care for that. I would prefer to have the first upgrade in each track be some sort of dice manipulation (I felt that was lacking). So I'll probably get rid of "Survey Team" altogether, pus the Survey and Warfare symbols back a level (maybe even swap them), and repeat that Streamlining one in the first space of each track.

I also realized that things like Dissension are not very strong, so I'll be re-organizing the chart a bit. Currently I'm not sure it's really even possible to get to the high end of the Research tracks before the game ought to be over anyway, so I might have to do something about that.

So I'll be updating that tech board, and I'll need a game end trigger. Those seem to be my bane in every game!

Call for Help

If anybody out there with a little photoshop chops would like to help me out by creating some files for me, then I should be able to get a print and play version of this for people interested in testing it out. It should be pretty easy. For starters I'd like some files people can use as stickers to make dice. It'd just be the role icons in squares of various sizes:
10mm (to fit on a 12mm die)
12mm (to fit on a 14mm die)
14mm (to fit on a 16mm die)

If I can get my old Pagemaker program to make PDFs again, then I could post the tech board once I've updated it. I'm not sure how to do that though - for a while now it's simply refused to export to PDF!

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game?

A little while ago I had a thought about how Eminent Domain might be ported into a dice game (EmDice?) - and tonight John and I gave it a sort of test run. After a few minor revisions, here's the current status of the rules-in-progress for that game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Components
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player) (perhaps more for "+1 Die" effects)
27 Planet tiles (9 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)
Draw bag

Setup
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.

Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Flip them, Produce and Trade resource, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The active player

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until... [I'm not sure yet!].  When the game is over, Influence is counted 2 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology. The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol.
Survey (I have 2 thoughts on this, not sure which is better)
Option 1: Draw 1 Planet tile from the draw bag for each Survey icon. Keep one of them face down in your Empire, an return the rest to the draw bag.
Option 2: There could be a display of face down planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a face down draw stack. Maybe you can even look freely at the planets in the display. Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the stack to fill the missing slot. This is more fiddly, but there are some things I like about it - including the minimum cost of 2 Survey, and the incentive to aim for a specific planet rather than just take "whatever's on top of the deck" so to speak. Option 1 also removes that option, as in this version you cannot see the back of the top Planet card.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon. Leader: Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must have as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply.

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon for 1 point each. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the platen prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd (and maybe 4th?) spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 4th (or 5th?) space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* +1 Die
* +1 Role Symbol
* Survey die faces = Warfare die faces (and Research = Trade, and Colonize = Produce)
* +1 Influence per Trade Role
* +1 Influence per Produce Role
* -1 to all Warfare costs
* Research icons can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, re-roll 2 different role symbols
* When Surveying, keep 1 additional planet

EmDo Expansion progress

I exchanged some internal TMG emails today about box size and components for Escalation... a nice reminder that things are happening with that. Watch your TMG newsletter for info about an upcoming Kickstarter project later this year.

I took a look at the components for Exotica, and it turns out that even though Escalation adds a 5th player (requiring 28 additional Role cards), and 18 Scenarios, Exotica has almost the same number of cards (!)

In related news, I had an idea the other day for a dice game version of Eminent Domain. I supposed it could be re-themed, but for the time being I thought I'd explore EmDo dynamics with a simple dice mechanism. I actually have 2 versions of this idea. Originally it was to remain a "deck building" mechanism, but instead of a deck of cards you would have a supply of dice. Sort of like Quarriors for example. Then I thought it might work just as well and save a lot of components if it weren't so much a deck builder. Here are both ideas in brief:

1. Eminent Domain: the Dice Building Game

For this idea there would have to be a supply of custom dice of several types, each with a different distribution of Role icons:
Early Game Die (Green): Survey/Survey/Survey/Colonize/Warfare//Politics
Mid Game Die (Yellow): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare
Late Game Die (Red): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare

Maybe the green dice are your starting deck, and the supply are just the other dice. I'm not really sure.

In any case, players would roll their starting dice and leave them in their play area (Empire). Some dice from the supply would be rolled into the middle of the table as the draft pool.

On your turn you would choose one of the dice in the draft pool, and execute the role on that die. You would boost that role with any matching symbols on your dice. After resolving the role, you would re-roll all of the dice used that turn (as well as any dice showing a Politics icon).

When a player chooses a Role, each opponent has the opportunity to Follow that role using dice in their Empire, and then re-rolling the dice used. Or they can Dissent, and re-roll any 1 die in their Empire.

Over time your dice pool would expand. It might be necessary to draw a hand of dice out of a bag, roll them, and discard the dice used. I'm not sure how well this would work - but it would take a lot of custom dice anyway, so I stopped thinking about it and moved on to the next idea.

2. Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Possibly a better approach is this. All of the dice in the game simply have 1 Role symbol on each side. Each player has 6 of these dice, and rolls them into their Empire.

Rather than drafting a die to choose a role, on your turn you simply choose any role you like. Boost it with dice from your Empire, as usual. Opponents get a chance to Follow with dice from their Empire, or Dissent and re-roll 1 die. Re-roll all dice used after resolving the role.

That second idea sounds a lot more viable to me. I like the way that dice you don't use stick around, so if you don't Survey for a while, eventually your hand will be full of Survey icons and it'll be worth choosing that roll - maybe just to refresh those dice!

Resolving the roles would work largely the same way as the card game...

Survey: There could be a supply of Planet tiles, with type and Colonize/Warfare costs on the back, VP and benefits on the front. Benefits would be the same types of things as on EmDo planets - Role Icons, +1 Die (hand size), etc. The survey role would allow you to draw a certain number of them from bag and keep 1. OR - each planet could have a Survey cost, there could be several of them face up, and in order to take 1 you have to spend a number of Survey symbols equal to the Survey cost.

Warfare: There could be a supply of Fighters, like in EmDo. The Warfare role could collect Fighters, or Attack a planet, just like EmDo.

Colonize: The Colonize role would have to work a little bit differently. In this case it would probably simply be "Settle 1 Planet" - and in order to do so you would have to have enough Colonize symbols on hand at the time.

Produce/Trade: Perhaps for simplicity each planet should simply produce 1 (generic) resource. Either that, or the planet could indicate how many (0/1/2) resources it can hold. The roles would work much like they do in EmDo.

Research: Rather than a supply of Research cards, there could be a small board with technologies listed. Much like EmDo, the Level 1 techs would cost 3 Research symbols and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. Level 2 techs would cost 5 and require 2 planets. Level 3 techs would require 7 and require 3 planets. Note that 7 Research symbols on 6 dice will require a hand size bonus or Research icons on planets. I suppose players should get +1 icon when they choose the role, so a full hand of 6 Research could be enough for a Level 3 tech.

Game End:
I'm not really sure when the game should end, maybe when the supply of planets is out, or a supply of vps like in EmDo. Or when a player has a certain number of planets in his Empire. Game End triggers have always been a problem for me.

For reference, I'll just make a quick component list here:
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player)
XX Planet tiles
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)

EmDo: Exotica - latest updates

Today and tonight I played Exotica a couple of times with John. I'm still very happy with the structure of the expansion, but I'm not happy with all of the tech cards. I made another pass and have a list of updates to make:

Astroidal X cards

I'm happy with most of the Astroidal cards since the last update, which added an effect even if you don't have any Asteroids. Basically, with 0 Asteroids in play the card does something, but it's weaker than a regular level 1 tech card. With 1 Asteroid in play they are on par with an L1 tech, and with 2+ Asteroids in play they are stronger. I've got updates for two of them though:

Astroidal Research:
Action: Draw 1 card, then RFG up to 1 card in hand from the game.
Asteroid: Draw 1 card, then RFG up to 1 card in hand from the game.

I had it as "or" instead of "and" in the second half, and that did not seem attractive to me. I'll try this upgraded version and see if it causes problems, but relative to Improved Research I think it's about right. A little awkward though, I think you'd have to do the effects one by one - so with 2 Asteroids in play it would be draw, discard, draw, discard, draw, discard rather than draw 3, discard 3.

Astroidal Survey:
Action: Draw 2 cards.
Asteroid: Draw 1 card.
+1 Action

I had the same but without the +1 action. Drawing lots of cards is not very good unless you can play another one, so I thought I'd try this upgrade.

Alien X cards

I have yet to be happy with these cards. I like the idea of them, but so far I haven't gotten them right. I had decided a while ago to do what I did with the Astroidal cards, make them usable with no Exo icons in play, but better with each one - and now I've finally gotten around to updating them.

Alien Understanding:
Action: Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.
Exotic:  Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.

Alien Inhabitation:
Action: Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.
Exotic: Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.

Alien Recruits:
Action: Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter.
Exotic: Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter. 

Alien Translators and Mining X cards

I am happy with the Alien Translators, though they may be a little too strong. I'm keeping them as they are for now.

I also like the structure of the Mining X cards, but I fear they are too strong, so I'm reducing their effect a little bit.

Mining Base (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter.

Mining Laboratory (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.

Mining Colony (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.

Exotic Tech

I'm happy with most of the Exotic tech, but I have edits on a couple of them. I'm not super happy with a few others, but I'm going to keep trying them as they are for now.

Astroidal Library:
Action: Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck.
Asteroid: Reveal the top card of your deck.
Put 1 revealed card into your hand and discard the rest. Until end of turn, treat Exo symbols in your Empire as any Role symbol on the kept card.

It was just 1 card in the first line, I think this will be more attractive. I might try 3, but I think I'll keep only 1 per Asteroid.

Babel Fish (Permanent L1):
Tuck a Standard role card from the Stacks under Babel Fish. You may treat Exo symbols in your Empire as if they were that role's symbol.

I wanted a sort of variable or generic Translator, and originally I had it as "Tuck a card from your hand..." - but that seemed unattractive, so I thought I'd try this version.

Alien Advisory (Permanent L3):
[Exotic symbol]
[Exotic]  = Hand Size +1

I had it without the Exo symbol before, and it was terrible, especially in comparison to Exotic Efficiency, which is a Level 2 card I'm pretty happy with. Now maybe it'll be worth getting, not sure yet.

Diverse Tech

I've been pretty happy with the Diverse tech so far, except for the Space Station. I like the idea of a permanent tech that counts as an Asteroid, but that alone doesn't seem attractive enough to purchase. Today I tried making it count as *2* Asteroids, but that seemed like it might be too good. It IS a Diverse tech, requiring 3 different planet types to purchase, so maybe that's not too strong after all. However I think I have a better idea now...

Space Station (Permanent L1):
Copy any 1 Asteroid in play.

Then it'll only be 1 Asteroid, but it'll have an effect as well, and you may even get a little choice in the matter. if someone else gets the Asteroid with the symbol you want, you can build a copy of it :)

The rest of the Diverse tech seems OK:
Alien Artifact (Permanent L1):
[Exotic Icon]

Tractor Beam:
Action: Recon the Planet deck for 1 Asteroid. Put that card into your Empire face down.

Double Back:
Action: Take 1 Planet card from the Planet discard pile and put it into your Empire face down.

Coalition (Permanent, L2):
Exotic planets count as any planet type for Research.

Organized Labor (Permanent L2):
At the beginning of your turn, fill all resource slots on Asteroids in your Empire.

With the exception of the L2, each of these cards only costs 3 Research. I have been trying to keep the Tech cards in the expansions such that players can get them without concentrating on Research. In Escalation the new tech cards can be purchased with Fighters. In Exotica most of the new techs only cost 3, so they can be bought without a deck full of Research.

Now to update my card files and print out new cards! Unfortunately, my 10 year old Pagemaker 7.0 program has stopped exporting to PDF, so sharing prototype files has become difficult. I will attempt to rectify this, but in the meantime I won't be able to share prototype files :(

Exhibit update

I don't know if I mentioned, I may have found a publisher for Exhibit! It's not really a TMG style game, and Michael said he didn't mind my shopping it around, so I scheduled meetings at Essen with some publishers and the very first one I talked to said they were interested. There's no contract yet, so nothing's set in stone, but it's exciting to have non-TMG interest in my work :)

The potential publisher for Exhibit said they'd like the game to be shorter, and that's something I'd been thinking myself as well. The obvious first fix for that is to simply reduce the number of Artifacts in each stack, making the game last fewer rounds. So that's what I tried. At first I simply removed one of the Eras altogether, and it worked pretty well. However it was too easy to make sets based on Era when there were only 2, so I went back and made a distribution such that there are 2 Early, 2 Mid, and 2 Late tiles in each Artifact stack.

So now there are 6 tiles per stack, and I'm still starting with 2 tiles in each Auction the first round. That makes for a 5 round game, and in the games I played at Strategicon last weekend that translated into a 45-60 minute play time, which is just fine!

Brian pointed out that now there's less time to make use of the Weapons and Tools, so Art should be worth 1 point instead of 2. I agree with that, so I'll adopt that change. I probably ought to reduce the VP value of the Holy Grail as well - instead of 4 additional points (5 total), it should probably be worth 3 additional (4 total) - or maybe just 3 total.

2 last minor changes (for those who have been following along)...
1. I am still using the Grant tile - a 1-time use tile for each player. It had always been used only for an Artifact auction, i.e. not on the Purple (Special) auction. However, to make the rule simpler, I have been thinking it should simply be a "1-shot purple weapon" - meaning it could be used on the Purple auction as well. I don't see a huge down side, and it'll be simpler.

2. I've always thought the set scoring ramped up too quickly. I was using 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8. So I finally decided to adjust that down a bit. I'm now trying 1+2+2+3+3+4+4+5. I'm hoping this will make large sets less dominant, but still an attractive option and a tough decision vs making multiple smaller sets.

That's about it for now!

Orccon bound!

By this time tomorrow afternoon I'll be in (hopefully) sunny California. Well, at the very least I'll be at a hotel next to LAX, settling in for a weekend of gaming at Strategicon's annual Orccon event.

I'm looking forward to a great weekend. Here's what I'm bringing with me:

GAME PROTOTYPES - Find me to play!
* Eminent Domain: Escalation
* Eminent Domain: Exotica
* Captains of Industry
* Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages

 ACCESSORIES
* Eminent Domain Playmats - I would love to sell a couple of these, or potentially trade for a game or two.

PROMOTIONAL STUFF
* Ground Floor Short Guides - I'll have a handful of these to hand out. Find me if you'd like one.
* Rincon 2013 Flyers and Business Cards
* Rincon 2013 Exhibitor Packets - to hand out in the Vendor room.

It has been a while since I've really participated in any tournaments at the Strategicon events, and that's one of their stronger features. So maybe this time I'll try to get into more of the tournaments, see if I can't earn some Dealer Dollars and go home with a free or discounted game.

Are you going to Orccon this weekend? Leave a comment below and let's get together for some gaming, or a trip to lunch or dinner!

Rincon 2013 - planning and a Fundraiser

Last year I hosted a game convention here in Tucson, and it was a resounding success!

This year we have a much better idea what to expect, and have started planning much earlier. We hope to make Rincon13 bigger and better than last year. We've got the same venue booked, the event will occur Friday through Sunday, October 4-6, 2013 at Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport. Watch Rincongames.com for details!

In an effort to make Rincon bigger and better, we're going to hold a couple of Fundraising events, the first of which is coming up Saturday, March 30th. It's a Game Day and Poker Tournament, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Here are the details:

Rincon Fundraising Game Day and Poker Tournament

Saturday, March 30, 2013
Barcelona Room, Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport.

Game Day - 10am - 5pm

Come and enjoy 7 hours of gaming. Borrow a game from our library or bring your own. Learn a new game, or play an old favorite that's hard to get to the table. Participants also receive a Rincoin, which will be good for prize drawings at Rincon. All this for a mere $5 donation to Rincon.

Poker Tournament - 6pm - 10pm

Try your luck at No Limit Texas Hold'Em in this tournament run by Jeff Becker. A $25 donation to Rincon will buy you in with 3000 chips (donations from the game day count toward this, and an optional $10 add-on gets you 2000 more chips). Will you survive to final table to vie for the Grand Prize: 2 passes to Rincon and a hotel room for the weekend? There will be additional prizes (passes to Rincon) based on attendance, and all participants will receive Rincoins as they survive in the tournament.

So save the date - I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

EmDo: ESC + EXO

I have been playing a lot of Eminent Domain: Exotica lately (I believe I've mentioned this). Before I started on Exotica, I had been playing a lot of Escalation - but I haven't even touched that since November. The other night my roommate and I decided to combine the two expansions, and include the Exotica card subset that's for use with Escalation...

Ho-ly crap... that was some deep waters! So much different tech! Exotica is a much smaller expansion than Escalation was, and I recall the first couple of times I played Escalation - despite having played over 100 games of EmDo, I really felt like I was exploring strategies and figuring stuff out again. Exotica is much more focused on the Exotic planets/symbols and on the Asteroids, where Escalation adds a ton of new tech cards and dynamics. Adding the two together once again gave me that feeling of wonder and exploration. So many options!

At first John and I postulated that maybe we should have added the 4 cards from each stack back into the game (remember, with the expansions, you remove 4 cards from each stack in a 2 player game). But it turned out that we managed to get a good amount of stuff done. We played 2 games, and neither one felt turn-short to me, so I'm happy with the number of cards in each stack.

John hit me twice with a new card called Create Chaos - which made me discard my hand, and then draw 2 cards as reparations. When he bought the card I gambled a little and decided not to discard any cards from my bad hand. I had just reshuffled, and didn't want to draw my tech cards only to lose them to John's Chaos. He, suspecting that, opted not to play it the following turn, which meant I had a sub-par turn. Rather than repeat that, I went ahead and discarded some useless cards the next turn, drew my good tech, and then lost it to the Chaos. A pretty neat exchange really, and with the 2 card Reparations (and the card from dissenting John's role), I was still able to do something useful on my turn. I like this card, though I could see potentially increasing the Reparations to 3 cards.

That might have been the only Exo-Esc card that really saw any play. I'm pretty sure we'll have to play a lot of games before everything makes an appearance. Oh, I did buy a card called Mimic, which copied John's level 3 Adaptability... though I didn't actually use that effect at all. I have 2 versions of that card, a L2 and a L3 version. Not sure which one I want to go with. L2 seems neat, since it gives you access to a L3 ability, but only if an opponent buys one.

The Exotic stack Peace Treaty may have come into play, but that's not really "new" - I'm familiar with how Peace treaty works ;) Similarly, the Exotic stack Double Times came into play, as expected.

In largely unrelated news, I had created a card for the diverse stack in the EXO set - a permanent called Space Station which counts as an asteroid. It has not seen any play yet, and I suspect that's because 1 Asteroid isn't super exciting. I might try upping that to "counts as 2 asteroids" - that way it'll combo with all the Asteroidal tech.

Anyway, it was an interesting night, and I look forward to playing more of the combined EXO-ESC expansion sets :)

The Woes of Game 'Splainin'

Oh Lucy... You got some 'splanin' to do!

Obligatory nostalgic TV reference out of the way, I'll get on to the meat of this blog post. It's about teaching games.

In the past I have been referred to as "good" at explaining games. I used to take a lot of pride in that, and I actually put some thought into the process of teaching a game - there are definitely good and bad ways to go about it. If you explain things in the right order, and if you give the right amount of information each step of the way, then you can get through the explanation of even relatively complex games fairly quickly and get to the point where players get to actually play the game (which, incidentally, is where they really learn how to play anyway).

More recently I haven't taken as much care in my game teaching. Perhaps due to fatigue (I teach a lot of games nowadays, and often times it's the same one over and over, and in the noisy, distracting environment of a convention at that), or perhaps for another reason (which I'll get into shortly), sometimes I feel like I just don't have it in me to carefully peal away the layers of a game, revealing the magical and interesting inner workings that the players are about to explore.

One thing I've noticed more and more over the last few years is that the job of teaching a game feels a lot more like a chore. Rather than fun and exciting, teaching games has become laborious and tedious - and it's not just me who thinks so. By way of example, today on BoardGameGeek I read a post about Noblemen which mentioned an hour long rules explanation. In the comment thread, the OP said (in re: the length of the explanation):

Much of the hour was taken up by questions - how many points usually win in a five player game? Do the Follys have to be surrounded to score? Are there different ways to acquire men at arms? Are there advantages to placing men at arms on one type of land structure rather than another? Explanation of the cards took a while, as each new player wanted to see the cards. During the game I did not completely understand the point system, i.e. how points are scored using chapels, castles, and palaces, how influence is calculated, etc., but the rules do give examples. Everyone was seeking to understand the basics of how the game was played, as well as what it took to win, how you could foil your opponents, and beneficial moves or courses of action. With the many variants, an hour was not overly excessive.

I replied (as you'll see if you read the thread) that this does an extreme disservice to the other players trying to learn as well as the game itself as players may have a bad experience due to jumbled or lengthy rules explanation.

I've seen this type of thing more and more in recent years, perhaps it was always the case and I was simply more tolerant of it before, or perhaps people have literally become more difficult to teach a game to. I don't really know why that would be, but it's certainly something that's come up. I was discussing this exact phenomenon with a friend after last week's game night, and how it applies to certain people locally.

The BGG user who commented after my post in that thread said it well: "When I'm explaining rules, what part of "shut up and listen" is so hard to understand?" Maybe that's not polite, but frankly when 1 gamer is constantly burdened with the onus of reading, digesting, and then explaining the rules to a game, maybe I should worry less about being polite and consider who is doing who the favor. Hint: the people being spoon fed a summary of what is often a poorly written or translated rulebook are NOT the ones doing anybody a favor.

I don't know who reads this blog, and whether those people are the ones who have to learn all the new games the hard way and then teach their friends or not. But as a public service announcement - when someone is trying to teach a game, let them teach it. Do not interrupt with questions - if they're a good teacher they'll either answer your question by the end, or give you a chance to ask it later. Pay attention - do not space out or have a side conversation, and then complain later that you didn't hear some critical rule. In fact, for the benefit of everyone else at the table, maybe don't have a side conversation even if you aren't going to complain later!

The less people distract and interrupt the game explainer, the quicker you'll be able to start playing the game, and the better than rules explanation will be!

Luckily, this phenomenon is not universally true. I had the pleasure of explaining some games over the holiday season to various friends who are literally a joy to teach, because they're genuinely interested in learning the game, and they don't end up presenting road blocks to the teacher. If it weren't for people like them,I'm not sure what'd stop me from throwing in the towel and letting someone else be the game explainer.

EmDo: Exotica tech card goal clarification

Steve and I played a couple more games today with the latest tweaks (new L1 permanent techs - translators on one side, effects triggered by flipping Asteroids on the other), and I have solidified a thought I've been having recently...

In Escalation I really like how you can get tech cards into your deck without having to focus heavily on Research. I think that can be accomplished in Exotic as well, even though I don

t have an alternate cost for the techs this time. If a tech costs just 3 Research it is reasonable to get it into your deck even if you are not going heavily into Research. You can have just 3 or 4 Research in your deck and follow other players' roles for example. in the base game, doing this just gets you a L1 tech, which is not stellar, but can be worth doing.

It's important that 3-cost L1 techs not be too powerful, so the effectiveness of "splashing" some tech has been limited thus far. Escalation introduces the Diverse stack, which requires 3 planets (one of each standard type). All of the Diverse tech in Escalation is L2, costs 5, and is worth 2vp. However the effect of a card being in the diverse stack is that it won't come out until mid game, even if it's cost is low. So I can make L1 Diverse cards which are more powerful than the normal L1 cards - maybe as powerful as some of the (weaker) L2 cards - as long as they're in the Diverse stack, or if they are otherwise so conditional as to be mid-game cards. I can take the VP off of them and cost them at an inexpensive 3 Research, and players will more easily be able to splash them into their decks!

Of the 30-something new tech cards I'm considering for the expansion, a good 1/3 of them are for the Exotic stack, which will match the makeup of the standard tech stacks. outside of those, I am very much leaning toward limiting additional new tech to strictly focused on Exotic symbols/translators and Asteroids, and making almost all of it simply cost 3. This does 2 things for me - it keeps the amount of vp available in the tech stacks down, which will be welcome especially when combined with Escalation, which has a fair amount of L2 tech in it (probably too much now that I really think about it). Also, at 3-cost it makes for more tech-splashing possibilities, meaning players need not always go heavy tech every game.

I am allegedly done with Escalation, and I certainly do not intend to add any cards to it, but as the graphic design and layout has not begun yet, it might be a good idea to revisit the tech list (with Exotica in mind) and maybe trim a few cards out of the expansion (altogether, or move them to Exotica). It might also be cool to reduce the cost of a few of them, changing them from L2 to L1 (reducing the VP available) - especially in the Diverse stack. Offhand I can only really think of 1 of those Diverse cards I'd want to reduce, and that's Elevated Incentive - in order to make it more attractive. The cost isn't as big a deal in Escalation because of the alternate (Ship) cost, which allows you to get tech without having a ton of Research anyway.

I'll note that the tech in Escalation is varied and not particularly focused on any of the new features in the expansion. I think that's OK though, as one of the main features is simply that you can get the tech with ships. Exotica is much more about the 2 discrete things that have been added (the new planet type and its features, and Asteroids).

So for the next playtest I have reduced the cost (and removed the VP) from a handful of cards, and I've moved a couple to the Diverse stack. Also, I've cut the "Boostable" techs altogether, they seem boring, haven't been bought really, don't specifically focus on the new features, and frankly there's kinda too many tech cards in the set. I have moved the Exotic X cards (same as Improved X, but with +1 Action) to the Diverse stack at 3-cost for now, but I could see cutting them as well. I like them, but they're really the same effect as the Improved X techs, and how many of those do you really need? In Escalation I've already added the native Improved X techs anyway, so these may be simply redundant. I'll probably end up dropping them. Then Exotica would be about the same size as Escalation - minus the Scenario cards and 5p cards. I might be able to make a couple Scenarios for Exotica, mostly involving the Exotic Start planets and Exotic tech, but with the rest of the new tech being so focused, I don't know how many Scenarios I'll realistically be able to come up with. To be sure, I'll make some!

Alternate Win Condition promo cards
I also decided on some potential promo cards in the same vein as Elusive/Exclusive Victory. I'd like to have such a card for each set, and use it as a Kickstarter incentive (though I'd prefer not to make it entirely exclusive). Each one will have an alternate instant-win condition, each one will have "Victory" in the title, and each one will feature art with the character from Exclusive Victory (that's me!).

For Escalation I think it will be a  double sided tech card:
Military Victory
Pre-req: Not sure - maybe none (just a Kickstarter blob in that space)
Cost: 3 Battlecruisers
Effect: "You win the game."
You can only have 1 Battlecruiser mini in play, but there is a Battlecruiser on each of the L3 tech cards, so you'd have to get 2 of those, then draw them, and have a Battlecruiser in play. Thematically you roll into the equivalent of the U.N. with your unstoppable fleet and take over. And on the back...
Economic Victory
Pre-req: 3 Civilized planets (there are 6 in the deck)
Cost: 12 Influence (Discard 12 Influence tokens) - I'm guessing 12 here, maybe it could be more.
Effect: "You win the game."
Civilized planets are pretty crappy if you're going for Warfare, and they have Peace Treaties which help you get VPs. There are other cards which give  you VPs as Reparations as well, and at least 1 card that makes players discard Influence tokens. So this sounds like a really neat cost to me. Of course it doesn't matter that you are discarding your Influence, because you win the game when you buy this!

For Exotica I already knew what the alternate win promo would be as it was originally the Exotic stack level 3 tech...
Coalition Victory
Pre-req: 3 Exotic planets
Cost: 7 Research
Side A Effect: 2 players - If you have 3 each Advanced, Fertile, and Metallic planets in play (face up), you win the game.
Side B Effect: 3-5 players - If you have 2 each Advanced, Fertile, and Metallic planets in play (face up), you win the game.

With just 2 of each planet type, it seems too easy to get with 2 players, even after I upped it to L3 from L2. I expect with 3-5 it might be harder. I don't know, I might have to make Side A be 2-3 players. I haven't tried it with 3 planets of each type, but I suspect that's significantly harder, especially with the new rule that you remove 4 cards from each stack with 2 players.

I even have the image concept in mind for Coalition Victory. I imagine the people from the various planet types to be stereotypically big and husky like warriors (Metallic), down to earth farmer types (Fertile), and straight edged sciency/business types (Advanced). The Exotic planets are peopled with humanoid aliens. I imagine their clothes generally fitting the color scheme of their planet type, so reddish for Metallic, yelllowish for Advanced, etc.  So the image for Coalition Victory will be the character from Elusive Victory sitting on a sort of throne (probably with the scepter from EV), with a large group of people gathered around him - the group comprised of 1 section from each planet type (Metallic types dressed in their appropriate color/attire), etc.

I do not have an idea for an image for Military/Economic Victory. The other 2 have the same image front and back, but this one might not make sense. Maybe a similar image, like in one the character is forcibly taking control from the current leader with men bearing guns behind him, and on the back the same composition but instead of forcibly taking control it's a business deal, and the men behind the character are bearing goods rather than guns.

Eminent Domain: Exotic getting close...

Last week I posted some refined thoughts on Asteroids for EmDo: Exotica. I have played a couple of games with the Mining Tech tiles and new and improved "Lunar" techs, and I have refined them even further.

"Lunar" Techs

Actually, I think the "Lunar" techs are pretty solid at the moment.

Asteroids
I think the Asteroids were too good and too cheap, so I think I'll try this next:

* Asteroids will be worth 0-1 VP. The better icons (Hand Size, Research, Colonize, and possibly the replenishing resource slot) will be worth 0vp, the weaker icons (Survey, Trade, Produce, Warfare) will be worth 1vp.
* Mining Tech will allow you to Settle/Attack as if the Asteroids had Colonize/Warfare costs of 3.
* Improved Mining will allow you to Settle/Attack as if the Asteroids had Colonize/Warfare costs of 2, Will give you the option of "Action: Discard your hand, flip 1 Asteroid," and will allow you to keep 1 additional Asteroid each Survey phase.

This way I think the Asteroids will be appropriately bad unless you upgrade to Improved Mining, in which case they will be mostly harmless, and if you decide to start flipping them, then you can pursue some decent tech.

Exotic symbols and Translators

I was thinking a little more about the Exotic symbols and translators, and I like how they work, but I've always kinda thought there should be a way to purchase a translator (i.e. via Research). Therefore I'm considering the following 2 options:

Option 1: Add a L1 permanent tech to each of the basic research stacks (Adv/Fert/Met) which is a translator for the native icons for that planet type. For example, the one in the Metallic stack would have [Exo]=>[Survey] on one side, and [Exo]=>[Warfare] on the other.

Option 2: In case that's not useful enough, I could put both native translators on the same side of the card... [Exo]=>[Warfare OR Survey]. Then I'd have to come up with some other tech for the back side of the card. It could relate to Asteroids perhaps.

In this case I would like to put Alien Artifact (L1 perm tech which provides an Exo symbol) back into the Exotic stack. Currently it's backed with a Peace Treaty, which should exist in the Exo-Esc subset, but probably shouldn't exist in just Exotic... so I'll need 2 more L1 perm techs for the Exotic stack (one to back Alien Artifact, the other to back Peace Treaty).

Potential permanent L1 tech that relates to Asteroids (brainstorming - these might be terrible):

* Fertile stack: Face up Asteroids in your Empire gain [Produce icon]
* Advanced stack: Face up Asteroids in your Empire gain [Trade icon]
* Metallic stack: Face up Asteroids in your Empire gain [Survey icon]

These seem OK - I'm not too worried about getting those symbols in play - Research and Colonize icons are the troublesome ones. However, I am a little weary of getting too many Symbols in play in general, so this isn't great. Also, the Advanced one is pretty similar to Freedom of Trade from Escalation.

* Fertile stack: Whenever you flip an Asteroid: Settle 1 Planet and Produce 2 Resources
* Advanced stack: Whenever you flip an Asteroid: Collect 1 VP and remove up to 2 cards in hand or discard pile from the game.
* Metallic stack: Whenever you flip an Asteroid: Draw 2 cards and collect 2 Fighters

These aren't bad. They may need some tweaking, but effectively they give you an extra fancy action once every time you flip an Asteroid. So you would get it if you have some face down Asteroids (or plan to take them). You'll only get the effect like 3-5 times most likely, so hopefully it won't be out of control. Maybe I'll try this type of thing first.

Give me your suggestions in the comments below!

Reverse side of Alien Artifact (and Peace Treaty)

As I mentioned, I'd like to move Alien Artifact into the Exo stack as well, which means it needs something on the back of it as well. For now I have one of the previous ideas... "If you have at least 1 Asteroid in your Empire... +1 Hand Size." Hand Size bonuses are really good, I have a L2 card in Escalation which gave Hand Size +2, which I decided was a little too good, so now it gives Hand Size +1 and another smaller benefit. An L1 card that gives Hand Size +1 is pretty powerful, but having to take an Asteroid before it works does add some cost to it. I might have to up that to 2 Asteroids or something like that, but it might be OK.

I could do something like the above, a triggered effect when you flip an Asteroid... but what? Something weird or goofy, like "Whenever you flip an Asteroid, you may return a Tech card to the supply and take another tech card of the same level from the supply into your hand," or maybe more useful "...another tech card of the next level" (i.e. upgrade a tech card).

Or perhaps some deck fixing (without messing with stuff that scores points): "When you flip an Asteroid, you may return any number of standard role cards from your hand to the stacks, and then take up to 1 role card from the stacks to your hand." Of course, that doesn't work well if you discard your hand to flip the Asteroid :/

An option for helping with Translators could be something like this: "When THIS comes into play, tuck a Standard Role card from your hand under it (or from the stacks?). You may treat [Exo icons] as if they were that Role symbol." So a way to choose a translator... either from what you've got in hand, or choose from any. Mechanically I kinda like having to place a card from your hand.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this - feel free to leave a comment.

Captains of Industry - devlog and components

It's been about 6 months since I posted anything substantive about Captains of Industry, though I have played the game at least once or twice since then!

I have been meaning to get it back into regular rotation and work out the final details I've been meaning to get to. The game is scheduled to come out next year, so the time for finishing touches is now!

I played a game on Thursday, and afterwards put some work into finalizing the couple of things I have always been meaning to finalize...

Techs and Tech Trees

Michael Keller and I went through the techs themselves and I'm pretty happy with the ones I've been using - though I think there may be some discrepancy between my versions and his which will need to be reconciled before this process is through. However, the structure of the tech trees has never sat well with me. It's almost as if no matter what L1 techs you get, you can get almost all the L3 techs later - sometimes without even getting a L2 tech in between. I thought the tree branches should be more specific.

Now I've constructed a slightly more regimented version which I think will feel better, where each branch supports a particular strategy or player profile, yet there's plenty of reason to advance in multiple branches:

Research branch:
L1: +1vp per Research you sell
L2: ??? (see below, maybe none)
L3: At the end of the game, +1vp for each Advancement that at least 1 other player has bought

Steel branch:
L1: +1vp per Steel you sell
L2: Unlock secondary Steel market
L3: Before determining demand, you may sell up to 2 (1?) goods from each market


Lumber branch:
L1: +1vp per Lumber you sell
L2: Unlock secondary Lumber market
L3: Before determining demand, you may sell up to 2 (1?) goods from each market

Stone branch:
L1: +1vp per Stone you sell
L2: Unlock secondary Stone market
L3: Before determining demand, you may sell up to 2 (1?) goods from each market

Facility branch:
L1: At the end of each Age, +1vp per Facility you own

L2: Your Facilities each produce 1 additional good when they produce goods

L3: Expand each of your Facilities once (they do not produce)
Money branch:
L1: $5 discount on Overtime Production (is this too good in Age 1?)

L2: $1 discount on buying goods (maybe swap with L1?) (Or maybe +1vp per Oil/Machine parts/Corn you sell?)

L3: Collect $50
Real Estate branch:
L1: At the end of each Age, +2vp for each Real Estate you own
L2: Swap a Real Estate in play with an unused Real Estate of the same level
L3: Build 1 Real Estate without paying for it

As you can see, several questions remain, but this is what I'll try for the next session. I have been wondering if it might be cool to say that buying a tech that has already been bought by someone cost a little more (1 additional Research) than if you're the first player to get that tech. If that's true, then a L2 tech in the Research branch could be "You need not pay the additional Research to buy tech that's already been bought by another player" or something like that. I don't know if that additional cost is a good rule in the first place, but it might be a good thing to try out (along with that tech).

Captain Cards

I redesigned the Captain cards with certain things in mind, and I'm pretty happy with the new format. They used to be fairly all-or-nothing, and now most of them are more incremental in nature. I didn't like punishing a player for doing ALMOST enough work to get the max score for the card, but scoring nothing for it. Now you get partial credit. Here's an example card or two:

Unnamed Captain Card #X:
Score 1vp for each level of your Foundry.
Score the following bonuses (individually) as well if your Foundry is...
Your largest Facility... 1vp
The largest Foundry in play... 2vp
The largest Facility in play... 3vp
 The LEVEL of a Facility, as well as its size, is the number of goods it produces.

Unnamed Captain Card #Y:
Score the following bonus if you end the game with...
1 Residential Real Estate... 3vp
2 Residential Real Estate... 6vp
3 Residential Real Estate... 10vp
4 Residential Real Estate... 15vp

(I need names for the Captain cards!)

Age/Game End Trigger

I like the current Age End trigger, but there have been some lingering questions about it. Here's how it works:
There's a Progress deck with 3 City cards, 3 Rural cards, and 3 Recycling Rural cards. At the end of a round, if at least 1 Real Estate was purchased that round, a Progress chip is added to the board (max 3 chips), then a card is drawn for each Progress chip. Any City or Rural cards stay face up, while Recycling cards are shuffled back into the deck. When all three City cards have come up, the Age is over.

I like that mechanism, and it's specifically designed so that you never know for sure if any given turn will be your last. Originally you would know that for sure, and there were problems with that - this system fixes those problems, but has some issues that need to be resolved.

1. Suppose all the Real Estate is built in Age 2 (the game lasts 3 Ages)... I think this is very unlikely to happen, but I think it is possible and the rules need to cover it.

2. Again, very unlikely to happen, but it's technically possible for the game to never end (or more realistically just to feel drawn out at the end), if you constantly shuffle the last City card to the bottom of the stack of 4.

As the tagline to my blog implies, I like to kill the maximum number of birds with the minimum number of stones... here's a solution that could fix both of the above issues:
When the last Real Estate is bought, the game ends at the end of the round.

I feel like that has to have come up before, and I wonder if it isn't already a rule that I've simply forgotten.

In addition to that, I think the granularity of the Progress mechanism may be helped out if the deck were modified a little bit to this:
4x City cards, 4x Recycling Countryside cards - use 4 Progress chips. Age ends when any 3 City cards are drawn.

Components

I have given a little thought to the components for this game:

Board: This could be TMG's first 6-fold board, to encompass a square-ish playing area as well as the tech tree. Or it could be more like Belfort with sections of board that fit together (preferably with jigsaw technology to keep the sections together). I have been thinking that an image of a large, industrial gear could be good, with the spaces for markets and Real Estate divided by spokes of the gear.

Price Markers and Goods:
* The goods should be small, round cardboard coin-like chits (with player/company logo!) so that they stack and don't take up too much space.
* Price Markers should be wooden bits, approximately 10mm deep x 16mm wide x 24mm tall, in the shape of a $ - with the line down the middle being about 8mm wide, so the base that it stands on is 8mmx10mm). I think little $'s would be perfect price markers, and that shape should be easy to do.
* Money could be 1/2 size cards. People don't like paper money, and mini-cards are easy to pass back and forth (happens a lot in this game). Money could also be cardboard coins, but I think that's not as good, personally. However, if it were cardboard, then there would be no need for extra Dominance vp tracking - just put a $5 token in your score bin.

Score Bins:
When someone buys a resource from you, you score 1vp, and the easiest way I've found to track this is to simply take the goods marker that was just bought and drop it right into a scoring bin. I'm currently using little plastic cups, but obviously something cooler and more thematic would be preferable. I would like to make a sort of piggy bank out of punchboard material, something along thee lines of Merchants and Marauders' treasure chest or Cleopatra and the Society of Architects' corruption banks. In this case perhaps a piggy bank look would be good - but failing that (since a pig is a very organic shape which may be impossible to do well), perhaps an actual bank would work (and one like that picture would probably work easily, similar to the treasure chest above).

Real Estate Cards:
I think the RE cards could be 1/2 size cards - they'd fit better on the board that way, and all they convey is 3-5 demand icons.

Facility Cards:
Facilities could be full size (poker size) cards - these cards have a Build cost, an Expand cost, a production icon (or 2), and an Overtime Production Cost icon.

Captain Cards:
Captain cards could be full size cards as well, preferably with the image and name of one of the famous (or more obscure) Captains of Industry on it - thematically linked to the benefit of the card if at all possible.

Asteroid tech refined

The other day I posted some thoughts on Mining Technology and Asteroids in EmDo: Exotica (trying that name out for a while, let me know what you think). Last night I got a chance to play with this new version of the expansion, and I definitely think it's a step in the right direction. The only thing I have changed for the next playtest after playing with it is this...

I'm testing a run of Level 1 tech cards that grow in value with the number of Asteroids you have in play. They were going to apply to Moons before, so they're called "Lunar Colonies" and "Lunar Production," etc - I'll have to rename them... but they basically give you the effect of "Improved [X]" for each Asteroid you have in play. So with no asteroids, you wouldn't bother. With 1 Asteroid, you could choose this or an Improved tech, depending on other factors. With 2 or more Asteroids in play, this becomes a much stronger card than the Improved [X] counterpart.

I think these cards scale up in power way too quickly, especially in a 2 player game, where I suspect it's much easier to get several Asteroids in play. But I definitely want them to be...
* Worse than L1 tech with 0 Asteroids
* On par with L1 tech with 1 Asteroid
* Incrementally better than L1 tech with each Asteroid past the first.

So... I thought of a way to implement that. I changed these to the following format:

Lunar Production
Action: Produce 1 resource. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Ta-da! Now the card is not completely useless with no Asteroids in play, but it's close - on par with a standard Role card. With each Asteroid you flip, the card gets incrementally better.

Here's the rest of them. Some have slightly weird formats to make them work right...

Lunar Trade
Action: Trade 1 resource for 1 Influence from the supply. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Lunar Research
Action: Draw 1 card then remove 1 card in hand from the game. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire. (Or was it "Draw 1 card, then remove 1 card in hand from the game for each face up Asteroid in your Empire"?)

Lunar Colonize
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Colonize icon] until end of turn. Settle 1 planet.

Lunar Survey
Action: Draw 2 cards. Draw 1 additional card for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Lunar Warfare
Action: Collect 1 Fighter OR Attack 1 planet. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.
(This one might need to be altered to disallow multiple attacks... not sure about that. Could be something like "Attack 1 planet OR collect 1 fighter, plus 1 fighter for each face up Asteroid in your Empire")

Small tweaks aside, I think I'll be happy with this format. I have put these cards back into their respective tech stacks as well, as opposed to the Diverse stack (where I tried them) because I don't like the thought of 1 player gaining access to all of them at once.

I also made 2 similar cards for the Exotic stack:
Lunar ???
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Exotic icon] until end of turn.

Lunar Base
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Fighter icon] until end of turn.

That last one has some problems - for one thing,  it absolutely needs "+1 Action" or "Attack 1 planet" on it! Also, the rules for Fighter icons probably won't be in the Exotica rulebook, so I might have to use more text...
"Put 1 Fighter on each face up Asteroid in your Empire. You may spend these Fighters as normal. At the end of your turn, return any Fighters on Asteroids in your Empire to the supply."

Looking forward to playing again!

EmDo:Exo... Mining Technology

I may have mentioned that I liked the idea of Moons and Asteroids, but I think maybe having both is too much... I also think I was trying to devote too much tech to those features, and at the same time, if someone beats you to the Asteroid flipping tech, then you're kinda out of luck...

The obvious solution to that, which I have considered and which I am finally going to try, is to cut Moons altogether, and to give each player a reference tile (like Escalations Fleet tile) which offers the ability to "mine" Asteroids (flip them). Like Fleet, I figure it'll offer a sort of bad deal way to flip asteroids, and during a Research role a player could upgrade to Improved Mining Tech, which offers a much better deal, and perhaps some other benefit from mining asteroids.

Here's the first draft, which I will probably try out tomorrow:

MINING TECHNOLOGY
You may Settle an Asteroid as if it were a planet with Colonize cost 2.
You may Attack an Asteroid as if it were a planet with Warfare cost 2.
[During a Research Role] Cost 3: Upgrade to Improved Mining Tech (flip this tile over)

IMPROVED MINING TECH
You may keep 1 additional Planet card each Survey role, as long as it is an Asteroid.
Action: Discard your hand. Flip 1 Asteroid.

The theory here is that Asteroids are basically on par with the Start planets, with a Crystal resource slot, a Role Symbol, and worth maybe 2vp.

Yes, I could print Colonize and Warfare costs on them rather than on the Mining Tech tile, Or I could think of a different cost to flip them.

So, all players will have the ability to flip Asteroids, albeit not a terribly attractive one. So for example if you saved 2 Survey cards to Follow, and there was an Asteroid on top you COULD flip it without having to get any special tech, but it would be inefficient.

Yes, maybe 2/2 is not the correct cost for this inefficient flipping (maybe 3/3 would be better), or maybe Asteroids shouldn't have resource slots AND Role Symbols AND points on them.

After upgrading to Improved Mining Tech (which is a Level 1 tech with no planet requirements, just like Improved Fleet is), then you get to flip Asteroids much more efficiently. Currently I have it as an Action, but you don't have to have any particular card in your hand. I think discarding your hand is an interesting cost, and after playing with that I'll see if it seems too high a cost for "Improved" Mining. Perhaps the starting Mining tech should be that, and Improved Mining could flip Asteroids automatically when they enter your Empire (for example).

The point is, after investing in Improved Mining, actually choosing to keep Asteroids should be more attractive - and in fact I've used the Moon rule here: With Improved Mining, you get to keep 1 Asteroid along with whatever you choose to keep with your Survey role (of course, you do have to draw an Asteroid for that to work). I think this will be an important difference - an Asteroid is not something you'll want to take over a Planet in a Survey role, but if you get to keep it for free then you'll be happy to take them, and maybe more likely to want to flip them and pursue tech that helps with them. So if you're going to go for an Asteroid strategy, you'll really want to upgrade to Improved Mining, and if you aren't, then you probably don't want to bother. Either way I think the Survey role will be more interesting a lot of the time.

I am testing a couple of different cards that Recon the Planet deck. In case I failed to mention it, "Recon" is a keyword from Escalation. "Recon the Planet deck for 1 card" means "Search the Planet deck and discard pile and set aside 1 card. Shuffle the deck and discard pile to make a new deck, and put the set aside card on top." Here are the Recon cards I have put together to try out:

Tractor Beam
Action: Recon the Planet deck for 1 Asteroid and put that card into your Empire face down.

Tractor Beam helps a player find an asteroid that will help them (one with the Role Symbol they want). They will still have to flip it, which probably means upgrading to Improved Mining (if they plan to Tractor Beam more than once).

Thorough Probing
Action: Discard any number of cards from your hand. Recon the Planet deck for that number of cards. Play an additional action during this Action phase.

Thorough Probing allows a player to stack the top couple of cards in the Planet deck. For a player with Improved Mining, this could mean putting the planet you want as well as the Asteroid you want on top of the deck, and possibly another Asteroid to discourage your opponents from following your Survey role. Alternatively, this card could approximate Deep Space Probes (which will be in Escalation) - which simply Recons the planet deck for 1 card.

Junk Diver (temporary name!)
Recon the planet deck for 1 Asteroid. After your Role phase, flip 1 Asteroid.

Junk Diver puts an Asteroid on top of the Planet deck, which you could then Survey up if you like, or you could leave there to discourage other players who haven't invested in Mining from Surveying. In either case, the card also flips an Asteroid, so you could skip Improved Mining and instead get this card for a half decent way to approach a Mining strategy.

The reason I want at least 1-2 cards that Recon the Planet deck is not just for Asteroids... in fact the original reason was because of the way the Exotic icons and Translators work. I want players with a Translator to be able to go dig up a planet with an Exotic icon, or players with Exotic icons in their deck or Empire to go dig up the Translator that would help them the most. Between that and Asteroid dynamics I think Recon is going to be a very useful ability in this set.

Finally, I'm testing a run of Level 1 tech cards that grow in value with the number of Asteroids you have in play. They were going to apply to Moons before, so they're called "Lunar Colonies" and "Lunar Production," etc - I'll have to rename them... but they basically give you the effect of "Improved [X]" for each Asteroid you have in play. So with no asteroids, you wouldn't bother. With 1 Asteroid, you could choose this or an Improved tech, depending on other factors. With 2 or more Asteroids in play, this becomes a much stronger card than the Improved [X] counterpart.

I'm hoping that all this will add an interesting layer to Eminent Domain. The Exotic expansion will have the new Exotic planet type, with Exotic icons and Translators, it will have Asteroids, which offers a new strategic course to try, and it will have a few other new tech cards to spice things up a little bit.

I also intend to include a small set of additional cards for use when playing Exotic along with Escalation. These will include some tech which has alternate Research costs (ships), including a Peace Treaty and 2 Double Time cards for the Exotic stack as well as some directly interactive techs (with Reparations), A Hostile Exotic planet (costing a Destroyer and providing a Replenishing Fighter slot), and an Asteroid that provides a replenishing Fighter as well.

I've been enjoying working on this expansion again, and I think I'm zeroing in on the general set of cards that I want to start testing heavily.